Glossary for referencing

Bibliography: A list of all the sources you consulted for your work arranged in alphabetical order by author's surname or, when there is no author, by title. For web pages where no author or title is apparent, the URL of the web page would be useful. 

Citation: The in-text reference that gives brief details (for example author, date, page number) of the source you are quoting from or referring to. This citation corresponds with the full details of the work (title, publisher and so on) given in your reference list or bibliography, so that the reader can identify and/or locate the work. End-text citations are more commonly known as references. 

Common Knowledge: Facts that are generally known. For example, the fact that World War Two ended in 1945 is common knowledge and does not need to be referenced. 

Digital Object identifier (doi): A numbered tag used to identify individual digital (online) sources, such as journal articles and conference papers.

Direct quotation: The actual words used by an author, in exactly the same order as in their original work, and with the original spelling. 

Ellipsis: The omission of words from speech or writing. A set of three dots (...) shows where the original words have been omitted. 

End-text-citation: An entry in the reference list at the end of your work, which contains the full (bibliographical) details of information for the in-text citation.

et al.: (From the latin et alia meaning 'and others'.) A term most commonly used (for example Harvard author-date system) for works having more than three authors. For example, (Jones et al., 2014). 

Ibid: Ibid is the term used to provide an endnote or footnote. The previous reference should be immediately visible. For example, within the same paragraph or page. 

In- text citation: Often know as simply the citation, this give brief details (for example author, date, page number) of your source of information within your text. 

Paraphrase: A restating of someone else's thoughts or ideas in your own words. You must always cite when paraphrasing. 

Peer-Review: A process used in academic publishing to check the accuracy and quality of a work intended for publication. The author's draft of a book or article is sent by an editor (usually anonymously) to experts in the subject, who suggest amendments or corrections. This process is seen as a guarantee of academic quality and is a major distinction between traditional forms of publishing, such as books and journals, and information in web pages, which can be written by anyone, even if they have no expertise in a subject.

Plagiarism: Taking and using another person's thoughts, writings or inventions as your own without acknowledging or citing the source of the ideas and expressions. In the case of copyrighted material, plagiarism is illegal. 

Proper noun: The name of an individual person, place or organisation, having an initial capital letter. 

Quotation: The words or sentences from another information source used within your text.

Reference: The full publication details of the work cited. 

Reference list: A list of references at the end of your assignment that includes the full information for your citations so that the reader can easily identify and retrieve each work (journal articles, books, web pages and so on). 

Secondary referencing: Citing/referencing a work that has been mentioned or quoted in the work you are reading. You may wish to refer to an author's idea, model or dataset but have not been able to read the actual chapter containing the information, but only another author's discussion or report of it. Similarly you may refer to a primary source, e.g. an author's letters or diary, or a government report, that you have only 'read' as cited or reproduced within an author's text. This is known as secondary referencing because you have not actually read the source, but only someone else's account of it. 

sic: (From the Latin meaning 'so, thus'.) A term used after a quoted or copied word to show that the original word has been written exactly as it appears in the original text, and usually highlights an error or misspelling of the word.

Summarise: Similar to paraphrasing, summarising provides a brief account of someone else's ideas or work, covering only the main points and leaving out the details. 

URL: The abbreviation for Uniform (or Universal) Resource Locator, the address of documents and other information sources on the internet (for example http://...).

Virtual learning environment (VLE): An online teaching environment (also known as online learning environment- OLE) that allows interaction between tutors and students, and the storage of course documents and teaching materials. 

 

 

 

 

 

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