Referencing – Rules, Queries, Harvard etc.

@Abi – You should not use copy and paste extensively and you MUST always use quotation marks when doing direct citations as well as include a reference. Paraphrase instead as too many instances of direct citations can result in fails for Understanding and Referencing on the grounds of ‘bad academic practice’

You may use online tools but ensure any paraphrasing still makes sense if you use an internet tool – some thesaurus and paraphrasing produce nonsense. If it results in dodgy English then it can be failed on Communication. I heard about one student talking about a company’s ‘adapting’ – what they meant was ‘gearing’ – the English didn’t make sense as they had used a different meaning for the word ‘gearing’!

Plz hw many references are needed on average

@zilyenge – I suspect that you failed on Referencing not so much on the actual quality of the references you produced but more because the marker/ moderator felt there should have been more references in the text. From the comments it seems that you probably did not reference your work enough. Remember EACH time you state something as a fact or use the work or ideas of others it must be referenced in the text. This also extends to the graphs and charts.

Web addresses should not appear in the text but they should be included in the list. As you have made many citations from the written statements in the annual report, the marker expects to see the actual page number so they can find them for themself – so (Chairman’s review, 2012 p.12) is what you should show in the text but you only need to put Chairman’s Review (2012) once in the list however many times you refer to it. Where there is only one reference to a particular source the page no. is shown in the list but by contrast a source used more than once shows the page no. in the text and not the Reference List.

@kunleoniboukn – That is a very good idea. Reference it appropriately in the text and also in the Reference list and in the list after the details you can put in brackets (Loaded as Appendix No. x)

@dorcas There are no hard and fast rules as to where the title goes and the reference as long as both are included. Sometimes it depends what program you are using and whether it is an Excel or clip-art chart. Excel normally asks you to put in a title when creating the chart in which case the reference at the bottom is more convenient. In my own work I have tended to put the title above and immediately in brackets following the title put the source /reference but most of the charts I do are clip-art. However equally a graph/chart looks fine if the title is above and the reference is below.

If using someone else’s chart I tend to go with their title wherever possible – although sometimes this may need to be modified and possibly both the modified title and the original title included. For example a chart from the National Business Ethics Survey (NBES) called in their report “The State of Ethics in America’s Most Powerful Companies” was copied and pasted into my own work including this title but as the emphasis of my paper was on whistleblowing/reporting workplace malpractices rather than ethics and I was using this chart to demonstrate a specific point on this I wrote above it :
“Exhibit 23: Differences between Fortune 500 and other companies’ employees in relation to reporting wrong doing (NBES, 2012)” whilst still keeping the original title attached to the actual chart. NBES (2012) was of course shown in the Reference list.

Really as long as there is an appropriate title and an accurate reference I wouldn’t worry unduly about this though 😀

@Muhammad Nouman Shafique – I am not sure I understand your question properly.

You are required to explain your company/ its comparator’s performance so any source that allows you to do this effectively may be included

You MUST reference all sources so that would encompass both your chosen company and its comparator or any other company.

Hi @trephena

I need your help on the following:

1. Can I use a single reference for a couple of paragraphs. For instance, after writing a couple of paragraphs about one of company’s strengths (e.g. strong liquidity) and all these paragraphs are based on 1 article. Will it be sufficient to write (bloomberg, 2014) after last sentence.

2. Where is the best place to include calculation made other than ratios ( e.g. % change) and the raw data used to reach to the final figure. Appendix or excel sheet?

Thnx in advance

Hey guys,

Just a quick question of number of references allowed. I am doing topic 8. I have quite a lot (63), but 6 of these are the FS of each business. Some are also the same source mentioned twice in separate articles, but with a different identification on each. (eg, BBC, 2014a and BBC 2014)

Will I be penalised for this? After so much hard work of research I don’t want to fail on something so simple.

@hanson90 – there is no definitive answer for how many references you should have and you will not be failed on having too many provided they are relevant and are properly referenced in both the text and list.

Every statement of a fact, idea and work of others needs to be referenced along with the graphs and charts (to show where the info has come from). Provided this is done and they are placed in the text (not stacked up at the end of the paragraph), do not include web addresses and are included in the list, they should be fine.

Markers will check some of them and if they are missing in the text where there should be one or you have some more in the list than are actually in the report or have different identifies/ designations from text to list then they will tend to pounce! Generally they may forgive the odd aberration but will fail if there are too many things that are wrong

@Mohsin – you should not be putting links in the text at all. Their place is in the reference list where you would only show the link once. It should have the same designation in the text each time regardless of how many times it appears if it refers to same document. If the document is very long then you need to give the individual page numbers in the text but it would still only have one entry in the list where you can put the web address/ URL / weblink etc.

This point has been dealt with on the Forum called Harvard Referencing – so please look there first if you have further questions

@ dorcas – I have never used MS to generate a reference list so I cannot comment reliably on this but understand that sometimes it needs editing e.g. the Code tends to come up as (FRC, 2012) which is a nuisance! I think it may be the case that the default is to issuing body /author whereas occasionally (such as here) a different designation is preferable

Maybe what you need to do is wait until you have finished if this IS the problem you are having and then take your Word doc do what I call a ”Ctrl-H job” on your report and get Word to replace all (FRC, 2012) references with (Code, 2012) and then just edit the entry in the Reference list to Code (2012). (Remember Ctrl-H will only work throughout if every entry for (FRC, 2012) is exactly the same -if you have omitted a comma or put in an extra space it will not recognise that entry as being in need of changing so you will need to go through afterwards to check for any rogue ones that have been missed)

I suggest that you save a separate copy of your RAP first before editing just in case something goes drastically wrong (this is wise anyway and something you should do regularly) then you can go back to the earlier version.

With your other problem when referring to the written sections of the annual report IN THE TEXT you should insert page numbers so (DMJ, 2013 p.35) and (DMJ, 2013 p.41) are preferable. There only should be one item in the list that relates to these e.g. DMJ (2013) – Annual report (or Risk assessment statement, DMJ etc). The rule is if there is only ONE reference to a document in the text then the page numbers go in the list BUT if there are several references to the same document in the text then the page numbers have to go in the text as the same document should NEVER be LISTED more than once

I hope that helps

@trephena – Phew thanks! Do I have to attach the spreadsheet I calculated the ratios and graphs on? And is it necessary to include a bibliography?

@hanson90 – Load the spreadsheet as an appendix. Bibliography is not mandatory (but nice) but of course a reference list is