Making the 'As' in Undergraduate courses
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GOOD REFERENCING, AVIOD PLAGIARISM !
Proper referencing of academic write ups which include, term papers, proposals, research write-ups, projects, dissertations and case study analyses is germane for obtaining good grades, and being free from the penalty associated with plagiarism. Plagiarism is an offence when you lift or copy a passage or whole of an author's work without proper referencing. There are grave consequences for plagiarism, which include low grades, demotion, failing a course, or expulsion or termination of studentship.
There are four basic referencing styles that are commonly used. These include MLA, Harvard, Chicago, and APA (note that the referencing styles are more than the aforementioned). The not too common one is Oxford referencing style, among others.
Modern Language Association (MLA) is a new referencing style, whereby in the in-text referencing the page being referenced is continually stated in a bracket.
E.g. According to Smiths "the biological trace of human behavior is traceable to cohabiting with other species" (p.6)
In the reference list referencing for MLA, it is similar to Harvard. The Author's surname followed by his or her other names, year of publication, title of the article or book, place of publication, publishers.
E.g. for a text book:
Smiths Adam (2008), The Biological Behaviour Of Man, New York: Apple Base Publishers
American Pychological Association (APA) referencing style is commonly used mostly in contemporary times.
The in-text referencing, sites the author’s surname in bracket quotes the year and page being quoted.
e.g. "the biological trace of human behaviour is traceable to cohabiting with other species" (Smiths, 2008, pg. 6).
The same reference listing applies, where it should be arranged alphabetically. however, note that the APA styles comes indifferent editions, with slight modifications to the referencing styles.
For Harvard referencing styles, it has the same style with APA, but with no page number in the in-text referencing.
e.g. According to Smiths (2008) "the biological trace of human behaviour is traceable to cohabiting with other species"
In the reference list we have:
Smiths Adam (2008), The Biological Behaviour Of Man, New York: Apple Base Publishers, p 6.
In Kate Turabian or Chicago referencing style we have the identification of each reference with numbers that starts with 1, 2....and so on.
e.g.
"The biological trace of human behaviour is traceable to cohabiting with other species" 1
Reference list:
1. Smiths Adam (2008), the Biological Behaviour Of Man, New York: Apple Base Publishers
Note, this is just a bird‘s eye view on referencing. In other subsequent postings, I will share how to reference different academic materials, comprising journals, textbooks, newspapers articles, internet materials etc.
CommentsLoading...
Well, hang on: the Works Cited entry in MLA format should have the year of publication at the end, and a comma after the author's last name -- should look like this:
Smiths, Adam. The Biological Behavior of Man. New York: Apple Base, 2008.
With that punctuation. Hope this helps, T.
Thanks Teresa for your remarks. Actually, you stated that MLA should not carry the parenthesis that is understandable . Actually, you may prefer to enclose the 'p' for page as in (p.6) at the end of the statement or leave it without the p (6). these are both acceptable.
On your remark about having a single referencing, I think it is good they varied, as variety is the spice of life. However, it becomes cumbersome when the number of referencing styles become bloated.
Teresa McGurk 3 years ago
Great that you're writing this hub -- bet you learned something too! In your first example, for MLA style, there is no "p" in parentheses for the page number -- it should just read (6). I bet plenty of folk will find this guide useful, so thanks for posting it. What I'd like to know is why they couldn't just have one universal style sheet, so that all such citations could follow the same format?