FAQs regarding Referencing in the RAP

No, Harvard is recommended but it is not actually prescribed.  Harvard  provides the means for students to obtain the basics of good referencing therefore by encouraging its use, OBU helps students familiarise themselves with referencing requirements whilst preparing those who go on to do a further degree where Harvard is required, to acquire good referencing skills and habits. Whatever the method of referencing it must be systematic so that the reader (or your marker) can easily verify the exact source.  
 
The requirements for referencing are that you must show exactly what in the text you are referencing, your referencing is systematic – please familiarise yourself with the Golden Rules Provided the system you use, be it subscript numbers or footnotes, essentially allows the reader to see what you are referencing and means they can locate or verify that the original source exists you will meet this assessment criterion for your OBU RAP 

As indicated in Part 1 there is no exact number as this will depend on the topic and sources.  However every fact, statement of opinion and ideas of others must be referenced and all sources e.g. where you have extracted the data you are citing from, must be referenced fully.

Provided your referencing complies with the requirements set out in Q1 then you could consider this.  However do read and follow the Golden Rules we have set out as an automated list may not necessarily produce the appendages as required and you may encounter a little problem when inserting page numbers in an in text reference.  Remember it is your responsibility to ensure your reference list is accurate and fulfils the requirements so if you do use an inbuilt program tool to help you may need to check the final version. (See YouTube videos on how to use these tools)

For your RAP you need to ensure that your work contains a balance of opinion and presents a situation from different viewpoints.  For this reason, unless your topic requires it*, you should focus on secondary data and you should not rely predominantly on just an interview with one person without including other sources. You should include the name of the interviewee in the text and then give as many details as possible in your reference list about the interviewee’s position/job title and when and where the interview took place. 
Note: Remember with interviews the marker is in a difficult position – in the RAP students are making statements and expecting them to be believed. Where there are references to secondary sources the marker can check these by tracking down the documents. With interviews you are asking the marker to take your comments on trust and although they will accept to a point that you are not making the whole thing up, if there are few external references in the world of academia this is considered to be poor academic practice as it lacks objective assessment.  OBU has stipulated that where students claim to have interviewed management they must now provide a copy on the letter confirming the interview on company headed paper or an email containing the valid company email address of the interviewee (private email addresses are not acceptable).  However treat the interviewee as you would an ‘author’ and include details as set out above in your list.
*Topic 6 is such a topic but evidence in the form of the data gathered must be included in the appendices to support your findings.How do I reference a TV or radio broadcast?

Harvard actually recommends that you use the producer’s name (use it as you would if referencing an author for an article or book).  Remember though that Harvard is the ‘Gold Standard’ and trying to locate who the producer was could be onerous.  For the purpose of your RAP, it may be sufficient to refer either to the relevant interviewee, interviewer, reporter or presenter (as appropriate) and use this as you would an author in your reference.  Be consistent and ensure that the name in the text is the same as that in the reference list and give the full name of the programme and date it was broadcast. (See also the links at the end as they should cover ‘one-off’ type of references like this and similar situations e.g. references for speeches etc)

References that include a website addresses/URLs in the text are not advised. This is because it is ‘lazy’ and also because it is more difficult to find individual references if the reference list comprises a long list of URLs. The marker will at best find this frustrating as they will have to scrutinised perhaps several pages or resort to an electronic search to try to locate what they are looking for. The marker may regard this lazy referencing as inadequate evidence that you really know how to reference properly in which case you will be failed on referencing.
The general rules of referencing still apply so you should attempt to give as much information as possible so that the reader can locate your reference e.g. if citing someone from a blog, then their blog name and year in the text and start the list in the same manner but try to include the full date if possible and any forum heading as well as the website name and the URL in your list.

The RAP is an academic piece of work and academics generally are not happy about Wikipedia (or Investopedia for that matter) as a reliable source – this is because in essence anyone can post statements to these sites and therefore they may not be valid and reliable. It is probably better to use Wikipedia as a means of locating more acceptable sources as some contributors do reference and give details of where they have extracted their information, try to track down the original source and read and reference that instead.

As with Wikipedia and similar sources, anonymous statements are not regarded as reliable and valid. A marker may turn a ‘blind eye’ when marking the RAP to the odd anonymous reference but like using web addresses the reference, (anon, n.d.) falls into the category of ‘lazy referencing’. You should make some attempt to reference the article according to the general rules of referencing e.g. using the name of a website. If there are too many instances of (anon, n.d.) and the marker thinks you are being lazy rather than diligent in your referencing they are likely to fail you for referencing. This will certainly be the case if the marker scrutinises your anonymous references and they manage to find the actual author…

I am reliably informed that they most certainly do! The Assessment Criteria (Appendix 1 of the Information Pack) show the standards that are expected with respect to referencing. As part of their assessment of competence in referencing, markers will examine the list and ‘test’ some of the references in each RAP submission (just like an auditor will sample invoices in their audit checks). The occasional mistake may be ‘forgiven’ but a high incidence of bad / missing / inaccurate references in the test sample will indicate incompetence and could result in failure. As mentioned in the introduction, Referencing remains the joint most common reason for failure (along with Evaluation and Analysis)

Very briefly: ‘Ibid’ is an abbreviation for the Latin word ‘Ibidem’ meaning ‘in the same place’.  Technically in your work you may need to repeat references and using ‘Ibid’ can be useful to save you a few words when you are struggling with the word count.  However where the page changes, you should indicate this e.g (Ibid. p.24); (Ibid. p.7) etc.  The important thing to remember is that it can only be used where two or more consecutive references are from the very same source (otherwise they are NOT in the same place)!  
 
‘et al’ again is Latin and means ‘and others’ but should only be used where there are 3 or more researchers/authors (so with two you should use both names each time). The very first time you must mention all of the names of the other researchers only thereafter may you use ‘et al’ in your text.  In the reference list you must show all of the names