Cite references

Why you should cite references

When writing a piece of work, for work or an assignment, it's important to give complete, accurate references. Here are some reasons why:

• Your references show you have read around the subject
• Your argument will be stronger if supported by evidence from others' research
• You enable others to find and use the sources that informed your work
• If you don't include references, you will be guilty of plagiarism i.e. passing off someone else's work as your own

To find more about acknowledging your sources, go to Safari section 6 topic 5.

To find out how to use bibliographic software (e.g. EndNote or RefWorks) to store and present your references go to Bibliography management.

To see examples of how to cite references using the OU Harvard style, go to the OU Library's Harvard guide to citing references.

How to organise your references

You can acknowledge your sources by creating a list of references or bibliography. You do this in 2 steps:

Step 1: In text citations

In text citations are where you indicate in your work where you have used ideas or material from other sources. How you do this depends on which referencing style you use. Here are some examples using the OU Harvard referencing style.

• Further work (Brown, 1999) supports this claim
• Further work by Brown (1999) supports this claim
• "This theory is supported by recent work" (Brown, 1999, p.25)

Step 2: List your references at the end of your work

Everything you have cited in the text of your work , e.g. journal articles, web pages, podcasts etc, should be listed at the end. These are your references. References should include everything you need to identify the item, and should be in a standard and consistent format. Your reference list can also include items you have read but not referred to directly in your text.

Electronic sources should also be cited consistently and systematically. With e.g. web pages, e-journals, podcasts, you need to say when you last accessed them. This is because electronic sources are updated frequently, so saying when you accessed them is like giving the edition of a book.

Reference Styles

There are many different ways of citing references. Most journals and learned societies have their own requirements. The trick is to check with who you are writing for, pick a citation style and apply it consistently throughout your work. 

• The style often used at the OU is a variation of the Harvard style, and the OU Library's guide to citing references helps you to see what this looks like for the different types of material you might need to reference.
• The Citation guides page provides more guidance on different citation styles.

Citation tools

Citation style tools can assist you in creating your bibliographic references. Here are some to try:

1. Citation Machine
2. Easy Bib
3. Citation Builder