Referencing: Avoiding Plagiarism in Academic Writing (Coursework)

This assignment focuses on the critical role of referencing in academic writing to maintain integrity and avoid plagiarism. It emphasizes the necessity of supporting arguments with evidence through proper citations, whether bracketed or footnoted, allowing readers to distinguish between original and borrowed ideas. The document highlights the importance of using secondary sources for accuracy and reliability, while cautioning against unreliable online sources. It details the correct formatting for different writing styles (MLA, APA, Harvard), including in-text citations and the organization of references in a reference list. The assignment also addresses the concepts of similarity and plagiarism, stressing the importance of paraphrasing and proper referencing to avoid academic dishonesty. By understanding and implementing these referencing techniques, students can ensure the originality and credibility of their academic work. The document offers a practical guide to ensure that students understand how to properly reference their work.

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Scholarly writers have the obligation of supporting the arguments in their work with
evidence. Equally, readers of such academic writings need to establish the validity of the
evidence provided. The supporting evidence for such works is the reference and is sometimes
bracketed or footnoted, telling the reader where the supporting evidence used in the scholarly
writing comes from. The reference serves to inform the reader of the origin of the idea used
in work (Benell, 2018). That way, the reader can distinguish between the writer’s original
ideas and the borrowed ideas. Besides, the reference serves as a means to further reading to
the reader on the given topic.
Articles
For proper use of references, the writer needs to collect all the relevant reading materials,
read thoroughly through them, then use the information from these primary sources without
copying directly. In most scholarly writing, secondary sources are preferred because of the
accuracy and reliability of the data and information contained within (Benell, 2018). Such
sources include online sources, websites, textbooks, journals, articles, publications, and
videos. Not all available information is valid; therefore, caution should be taken, especially
when using websites and online sources as references. According to Benell (2018), the online
sites trusted to have accurate information and data include the websites that end
with .gov, .edu, and .org.
Track of References
It is essential to use the proper format for referencing corresponding to the style of writing
used for scholarly writing. The different writing styles like MLA, APA, and HAVARD all
differ in reference formats (Benell, 2018). Regardless of these differences, each reference
should capture details, including the author, year of publication and edition, the title of the
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reference, and web links for online sources. Additionally, at the end of the scholarly writing,
the references used throughout the work need to be organised in ascending alphabetical order.
In-text Reference
Sometimes during writing, there is the need to use direct quotes or to state facts as they are in
the primary source. Such instances call for the use of in-text referencing. In-text citations are
used to recognise other's ideas in the scholarly writer's work (Benell, 2018). These references
are always placed adjacent to the paraphrased or quoted text, allowing the reader to
differentiate between the writer’s work and other people’s work. Usually, when presenting
ideas from a primary source as in-text citation, the author's surname and date of publication
are used in brackets.
For example, using a reference at the end of a quoted or paraphrased text takes the form
“(Surname, year).” While using the same within the text or at the beginning of the sentence
takes the form "Surname (Year).” Sometimes the page number is also included, in which case
it would take the form "(Surname, Year, page)". However, at the end of the scholarly writing,
the full details of the references used in in-text citation should appear. Failure to reference the
writing work is likely to result in similarity or plagiarised work (Memon, 2020).
Similarity
Similarity occurs when either the work is not referenced or copied and pasted directly from
the primary sources. Similarity and plagiarism are considered acts of academic dishonesty.
When the contents of a primary source are reviewed, there might be similarities to other
related materials. This kind of similarity does not necessarily mean that the work is
plagiarised.
However, the extensive similarity between such materials plagiarise the work, hence regarded
as academic dishonesty (Memon, 2020). Therefore, similarity should be avoided through
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proper paraphrasing in instances one needs to borrow ideas from other primary sources. Thus,
the appropriate use of references in academic writings, therefore, help eliminate occurrences
of both plagiarism and high similarity index.
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References
Benell, T.P. (2018). Referencing for cohesion in L2 academic writing: A corpus
analysis (Doctoral dissertation, Bilkent University).
Memon, A.R. (2020). Similarity and plagiarism in scholarly journal submissions: Bringing
clarity to the concept for authors, reviewers and editors. Journal of Korean Medical
Science, 35(27).
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