What is referencing?

Referencing is “the system you use … to acknowledge other people’s ideas or research” (University of Southern Queensland, n.d.)

A set of instructions that tell you in what order to put the information.

Some other words you might come across:

• Bibliography
• Cite
• Citation

Why do we reference?

• For honesty
• To give our writing credibility
• To allow people to follow up the sources
• To avoid plagiarism

(Reasons for referencing, n.d.)

Here is an extract from MLC’s Assessment Policy. Pay particular attention to 33.2 and 33.3 and 36.

•  It’s the law

Under the Copyright Act 1968, “the Law enables the person who created the material to have rights over what happens to it”  (Australian Catholic University, n.d.) and a creator has the moral right to have their work  treated with respect and attributed to them as the owner of the work (Copyright Agency, 2022).

What does a reference list contain?

All reference list contains the following details about each source that is used in your work:

Author

Date

Title

Source details (i.e. where can source be retrieved? e.g. periodical/ publisher information, DOI or URL)

The format may change slightly depending on the style used and source type.
The MLC Referencing guide gives you the format for most common source types.

What system does MLC use?

• APA – 7th Edition
  • Alphabetical order
  • All the different resources are listed together in one list

* APA (American Psychological Association)

A basic book reference in APA – 7th Edition

Author, Initial. (Copyright year). Title of the book. Publisher.

Example:

Allen, J. (2017). What is the future of artificial intelligence? Reference Point Press.

Other basic formatting rules:

Organise the reference list in alphabetical order by the author’s surname.

Author’s surname comes first, followed by a comma then their initials.

If the item has no author, then use the title first.

Punctuation is important used –

The date of publication us in brackets (If there is no publication date use n.d. in it’s place).

Fullstops are used between each element of information (except not at the end of a URL).

Use a space after each punctuation mark.

Titles are in italics.

If your citation goes over a line, you must use a hanging indent. (CLICK HERE on how to create a hanging indent in Word)

Example Reference List:

In-text citations

Watch the following video to find out about in-text citations.

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Direct Quotes

You will need to include the author, year of publication and page number (preceded with p. if possible).

Parenthetical examples:

1. With an introductory sentence

Within a decade a significant proportion of jobs that exist today in Australia will be replaced by automation: “21% of physical jobs and 28% of location-based jobs will disappear by 2030” (Higgins et al, 2021, p.13).

2. Incorporated into your own sentence

Due to automation, artificial intelligence and physical robotics, it is predicted that “21% of physical jobs and 28% of location-based jobs will disappear” in Australia by 2030 (Higgins et al, 2021, p.13).

Narrative example (the author is part of your sentence)

3. With an introductory phrase

A recent study by Higgins et al (2021, p.13) predicts that in Australia “21% of physical jobs and 28% of location-based jobs will disappear by 2030”.

Click here for more on direct quotes and how to cite them (from scribber.com)

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Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is putting someone’s else’s words into your own words and is an alternative to a direct quote.

To avoid plagiarism, paraphrasing also requires you to cite your source using an in-text citation (Scribbr, 2022).

Click here for more on how to paraphrase and how to cite a paraphrase (from scribber.com)