References and Acknowledgment

References and Acknowledgment

In your academic work you are expected to draw upon evidence from, and substantiate claims with, up-to-date, relevant and reputable sources. Whenever you use information that has originally appeared in someone else’s work, you must acknowledge clearly its original source. Give the source of every instance of borrowing, whether from a primary document, a literary text or a secondary work. Each new act of borrowing, even from a source already cited, requires acknowledgement. The tradition of scholarship depends upon scrupulous acknowledgement of sources.

We reference material and ideas sourced from the work of others for several reasons. First of all it is required by custom and, in some cases, even by law, to give credit where it is due. References and citations acknowledge previous work conducted by other scholars, and indicate who is responsible for the different elements that have been brought together to make the essay a whole. In addition to this, we give references in order to distinguish ourselves as authors of our original work. The reader needs to know which ideas are your original contributions; the best way to do this is to indicate what is not yours (it should be considerably less than what is yours). Finally, we give references so that readers who are interested in the subject can do further reading, consult our sources independently, and verify our interpretation of the evidence.

You must clearly acknowledge your references when you quote (use the original source’s exact words), paraphrase (express a source’s ideas in different words) or summarise (outline the main points) information, ideas, text, data, tables, figures or any other material which originally appeared in someone else’s work. References may be to sources such as books, journals, newspapers, maps, films, photographs, reports, electronic sites or personal communications (for example, letters or conversations).

You must always make your acknowledgements in a consistent and recognisable format. References must provide enough bibliographic information for your reader to be able to find your source easily.

Reference

http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/humanities/exchange/style/req_reference.html