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Referencing is acknowledging the sources of information (originated by another person) that
you have used to help you write your essay, report or other piece of work. In your work, you should use the existing knowledge of others to back up and provide evidence for your arguments. This makes your arguments stronger and gives them true academic value. The sources of information you use may include books, journal articles, newspapers, government publications, organisational reports, websites, videos, computer programs and so on.

You MUST use a reference when you:

• Quote directly from a source,
• Paraphrase (put into your own words) someone else’s ideas. This is often a better alternative to using a direct quotation,
• Use statistics or other pieces of specific information which are drawn from a source you have read, viewed or heard,
• Use photographs, diagrams, illustrations or charts that you have not designed and created yourself.

If you do not follow the conventions of referencing your work you run the risk of committing the serious academic offence of plagiarism. Plagiarism is taking the work of others and passing it off as your own work (even unintentionally). This may ultimately result in failure or expulsion from the University. Don't panic though, it is easy to avoid if you follow some basic rules.

You reference using a referencing system. This is a set of guidelines to show you what information is needed in a reference and how you should format it, both within your text and in your reference list at the end of the document. Your department has decided to use a Harvard referencing system and you should follow the guidelines in this document when you are referencing your assessed university work.

When using a Harvard referencing style, the in-text citations needs to indicate who was the author or producer of the work you are citing and what year it was published or created. There are various rules to follow the most common ones are explained below see page 5ff in the referencing guide for more explanations.

Author name(s) included in text

When an author name is included within your text the name is followed by date of publication in brackets:

Robinson (2001) suggests that Western culture has an obsession with academic achievement and fails to recognise the worth of creative ability.

When two co-authors are mentioned within the text, separate them with the word 'and' rather than using an ampersand (&):

Alley and Neeley (2005) suggest that...

When authors of different works are both referred to in a sentence, cite them separately:

Martin (2005) and Rothfuss (2011) both infer that...

Author name(s) not in text

When the author name is not included in the text their surname and date of publication are added in brackets at the end of the appropriate sentence, separated by a comma. Make sure the citation is placed before the full stop:

All slides should use a full sentence to make an assertion in their title and give the evidence to back up that assertion in the main body of the slide. Where possible this evidence should be visual (Alley & Neeley, 2005).

Note: Co-author names in this case are separated with an ampersand (&) unlike when the authors are referred to within the text.

For more than one authors' work referred to within a sentence, list citations in chronological order, separated by semicolons:

(Smith, 2005; Rothfuss, 2013).

Direct quotations

For direct quotations, include the page number(s) after the date, following a colon. The abbreviation p or pg is not required:

According to Duarte (2010:53), “Incorporating story into presentations has an exponential effect on outcomes”.

If there is a quite a gap between giving the reference and the quote, you can put the page number by itself in brackets directly after the quotation

Work by Oliver (2011) found that mechanisms for assuring their development varied from non-existent through vague statements of “opportunities provided” (page 12) to a few well documented quality review processes.

Sometimes, especially when using books as sources, it can be helpful to give a page number even when you have paraphrased the text. This is not essential but it is a courtesy to the reader to help them find the part of the book that you are referring to more easily.

According to Gottshcall (2012:111) conspiracy theories are the result of a dark human need to make up stories where they do not exist.

Page numbers are not required when quoting from webpages.

If you have accessed an electronic book with no obvious page numbers (such as earlier Kindle books), location data can be given instead:

Stevensen (2011:loc 211) states that "a story is the best way to help employees 'grasp' an abstract concept”.

Protecting Anonymity

When referring to any documentation, websites or quaoting what staff or children say then you should always be careful to respect and maintain the anonymity of the sources.

e.g. a school policy or document:

Short ref: School A (2017)
Long ref: School A (2017) Behaviour policy. Name of the area of school’s local authority (as the place of publication): School A. [e.g. - School A (2017) Behaviour policy. Hull: School A