Referencing – Rules, Queries, Harvard etc.

Gillian, thank you for your comprehensive response.

Initially I hadn’t provided references for these formulae for the same reasons you cite; it was my Mentor who told me to go find references for them. Indeed, I didn’t think there were many high quality sources for them, and Investopedia looked like the best compromise.

Hopefully all will be well, and I’ll certainly report back either way.

obuwankenobi – I need to add that all failed work is reviewed by a moderator (a senior marker) and as I was a senior marker, if someone had failed on this alone, I would have overturned the result and changed this to a pass – and I am sure other moderators would also do so. So stop worrying and wait and see!

1. Going through the forum and the golden rules I have understood that with websites or articles with no author, the citation and reference should be the title of the page followed by the date. In reference list I’ll insert title, date then the URL and access date, right ?
2. What will be the in text citation for information collected from a company website but from different parts of the website. For example, section named About Us the citation will be (xyz, About Us) as there’s no date on the website shall I put n.d. ? And what will be the reference for this ?
3. Citation has just the Surname and the date whereas reference list will have surname followed by the initials. Am I right ?

To be honest for the RAP it doesn’t matter either way whether you include or exclude the word “online” as long as you include the link in the list.

As explained in the OT Guide to Referencing the RAP, the text and list names must match. I have always included the .com but I don’t think in the grand scheme of things it really matters (and I think it counts as the same number of words)

Re the notes to the accounts -ideally yes, include the page number in the text but you will not be savaged if you don’t

Not exactly sure what you mean about something online having a volume number unless it is a journal article available online. Normally volume numbers only go in the list and just the website goes in the text but it may need the appendage (a); (b) etc. in both (see the Guide for an explanation of when appendages / suffixes are require.

Not entirely sure I know what you mean with the last query but think possibly you are referring to the same sort of thing as with the following instances as say with Tesco-financials; Tesco-Investor-briefings. You can get away with using these in the report and list. The issue is that Harvard-APA was formulated years before the invention of the Internet and as far as I know, no-one has yet caught up with quite how online references slot exactly into the system.

In the end for the RAP as long as the Referencing is ‘systematic’ then that will suffice – so chill baby, chill! 🙂

As mentioned previously and as set out in the ‘Golden Rules’, references in the text and list must match and every document must have a distinct and unique designator. So if you have done this that fulfils most of the requirements. The other most important criterion is that the reader can locate the document. So if you have provided the link to the actual document then this too is fulfilled. Should it link to a more generic website then you could provide along with the name of the report the volume number. Otherwise as you are not doing a PhD this is more than adequate for the RAP -so I suggest you stop obsessing about what in the grand scheme of things is a minor detail!

It is permissible to us ibidim (ibid.) [meaning “in the same place,”] in the RAP report provided it complies with the following:

Use “ibid.” (no italics) to refer to the only work cited in the preceding note/ sentence. It may or may not include a page number (Ibid., 43.). Ibid. is never used if the preceding note
consists of more than one source.

[Please note your query should have been posted on the Harvard Referencing thread as it is the more relevant topic than competitor analysis!!]

Hello Trephena and Gillian. Please I have a question about my reference list. My mentor said I should remove the hyperlinks from my URLs. My understanding is that I should also change the colour from blue to black and should remove the underlining. I have doubts about this. Could you please very kindly confirm if my mentor is correct? Part of my hesitation is that if I remove the hyperlinks, it will be more difficult for the marker to access the websites to verify. Thanks for your help.

Dear Trephena, thank you so much for your reply. So sorry to have to trouble you again but I still need some clarification. Should I remove the hyperlinks from the reference list? I don’t have any URLs in the body of the report itself. Thanks.

To pass Assessment Criterion 6 – Information gathering and referencing you are expected to demonstrate two aspects.
1. use of a range of relevant information sources and
2. clear evidence of correct referencing methodology

Dealing with the first aspect: with Topic 17 you should be referring to a range of sources – for example the Big 4 produce reviews and commentary on CG and with the new title many of the issues of weak governance will have been covered either in official reports and / or the business press. Evidence of use of such sources will be deemed necessary so the Code and Financial statements on their own are unlikely to be sufficient.

Regarding the second: As you will be switching between the Code and the Financial Statements it would be normal to show this in your text as a reference i.e. making it entirely clear where any citations are coming from and which source you are using (the reader shouldn’t have to assume or guess as academic work is supposed to be methodical and precise.

Taking a universal approach is not really recommended as it could be construed as ‘Referencing is mostly absent or unsystematic’ and this is grounds for a fail.

If you are doing this because of issues of keeping within the word count you are recommended to edit your work to try to make way for appropriate referencing (Take a look at Parts 1 & 2 as you may be able to remove commentary that does not really add value there)

Help! If I have referenced articles on news sites – do i need to reference them as a newspaper article online i.e include the full date in my reference list or is it acceptable to treat it as a web page??

If I use same reference source for more than one or two sentences in a paragraph can I write the reference after the paragraph? Or should I write it after each sentence?

Thank you!

Thanks Madam,

Not exactly. However you need to make a reasonable allowance for graphs. I normally suggest that students allow about 100 words for graphs and diagrams so ensure that their word count is under 7,400. Do not paste in tables as images unless they are literally straight from the annual report. Tables should be constructed as Word tables instead.

Markers are aware of students trying to circumvent the word count and are likely to come down heavily on anyone whom they suspect of deliberately trying to abuse it. Therefore someone who overuses abbreviations (unless they are conventional abbreviations such as GP margin and EPS type of thing) could be failed on Communication if there are simply too many abbreviations to make sense of the commentary. If a report is crammed full of pasted written images and/or graphs the marker is likely to take the view if the word count is more than about 7,400 it has in fact significantly exceeded the 7,500 limit