Transcript - The why and how of referencing

Video 1: Why and when do you need to reference?
Video 2: How to reference
Video 3: Cite Them Right Online Guides
Video 4: Referencing OU module materials
Video 5: Referencing – beyond the basics
Video 6: Referencing top tips, help and support

Video 1: Why and when do you need to reference?

Welcome to this video from the Open University Library, which is part of the Why and How of Referencing series. In this short video, I'm going to go over why and when you would include references in your assignments.

So why do you need to include references when you're writing your assignments? First, referencing is about giving credit to the ideas of other people that you have used to inform your own work. Referencing also shows that you have read around the subject, and you strengthen your argument by providing supporting evidence. Referencing also acts as a signpost, allowing your reader to find the sources that you've used in your work and then evaluate your interpretations. And by referencing, you also avoid plagiarism by clearly showing when you've used another person's ideas in your own work.

Plagiarism is a term that describes the unacknowledged use of someone's work. Using the words or ideas of others without referencing your source would be construed as plagiarism. It's important to note that most instances of plagiarism are completely unintentional and are brought about by insufficient referencing-- for example, by not including quotation marks or providing incorrect information for sources. If you're careful to correctly reference your sources, then you'll be able to easily avoid unintentional plagiarism.

We've thought about why you need to reference, so let's move on to when you need to reference. You need to provide a reference when you're using someone else's ideas or words. This could be either using a direct quote or if you're summarising or paraphrasing a section or just mentioning something that came from someone else.

The exception to this is what is known as common knowledge. Common knowledge is facts, dates, events, and information widely known to the general public. For example, stating the name of the current prime minister would be considered common knowledge. If you're unsure whether something is common knowledge, it's always advisable to cite and reference it.

Thank you for watching.

Video 2: How to reference

Welcome to this video from the Open University Library, which is part of the Why and How of Referencing series. In this short video, I'm going to go over how you would include references in your assignments.

Most styles of referencing have two parts, the in-text pointer, or citation, and the full reference. I'm going to go over both in more detail now.

In Cite Them Right Harvard, the pointer in your work is called an in-text citation. And this acts like a flag to your reader that in this part of your writing, you are referring to someone else's work. In-text citations are brief details about a source. In the Harvard style, this is the author and the date of publication, and sometimes page numbers if you're using a direct quote or referring to specific sections in a source.

The full details of your source aren't included here. They go into the full reference, which I'm going to talk about next. And if your source has four or more authors, you only need to include the surname of the first author in the in-text citation, followed by the phrase et al.

On the screen now is an example of an assignment that is answering the question, "Is eating chocolate beneficial to studying?" which includes several different in-text citations, which are highlighted for illustrative purposes. There are different ways of incorporating in-text citations into your work, and there is no absolute right way. You could include in-text citations at the beginning, end, or the middle of a sentence. The important thing to remember when including in-text citations is to make it clear which part of your work includes ideas from other people.

A full reference is where you put all the details of the resource that you're quoting from or talking about. And in the Harvard style, this goes at the end of your work in a reference list. Every in-text citation within your work should have a matching full reference in the reference list to allow your reader to locate and check your sources. How your full reference looks will be dependent on the type of source that you're referencing, and each source should appear once in your reference list, no matter how many times you've referred to it in your assignment.

Here's an example reference list in the Cite Them Right Harvard style. It's a complete list of all the sources that were included in the example assignment on the benefits of eating chocolate. And it's arranged in alphabetical order by author name.

Thank you for watching.

Video 3: Cite Them Right online guides

Welcome to this video from the Open University Library, which is part of the Why and How of Referencing series. In this short video, I'm going to go over how to access the online guides for Cite Them Right Harvard.

I'm going to start my demonstration on the library home page. There's a link to the library home page on your Student Home and in the Resources section of your module website. You can also navigate directly to the library using the web address www.open.ac.uk/library.

For this demonstration, we're going to track down information about how to reference a blog post. This is the home page for the Open University Library, where you can find a wealth of information to help you during your studies. To start looking for information on how to reference a blog post, I'm going to click on the tab called Help and Support.

This has opened up the Help and Support page. I'm going to go to the left-hand side of the page, and under the Help and Support title, there's a section called Referencing Guidelines. I'm going to click onto the first link in this section, which is called Referencing and Plagiarism.

The Referencing and Plagiarism page is now open. This page has advice about referencing and links to referencing guides. It also includes information about other referencing styles used at the OU. As most modules use Cite Them Right Harvard, I'm going to scroll down the page to the heading Cite Them Right.

This section doesn't contain guidance on how to reference a blog post, but it does contain links to other sources of help, like this page on referencing physical and online module material, which contains some recommended templates to use when referencing OU module materials and the Quick Guide to Harvard Referencing, which I'm going to open by clicking on the link.

The Quick Guide was created by the library to go over some of the basics of referencing and to provide referencing templates for the more common source types. You can print this page off using the Print This Page option if you want to keep a copy handy. Or you can use your browser to bookmark it to easily find it again later.

The Table of contents lists the aspect of referencing guidance that the Quick Guide covers. And I'm going to click on the link to Full reference examples to see if I can find guidance on how to reference a blog post. This has taken me directly to the bottom section of the page that holds the full reference examples, and I can click on the chevron icon to expand the guidance for each type of source. If I click on the chevron next to Module Websites, this expands to show me the template for the full reference and some worked examples, including for videos and audio.

The Quick Guide does not contain details on how to reference a blog post. So now we're going to look at the Cite Them Right online guide. I'm going to open the guide by scrolling to the top of the page and clicking on the link to Cite Them Right.

The online Cite Them Right guide is now open. There are different ways of using this site to find information. You can use the search box to look for templates or use the browse categories option. I'm going to start by clicking on the Choose Your Referencing Style link. This will open a page with the different referencing styles. I'm going to choose Harvard, which is the first option on the page.

This opens up a page listing the different categories of templates, and I'm going to scroll down to digital and internet, which I think would be the best place to look for help on referencing a blog post. I'm then going to open the section called Websites and Web Pages, which opens up a list of templates, including one for blogs, which I'm going to click to open.

All pages on Cite Them Right contain the same sort of information. We have a citation order, which goes over what information you need to include, and an example in-text citation, and a full reference. With blogs and other online articles, you need to include the name of the site where the blog sits, as well as the title of the blog post. For online articles, this could be the name of the magazine or newspaper. There's also a You Try feature, which can be used to create a reference in the correct format that can then be copied into a Word processor or emailed to yourself.

Now I'd like you to pause the video and try the following task. I'd like you to access the blog post "Why I Now Eat Dark Chocolate Every Day" using either the shortened link on screen or the link in the description box for this video and spend a few minutes trying to find the answers to the following two questions.

Number 1, what is the in-text citation for the blog post? Remember that this will be the author and the year the blog was written in.

And number 2, what is the title of the internet site that the blog post is hosted on?

When you've completed the task, come back and start the video again.

Hopefully, you were able to easily find the answers to the questions. The in-text citation is made up of the surname of the author of the blog post, which is given as Mark Shpuntov, and the year that the blog post was written, which is 2021. And the title of the internet site that hosts this blog is Medium.

I'm now going to go to the blog post to show you where I found this information and where to find the other information that I need to create my full reference.

On this blog site, all of the information that I need for my full reference is located near the top of the page. But on other sites, it may be at the bottom or the side, but it will be there somewhere.

First, the name of the author, Mark Shpuntov, is listed at the top of the article, along with the exact date of publication. The title of the blog post is displayed prominently at the top of the screen. And the title of the blog site, Medium, is displayed in the top left-hand corner. I would also take note of the URL of the blog post by copying the text in the address bar of my web browser.

Using the information from the blog site and the template for blog posts that we found on Cite Them Right earlier, we can now put together a full reference for our blog post.

Thank you for watching.

Video 4: Referencing OU modules

Welcome to this video from the Open University library, which is part of the Why and How of Referencing series. In this short video, I'm going to go over how to reference your OU module materials.

Your OU module materials should be cited and referenced just like any other source. The Quick Guide to Harvard Referencing has examples of how to reference online module materials, including videos and audio. You can find links to suggested guidance for how to reference forum posts, tutor feedback, online module materials, and printed module materials on the Cite Them Right and module materials page.

I'm now going to look in a little more detail at referencing online module materials. When referencing online module materials, you need to make sure that you include the following details.

First, details of the author. If there is no named author, then you should just use the Open University as the author.

You need to include the year, which will always be the year that you started studying that module.

You need to include the title of the page or item that you are referencing and your module details.

You also need to include the URL of the page or item and the date that you last accessed it.

There's an example reference to a page on the K102 module website included on the screen so you can see how that looks when it's all put together.

I'd now like you to pause the video and try the following task.

I'd like you to access the page on the library's WHR101: The Why and How of Referencing companion VLE site using either the shortened link on screen or the link in the description box for this video, and then create a reference to it using the template for online module materials. When you've completed the task, come back and start the video again.

Hopefully, you were able to identify the different elements that you needed to create the full reference by yourself. But I'm now going to open the site to show you where to find them. Your module website will look a little different, but the elements you need to find for your reference should be all in roughly the same place.

The link should have opened onto a page with the title, "When do you need to reference?" This is the first thing that I would make note of, as this would be the title of the item. I'd also make a note of the URL for this specific page to include in my reference. I can't see an author listed on this page, so I know that I should use the Open University as the author in my reference.

On Open University module sites, the module code is usually displayed at the top left-hand side of the screen and can also be used as a quick link back to the module home page, which I'm going to use now. The module home page always displays the name of the module at the top of the page. In this case, the name of the module is The Why and How of Referencing. I've now identified all of the elements that I need to create the full reference to this module page.

Using the elements that I identified and the template for online module materials, here is the complete full reference for the page "When do you need to reference?" on the WHR101 module website. Hopefully, you are also able to identify the different elements that you needed to create the full reference, and it looks similar to the example on screen.

Thank you for watching.

Video 5: Referencing - beyond the basics

Welcome to this video from the Open University library, which is part of the Why and How of Referencing series. In this short video, I'm going to go over some essential parts of referencing that are beyond the basics.

You'll sometimes need to cite two or more sources that have the same year and author. For example, your online module materials will all have the same year and similar authors. This will mean that your in-text citations will also be really similar or even identical, so your reader won't know which in-text citation matches up with which full reference.

By adding a lowercase letter to the date in both the in-text citation and in the matching full reference, this allows your reader to distinguish between the sources and match the correct in-text citation to the correct full reference.

To demonstrate this, on screen there is an example of a paragraph that contains two in-text citations to the Open University 2023 and a short reference list with two full references to the Open University 2023. At the moment, I have no way to tell which in-text citation refers to which full reference.

So how can I make it clear which in-text citation matches up with each full reference?

By adding a lowercase letter to the dates in both the in-text citation and in the full reference, I am able to link the first in-text citation to the full reference for section 1.2 and the second in-text citation to the full reference to section 1.3.1.

It's important to note that this only applies when you are using multiple different sources with the same author and year. If you're referring to the same source more than once, the citation will be the same each time. And you only need to include the source once in your reference list.

I'm now going to go over something called secondary referencing. This is where you refer to something that has been mentioned in or quoted in the source that you're reading. You haven't read the original, but you've discovered it through a secondary source. This is known as secondary referencing.

This is an extract from a blog post written by Jackie Bartram for the University of Hull Library, and it includes a reference to a work by Crichton et al, written in the year 2016. Let's imagine that I wanted to use the idea by Crichton et al for my assignment. I haven't actually read the work of Crichton et al, so how would I reference this source in my assignment using Cite Them Right Harvard? I would do this using secondary referencing, which is done using an in-text citation.

To signal that I'm using secondary referencing, I need to adapt my in-text citation to include the original author, which in this example is Crichton et al, and the author of the thing that we've read, in this case, the blog post written by Bartram. I would use either the phrase quoted in or cited in, depending on whether the author of the secondary source is directly quoting or summarising from the primary source.

For the full reference, I only use the details of the item I have actually read. In this example, that would be the blog post by Bartram. And the format of this reference is unchanged. I would not include a full reference to or any mention of Crichton et al in my reference list.

Thank you for watching.

Video 6: Referencing top tips, help and support

Welcome to this video from the Open University library, which is part of the Why and How of Referencing series. In this short video, I'm going to go over some referencing top tips and where to find help and support with referencing.

When you've found a source that you want to reference, or you think you'll want to find again later, there are several bits of information that you should make note of, making sure that you include the name of the author, the title of the item, the name of the book or website or newspaper, as well as the URL, if it's an online source.

It's important when taking notes about a source that you include as much information as possible, not just the URL or web link. Web pages can change or disappear, so just having a link or URL is not enough. You may also need to add the date that you accessed it.

Sometimes you may find that you simply can't find all the information that you need to complete the template for your source. In that case, you can simply leave this out, as you can't include information that doesn't exist. So long as there is enough other information to allow your reader to identify your source, it doesn't matter. You can also follow the guidance on the library website on what to do if you have a web page with no author, date, or publisher.

Now I'm going to go over where you can find help with referencing. There's lots of guidance available online to help you find referencing help and templates. These are linked to from the libraries Referencing and Plagiarism page and contain everything that you need to help you reference in your assignments.

Don't forget that you can also check for help with referencing on the Assessment tab on your module website. This will usually have links to referencing guides and any module specific advice. You can also check with your tutor if you're not sure.

You can also get in touch with the library help desk. The contact details are on every page of the library website, and our web-chat is available 24 hours a day. There's also a handout that accompanies this video series that you can download. This covers the basics of referencing and contains lots of useful links to more information.

If you would like to learn more about referencing, on the screen now there are details about some library activities that you can work through at any time and visit as many times as you need. These activities are Unpicking a reference, which will help you decide the format of references, and An introduction to referencing and Cite them right, which covers the basics of referencing and how to construct references in the Cite Them Right Harvard style. These activities are only accessible to current OU staff and students.

But the biggest piece of advice that I can give you about referencing is not to panic. You don't need to memorise the whole online guide. It's available online 24/7 for you to access it whenever you need it. Don't forget to reference as you go, rather than spending time tracking down information later and in a rush. And like many things, referencing does get easier with practice.

Thank you for watching.