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Professional Studies (West Suffolk College): Referencing

Referencing at UCS

Welcome to the Referencing guide

This guide outlines the principles of referencing. It will help to explain why you need to understand the importance of referencing,
the differences between a bibliography and a citation, and the different styles of referencing.

What is referencing & why is it important?

Referencing is about how you present the ideas of others in your work.

When producing a piece of academic writing, be it an essay, report or your final dissertation you will need to demonstrate that you have consulted, read and understood the thoughts and concepts presented by others in their work.

A bibliography and citation allow the reader of your work to locate and if necessary check the information you have consulted, and the evidence you have presented in your arguments.

Plagiarism

When you do not clearly identify the ideas of others in your work, or attempt to present them as your own this is known as plagiarism. Examples of plagiarism include:

  • Copying & pasting text or images from the internet without crediting (citing) the original source.
  • Quoting, summarising or paraphrasing material in your work without citing the original.

The following presentation discusses issues related to plagiarism with specific examples of using the University of Suffolk Harvard style:

Bibliographies, citations & reference lists

  • A bibliography is the full list of works which you have used in the preparation of your written work. 
  • A citation or in-text citation is the reference you make to a specific author's work when presenting a specific argument in your own work.
  • A reference list or end-text citations are the full list of sources you have referred to or cited in the body of your work 

All of these must be presented in a pre-determined format known as a referencing style. This referencing style will be identified within your course handbooks. 

Referencing Styles

The preferred referencing style for citations and bibliographies is University of Suffolk Harvard. This follows the principles laid out in:

For more information about the University of Suffolk Harvard style, including printable guides and examples of in-text and bibliographic citations, for more information about University of Suffolk Harvard and access to printable guides click on the link below.

University of Suffolk Harvard style

The preferred referencing style for citations and bibliographies for PSYCH ROUTES is University of Suffolk APA. This follows the principles laid out in:

For more information about the University of Suffolk APA style, including printable guides and examples of in-text and bibliographic citations, access the University of Suffolk APA tab from the menu or click below:

University of Suffolk APA style

The preferred referencing style for citations and bibliographies for History is University of Suffolk Harvard. This follows the principles laid out in:

For more information about the University of Suffolk Harvard style, including printable guides and examples of in-text and bibliographic citations, access the University of Suffolk Footnotes (MHRA) tab from the menu or click below:

University of Suffolk Footnotes style

Referencing in the UCS Assignment Toolkit

The University of Suffolk Assignment Toolkit offers additional information about referencing and setting out your citations.  You can access the information below:

Referencing in the APT

 

UCS Referencing Printable Guides

You can access a number of printable Referencing guides by clicking the links below:

Guides 1 - 6

  1. Citations
  5. Images

Find out more about the law and plagiarism

Attribution

All images included in this guide are available through Creative Commons licensing CC-BY-2.0