30 How to refer to sources

General

How do you refer appropriately to the work of others? The convention in academic writing is that you must support your discussion of a topic by referring to the relevant literature. You do this in your text whenever you refer to a source (⇒ in-text citation). In addition, you need to list every source used in your text (and only these) in your ⇒ list of references at the end of your paper.

When reporting on previous research you have three choices, “to quote it (i.e. to repeat it verbatim and accurately), paraphrase or summarize it” (Pecorari, 2013, p.69). For details go to in-text reference quotations and and intext-reference: paraphrase and summarize.

Reference styles

There are several methods in use and which one you will be required to adopt depends on the conventions within your discipline. The preferred referencing method will be recommended by your supervisor. However, you must be able to recognise the alternative styles used in other sources

Author year system

The author-year system is used by many disciplines. One of these systems is the APA citation standard (American Psychological Association), which is the standard usually used at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences & Arts.

¹ author’s surname, ² year of publication

Number system

A citation system used e.g. by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).

Footnote- system

A system used by architects, for example, and consistent with the DIN (Deutsches Institut für Normung).

Before submitting a text, you always need to enquire which citation standard is required, and then use it consistently.

Academic convention requires you to give this information in order to

• acknowledge the use of other people’s work – you must demonstrate clearly where you have borrowed the text or ideas from others; even if you cite an author’s work in order to disagree with it, you have made use of their intellectual property and you must show that you recognise that.
• help your readers understand what influenced your thinking.
• help your readers evaluate the extent of your reading.
• provide the reader with sufficient information to enable them to consult the source materials themselves, if they wish.