Academic referencing is a way to tell the readers that the data and facts present in the academic article are from a good source. Academic writing is done with man tools, including journals, theoretical parts, websites, books, useful articles, and other sources. These other sources are used for the complete analysis of the topic.
Moreover, the sources are useful in backing up the arguments and data present in academic writing. So, referencing is essential for it too.
The ideas used in the articles are the result of referencing only.
What is academic referencing?
Referencing is a crucial part of any academic writing. Without mentioning references, the research work will term plagiarism, which means the flawed one. The references are included in the article to give assurance to all readers about the data presented there. The ideas, theories, concepts, etc. are used, which have some words similar to your research work. So, to prevent the plagiarism score from increasing, the references are added in academic writing.
The two main reasons for the need for reference are as follows:
- To avoid the use of copied words, which later give rise to plagiarism. So, references are added to prevent it. This is called a quotation. These are added to the academic articles for the proper referencing process.
- You may not have used that source’s same wordings, but the idea belongs to the source. So, it is mandatory to add reference links to academic articles. This is called paraphrasing and summarizing the ideas of other sources. So, here referencing is needed.
But don’t add references for something that doesn’t have any proper meanings. This can make your academic article less reliable.
Advantages
Academic referencing has some advantages also that make it more favorable among academicians. The following is its core benefits:
- It helps the readers to get all insight of used sources. So, they can use them all to generate a solid argument on the respective topic or subject.
- Referencing properly assigns credits to the original developer of the ideas. All research findings of some other person are highlighted in the article. It makes the article useful in all ways.
- It shows that the academic article’s big data is related to all findings of the research work. Referencing joins the bridge and makes the academic article more reliable.
How to do Academic Referencing?
Referencing signifies that you have well researched a topic before writing it.
Prolific persons in that field validate all the points and opinions. There is nothing to worry about the authentication of the article when it is referenced well. So, referencing here plays a significant role.
It also allows the readers to check the reliability of the data presented in the academic article. Moreover, referencing also tells about your research aptitude and personal demeanor about it. Referencing has dual benefits.
Normal referencing consists of in-text citations and bibliographic lists. However, there are many referencing styles. But all referencing styles have citations and reference lists for significant parts of it.
Citations are the exact locations of the text presented in the article. And the bibliography consists of all the list of references used in the academic article for research work.
The two most famous referencing styles are:
Styles of Academic Referencing
1. Vancouver referencing style
The Vancouver referencing style has citations that cut down the texts in the middle of the lines. Space is cut down to make space for the bibliography list.
A variety is observed here due to the number of citations used in the article. The consecutive nature of citations is well marked here. More than one author can also be present in this referencing style.
The citation’s appearance is the significant difference between the two famous referencing styles. The Vancouver style will only cite the number of references used in an order. This makes the reader more confused, and they have to go through the bibliographic list for citing the actual references.
However, the Vancouver referencing style pulls away from the clutter of the numerous citations mentioned in the academic article.
But the actual references and the mentioned citations in the text may vary. So, the readers have to be cautious about using this referencing style. The numbers of citations are represented in square brackets. All these are written in superscripts.
2. Harvard referencing style
In this style, you experience that the references or citations are present in the breakdown fashion. The readers get the names of the references used in the academic article through this breakdown information.
It provides all its readers a simple way to look into the references used. The readers can track down the sources used in a good way through this referencing style.
There is no necessity to look for a bibliography list to track down the ideas of the sources. It is well cited in between the texts for proper understanding.
In the Harvard referencing style, the multiple authors’ citations are done. Example: the text part (author 1, year, author, year, author three years), it is convenient to add multiple authors for a text in Harvard referencing style. All readers found the Harvard style the favorable and most preferred.
Use of Bibliography list in Academic Referencing
This list is included in every referencing style. Both above styles have a bibliography list that counts all references used in the academic article. The list becomes long due to numerous references, including in it.
Academic Referencing software
Some software is also used in referencing such as
- Mendeley
- EndNote
- CiteThisForMe
- Zotero and others.
These software make the process of referencing easy and straightforward.
Wrapping up!
The last part is summarizing your whole research work on the last page. Its referencing styles and software make your research work reliable and trustworthy.
Referencing is done to make your research paper more factual on scientific grounds in front of the world. All references used in the academic article should be of high quality so that your work can be recognized by others also.
The world has accepted the referencing style in academic articles. Hence, referencing is one of the important parts of the research work.
Having any doubts about academic referencing? Feel free to ask us in the comments.
