REFERENCING: REFERRING THE REFERRED!!!

Don’t you just get irritated when you get low grades in your coursework irrespective of doing good research and appreciable presentation? Whenever you ask your supervisor…  The answer he gives is

“You have not done the referencing properly!” or “Your references seem fake”.

Have you ever thought why it is so necessary to do referencing? Why professors stress more on referencing?

You will get your answer here…

Just imagine that you have an essay competition in your college. All your friends and you have participated and working hard to prepare a good essay. On the eve of the competition, one of your friends calls you up and says that he hardly has written anything. He asks you to help him with some ideas. You share some of the ideas from your work but strictly tell him not to us them directly. On the day of competition, when the announcer calls your friend’s name and he starts speaking…. You are shocked… Your eyes pop out! He is speaking exactly those points which are there in your work… Same to same points… At the end, he does not even show the courtesy of acknowledging your name and thanking you!

So… how do you feel??? That is exactly how the great writers feel when you do not acknowledge their work in your reference list irrespective of using their ideas!

Today let us have a quick buzz over some of the important facts on referencing:

1) Firstly referencing actually refers to the act of citing or acknowledging all those sources from where you have taking the ideas or concepts of your writing material.

2) In case you do not acknowledge the writers or do not prepare a reference list, your work comes under fraudulent activity. It is considered to be a piece of cheating.

3) It is significant that in order to write your project, you need to support your work by referring to the theoretical underpinnings, conceptual models, business models and ideas that already exist. You cannot simply master an analysis or jump into a conclusion suddenly!

4) Your reference list should be AUTHENTIC, thereby referring to those books and journals which actually exist. DO NOT make up names of writers or books/journals. DO NOT use FAKE references by manipulating the names of books, or publishing year, publishing city or publishing house. Original details are to be provided in the appropriate format

5) Remember! Preparing a referencing list is not just for the sake of it. So, do not add all the books and journals that you find under the sun!!! You should only add those which you have read and which are RELEVANT and PERTINENT to the topic! For instance, if the topic of your assignment is “Impact of billboard advertisement in attracting customers” then your references SHOULD NOT be books on marketing although advertising and customer attraction are aspects of marketing. You SHOULD use books related to Advertising and Customer Attraction

6) You should use academic books, journals and reports. CANNOT refer to any story books or readers digest as such…

7) You need to use academic websites and specific company websites for information. Websites like wikipedia and prezi.com are DEFINITELY NOTacademic.

8) The references SHOULD NOT be too old. It is always advisable to use upgraded versions of books and journals, published within last 5 years (except for topics related to history and philosophy)

9) References should be arranged in an alphabetical order (A-Z format). The list should be added at the end of the work

10) Maintain the correct form of the asked referencing styles. Need to know the difference between different referencing styles like Harvard, APA, Chicago, MLA, Oscola, Vancouver, IEEE and many more.