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A-Z of referencing terms

Bibliography
A bibliography lists all the sources you consulted in your research..

Citation(s)
A citation is a quotation from, or reference to, sources  such as a book, article or author in order to illustrate, clarify or substantiate a point made within your assignment.

Endnotes
When a large number of references are to be cited, endnotes (at the end of each chapter or at the end of the whole work) are often used.

Footnotes
Are listed at the bottom of the page on which a reference or citation occurs in the text. A number is placed in the text to indicate the cited work and again at the bottom of the page in front of the footnote. Used when only a small number of references need to be made.

In-text
In-text referencing or citing is when you refer to known theories and ideas to support your own work in the body of your assignment.

Plagiarism
When you use another person’s ideas, statements, graphs, pictures etc giving the impression that it is your work and not crediting the true authors. Plagiarism is defined as passing off someone else's work as your own. This can be research, statements, images and statistical data.

Reference List
A Reference List is a list of the citations that have appeared in the body of your work.

Referencing
Referencing is a system used in the academic community to indicate where ideas, theories, quotes, facts and any other evidence and information used to undertake an assignment, can be found. For more information about Referencing please visit RefZone’s Referencing page.

Reference Styles
Reference Styles or Reference Systems are an organised style or system which explains how and when to make a note of the sources that you have used to support your assignment ensuring that credit is given to authors and enables the reader to locate the items independently. There are a number of academic reference styles/systems including Harvard, APA, British Standard/Numeric, OSCOLA (legal) and MLA.

*Please check your module handbook or contact your tutor(s) to find your School's/Subject Department's preferred style of referencing when undertaking you assignments.

Abbreviations

You may come across these terms within the books or journals you read, or you may need to use these within your own citing or reference list.

  • app. – appendix
  • ch. – chapter
  • ed., eds. - editor, editors
  • ed,. edn. – edition
  • et al. - and others (Used where there are more than 3 authors)
  • ibid. - in the same work (The same work as the one cited immediately before but a different page)
  • id. - the same. (The same author as the item cited immediately before, but not the same work)
  • N.B. - please note
  • n.d. - no date
  • no., nos. - number, numbers
  • op. cit. - in the work cited. (Refers back to the author's previously cited work but to a different page.)
  • p., pp. - page, pages
  • rev. – revised
  • rpt. – reprinted
  • s.l. - (sine loco): without place
  • trans. - translated, translator
  • vol., vols - volume, volumes
  • writ. - Written

 

Please check the specific requirements for your referencing style using Cite Them Right Online as the formatting (for example, use of italics) may be different from the one shown above.