Essay Writing and Referencing Dr Isabella Chaney

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Essay Writing and Referencing- Dr Isabella
Chaney
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Where to go for Help

• Writing insight webpage
• http//www.rhul.ac.uk/international/Current-studen
  ts/Learning-Resources/index.htm
• Writing Consultations by RHI

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Locating Literature

• Books
• Journal Articles - Metalib
• Business / Newspaper Articles
• Reports e.g. Mintel
• Official and Legal Publications e.g. Office for
  National Statistics
• Internet

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Evaluation of Sources

• Is it accurate? Does it say what sources the data
  are based on?
• What authority is it based on? Who wrote the
  pages? Are they experts in the field?
• Is it biased? e.g. pressure groups and commercial
  organisations.
• How detailed is the information? Is it so general
  that it is of little use?
• Is it out of date?

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Keeping Record of References

• The author
• The title
• Journal, Website
• Date of publication
• Place of publishing
• Name of Publisher
• Numbers of pages where info obtained
• Reference to where you found the info so you can
  track it down again
• When note taking do use your own words this
  means you will have to understand the text to
  write the note
• Dont mix up direct quotations and your own
  notes.

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Referencing

• Use the proper structure
• Harvard System check the Dept webpage under
  useful information in the UG Vault
• (footnote citations are not encouraged)

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Examples

• In-text (Author, year) or Author (year) e.g.
  Sillince (1996) or (Sillince, 1999)
• Reference List
• Books Author, (Year) Title. Place Published
  Publisher. e.g. Sillince, J.A.A. (1996) Business
  Expert Systems. Hitchin Technical Publications.
• Articles Author, (Year) Article title.
  Journal Title, volume (number) pages. e.g.
  Sillince, J.A.A. (1999) The role of political
  language forms and language coherence in the
  organizational change process. Organization
  Studies, 20 (3) 485-518.

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Avoiding Plagiarism

• passing off as your own ideas, writings,
  diagrams or information created by someone else
• Sound note taking
• Page number and quotation marks for direct quotes

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Paraphrasing to Avoid Plagiarism

• your own version of essential information and
  ideas expressed by someone else
• one legitimate way (when accompanied by accurate
  referencing) to borrow from a source
• Paraphrasing is a valuable skill because...
• the mental process required for successful
  paraphrasing helps you to grasp the full meaning
  of the original piece of writing

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The original passage

• Students frequently overuse direct quotation in
  taking notes, and as a result they overuse
  quotations in the final research paper.
  Probably only about 10 of your final manuscript
  should appear as directly quoted matter.
  Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount
  of exact transcribing of source materials while
  taking notes. Lester, James D. Writing Research
  Papers. 2nd ed. (1976) 46-47.

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Acceptable Paraphrase

• In research papers students often quote
  excessively, failing to keep quoted material down
  to a desirable level. Since the problem usually
  originates during note taking, it is essential to
  minimize the material recorded verbatim (Lester
  46-47).
• (Source Purdue University)

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Consequences of Plagiarismand Collusion

• Pass Mark i.e. 40
• 0
• Possible termination from College

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Turnitin

• What happens when I submit my essay through
  Turnitin?
• Printout shows what is copied
• Where it was copied from
• What percentage has been copied