Referencing: Principles, Practice and Problems

Abstract

Referencing is the practice of acknowledging in an academic text the intellectual work of others; work that has been presented formally into the public domain and is still accessible in some way. The term ‘citation’ refers to the presentation of a source in the body of the text; and the ‘references’ or ‘bibliography’ refers to the full list of presented sources at the end of the work. It is expected that academic writers will cite and fully reference the sources of ideas, data and other evidence in written assignments. However, this practice is not without its difficulties for academic writers, particularly students. Recent studies1,2 have highlighted the difficulties students can have in understanding the principles and practice of referencing, including understanding when it is necessary to reference and how to cite and reference sources in a way that avoids plagiarism. Pittam et al.3 has highlighted the difficulties students can experience in developing a sense of authorship in academic writing, AbsTRACT

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