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Tertiary Access Course Guide: Referencing

Referencing - The basics

What is referencing?

Referencing is the way that you describe the sources of information and ideas that you use in your assignments.

Why do I need to reference?
  • To indicate where you get your information/ideas from.
  • So the reader can verify your sources.
  • To avoid plagiarism.   Plagiarism is when a person tries to present someone else's work as their own.  Penalties for plagiarism can include loss of marks, failing a subject or failing your course.
What do I have to reference?
  • If you have used anything in your assignment that was originally written or created by someone else, you must reference it. 
  • This does not just mean direct quotes. It also includes any ideas you have paraphrased or summarised.
  • It applies to anything you use that is not your own work - graphs, statistics, images etc.

Plagiarism: How to avoid it

Avoiding plagiarism starts with good note-taking skills. Only write the key ideas from relevant sections of your source as dot points, not full sentences. When you transform these into your own sentences later, your writing will have a new structure and writing style.

Referencing in TAC

We use the APA style of referencing in the Tertiary Access Course.

There are many different referencing styles that people can use but we will only use APA in this course.

Get started with APA in the tutorials in this guide and find out more in the APA Referencing Guide.

 

Introduction to APA 7th interactive tutorial

7 minutes

Click to play in full screen

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Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International License. Content from this Guide should be attributed to James Cook University Library. This does not apply to images, third party material (seek permission from the original owner) or any logos or insignia belonging to JCU or other bodies, which remain All Rights Reserved.

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