Why and how should I reference?

Improving your referencing skills

Students are often accused of plagiarism due to incomplete or incorrect referencing. As you need to incorporate other people's ideas in your writing based on your reading, this workshop will help ensure you can reference appropriately and not be accused of copying.

In this series of workshop recordings we focus on:

• What is referencing and why do we need it?
• What is the difference between in-text referencing and a list of references?
• What is the difference between a direct quote and an indirect quote? How can you incorporate each one into your writing effectively?
• What is 'combining sources' and how do you do it?
• What is the best way of combining your own ideas on a subject to those of the texts you have read?
• How can you show the person marking your work which ideas are yours and which belong to a different source?
• What is the difference between paraphrasing and summarising?
• How can you paraphrase and summarise in order to avoid plagiarism?
• Where can you find further information on this topic?

Please go to Academic English and Study Skills Development for further information on our workshops and drop-in sessions and for further details of all the support the CAE team provides. You can also email aessd@herts.ac.uk if you have any queries.