Politics

Referencing and plagiarism

Referencing is important in academic writing and an essential part of any of your assignments. It:

• allows you to acknowledge your sources,
• gives academic credibility to your work,
• demonstrates your knowledge of a subject area,
• prevents accusations of plagiarism.

You should always reference a source when:

• using a direct quote
• summarising a theory
• discussing someone else's opinion
• using case studies
• quoting statistics or visual data
• but not when stating your own opinion, observation or experience.

Plagiarism is "the wrongful... publication as one's own, of the ideas, or the expression of the ideas of another" (Oxford English Dictionary)

Politics uses the Harvard referencing style. The Library Referencing Handbook: Harvard provides examples of different information sources: how to cite them within your text and how to include them in your reference list.

Reference management software helps you to organise your references and generate citations and reference lists.

We provide access to and support your use of RefWorks or EndNote.