Whenever you refer to another person's work in your own essay, dissertation or article you must acknowledge them and give full details of your source. You risk being accused of plagiarism if you fail to do so.
Different departments at the University of Reading favour different referencing styles. UoR Institute of Education specifies APA 7th edition. Find out how this works through the resources below, contacting your Academic Liaison Librarians if you need further individual help.
There are Things you can do to avoid plagiarism, as listed in the Library's general guide to Citing references with different citation systems.
Study Advice provide various guides to improving your writing style when supporting arguments with references. See Referencing and Academic Integrity, especially: Avoiding unintentional plagiarism, Quotes and paraphrases, Writing a precis or summary and Getting the most out of Turnitin. See also Using Turnitin as a feedback tool. You can make an appointment with a Study Adviser if you need further individual help.
University of Reading Institute of Education uses APA 7th edition referencing (published 2020).
Things to note about APA: 'inconsistencies' such as using pp. before book chapter page numbers but nothing before journal page numbers. Only US legislation is mentioned in the print APA manual, so students need to extrapolate what to do when referring to other legal systems. Keep checking and practicing!
Microsoft Word's referencing tool only offers APA in its previous form (6th edition 2010). IoE requires the different conventions of APA 7th (2020) on citing multiple authors, place of publication and dates online sources were accessed.
Managing your referencesTo make sure you have accurate details of all the sources you might want to reference consider using a system for managing your references.
For many students, especially for undergraduate assignments, the easiest way is to set up a 'Reference File' to which you can keep adding details as you read. Saving it somewhere you can access easily from a variety of devices is a good idea - in OneDrive, Google Docs, or Dropbox, for instance.
Basic referencing tools such as MyBib and ZoteroBib can help create accurate references. If you are collecting a lot of references, you might prefer more advanced reference management software like EndNote, Zotero or Mendeley.
Be aware that any reference management program is only as good as the information you give it! So before you start using any program, it's important to make sure you have a clear understanding of the type of information you need and where you need to put it. If it's in the wrong place, or it's the wrong or inaccurate information, the program will not correct it, and it may be more difficult to put right later. Find out more about the options in this guide:
Contact us for support with referencing, searching for information and other queries about using the Library.
Contact: Charlotte Dormer (she/her)
Based at the Learning Hub on London Road.
Make an appointment with me in person at London Road or via Microsoft Teams. I can also support you with any queries about using the Learning Hub.
Email: c.n.k.dormer@reading.ac.uk
Telephone: 0118 378 2718
Book an appointment with Charlotte
Contact: Rachel Redrup
Working weekday mornings to early afternoon. Based at University Library, Whiteknights Mon-Wed, Fri; London Road Thursdays. Make an appointment with me in person at either site or via Microsoft Teams.
Email: r.m.j.redrup@reading.ac.uk
Telephone: 0118 378 2718
Book an appointment with Rachel
An internet search can retrieve a wide range of different publication types. It is important that you know how to recognise these to help you judge their reliability and suitability for use in your assignments, and to know how to reference them.
Watch this short video from our Academic Liaison Team which will help you become a digital detective and use clues to help you recognise different sources in your results.