Referencing has 2 essential elements:
If you have used an idea from a book, journal article, etc. you must acknowledge this in your text. This is referred to as citing.
Author prominent citing
This citation method gives prominence to the author’s surname (family name) as part of your sentence with the date and page number (the page number is necessary if you are quoting directly) in parentheses (round brackets).
Information prominent citing
This citation method gives prominence to the information with the required referencing details in parentheses at the end of the citation.
Quotations should be used sparingly, selected carefully, used in context, and integrated into your text and reproduced exactly (including the words, spelling, punctuation, capitalisation and paraphrasing of the original writer). LIT policy permits authors to use a maximum of three figures or tables from a journal article or book chapter, single text extracts of fewer than 400 words, or a series of text extracts that total fewer than 800 words without requesting formal written permission from the author.
A quotation is used if:
Short quotations (fewer than 30 words) should:
Long quotations (more than 30 words) should:
Separate the quotation from the lead-in statement with one blank line. The lead-in statement ends with a colon (:). Separate the quotation from the text that follows it with one blank line. This is illustrated below.
Quotation marks
Quotation marks are not used for longer quotations. When using an information prominent long quotation, the full stop will be included after the last sentence of the quotation after the citation as shown below.
Words omitted from quotations
To omit words from quotations, use an ellipsis (…). The quotation must still keep the same sense.
If the quotation does not begin at the start of a sentence, an ellipsis should be used to convey this to the reader.
Double quotations
For a double quotation—that is, a quotation within a quotation—use double quotation marks inside single quotation marks
For example
' "When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets” are the first words in Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love and this book explores how a family of freaks who are the grotesque attractions in their own carnival accept themselves and use their status as freaks to leverage themselves to a position of power’.
When you cite someone else’s work, you must always state the author/editor and the date of publication. If the work has two authors/editors you must cite both names when citing in the body of your own work. Only use the author and date; do not include the title, place of publication, etc., because these full details of the item are written in your reference list at the end of your essay.
For a work which has three or more authors/editors the abbreviation ‘et al.’ should be used after the first author’s name.
For a work which has the same author and was written in the same year as an earlier citation, you must use a lower case letter after the date to differentiate between the two.
Citing from books with chapters written by different authors
Some books may contain chapters written by several different authors. In this case the author who wrote the chapter should be cited not the editor of the book.
If you are reading a source by one author- in our example O’Brien (2009) and they cite or quote work by another author (in our example Murphy 2004) you may in turn cite or quote the original work (e.g. that of Murphy 1994) as a secondary reference.
It is always best practice to try and locate the original reference and secondary references should only be used if it is difficult to access the original work. You must remember that in a secondary reference you are seeing the original author's work from someone else's perspective.
Author(s) name:
Year:
Pages:
Citing page numbers
Use single quotation marks (double quotation marks are usually used for quoting direct speech) and state the page number.
For quotes over two lines have a separate, indented paragraph.
If you wish to use a long quotation which is over 2 lines in length but wish to omit some of the text you can remove the unwanted text and replace with ‘….’ This is known as an ellipsis.
When you use quotations within your text, sometimes you may want to insert one or two words in the quotation so that your complete sentence is grammatically correct. To indicate that you have inserted words into a quotation, these have to be enclosed in square brackets.
Charts, diagrams, pictures etc. should be treated as direct quotes in that the author(s) should be acknowledged and page numbers shown; both in your text where the diagram is discussed or introduced, and in the caption you write for it.
Figure 5. From O’Neill, J. and O’Brien, P. (2011) Management of European Union Projects: a guidebook for project managers, Limerick: Limerick Institute of Technology, p. 38. Copyright 2011 by John O’ Neill and Patrick O’ Brien. Reprinted with permission.
*Please note that if the table/figure/image/graph has been adapted – Adapted with permission is stated instead of Reprinted with permission.
*Please check with your lecturer/supervisor if you are expected to use published illustrations in your assignments.
The above figure would also feature in a List of Figures in your essay, dissertation or thesis.
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