Information literacy Green UAS (ENG): 5 : Process of information

In this module, you will learn when and how you can correctly refer to your sources and the resources that can help you with this.

Source citation means indicating the information's origin along with edited texts, images and image clips that are used to create a published work. There are various systems for citing sources, the green UAS usually uses the APA guidelines.

Citations should allow readers or viewers to assess the information’s reliability. This provides others the opportunity to expand on the information through further research or to correct it and to give the original’s creator the 'honour' and respect they deserve. The writing and ideas of others may not appear in your document without a source citation. If you fail to give proper credit, you will commit plagiarism.

If you use another's work, you are required to cite the copyright.  For the most part, students commit plagiarism unwittingly. As such, it is much more effective to be safe (plagiarism prevention) than sorry (plagiarism detection).

Definition of plagiarism:

Plagiarism entails acquiring others’ work of identical or slightly modified form without providing proper citation.

Explanation:

"...acquiring others’ work..."

• Work= text, or a fragment thereof, images, statistical material, graphics, sound or image recordings, diagrams, etc.
  • print work: books, magazine articles, journal articles, etc.
  • electronic work: online encyclopaedias, e-books, etc.

"...identical or slightly modified form..."

• Quotation= literal replication of a text fragment between double quotation marks (" ").
• Paraphrasing = acquisition of a person's ideas or propositions in slightly modified form, i.e. restated in your own words.
• Summarization = briefly display the key points of larger pieces of text (eg. a page, a chapter or an article) in your own words.
• Translation= use of foreign-language texts, for example, text translated from English into Dutch.

"...without providing proper citation..."

• Quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing or translating text without citing the source is plagiarism!

Plagiarism can be recognised by:

• a break in the style of the text, (smooth vs rough or scientific vs popular language usage);
• unexpected language (overly academic);
• differences in text formatting;
• different reference styles;
• mistakes made in, or the omission of, references;
• deviations from the subject;
• missing recent references.

Plagiarism can also be detected digitally by typing in part of one or multiple suspect sentences in a search engine or by using software specifically designed to detect text duplications, known as plagiarism detection software.

There are situations where you do not have to refer:

• When you state a well-known fact. This is a somewhat elastic concept, but a good criterion is that if your parents or siblings know this fact without having to look it up, it's considered common knowledge.

Well-known fact: the start and end date of World War I (1914-1918); the name of the current chancellor of Germany (Friedrich Merz).

A lesser-known fact: the start and end date of the Third Punic War (149-146 BC); the name of the Madagascar Senate president who served in between 2008-2009 (Yvan Randriasandratriniony).

• Whether the information originates completely from yourself. It is quite possible that you developed your own line of thought from the information sources. Similar ideas, positions or interpretations originate with you and therefore do not have a source.

There are several source citations systems that can be used. Green higher professional education generally uses the guidelines of the American Psychological Association (APA): https://apastyle.apa.org/. APA source citation style requires in-text source references that state the author and date. At the end of the text is a list of sources with detailed descriptions (references) of all the sources cited in the text.

How can a quote or a paraphrase be referenced in a text? A quote is always enclosed in quotation marks, either single or double depending on the regional style, the author(s), year or date and, if applicable, the page number is listed in between brackets.
A paraphrase is never enclosed in quotation marks, author(s) and the year or date are cited between brackets. Citing a page number is not mandatory but is allowed.
Except when between brackets, the reference to the source may also be included in the sentence.

How is a list of sources drawn up?
The list of sources is inserted at the end of the text as a new chapter, for the attachments. The list is alphabetical, regardless of the origin of the document. Therefore it does not consist of separate sections of books, articles, websites, etc.
The purpose of this list is to help the reader find the document that has been consulted.

What does not get included in a list of sources?
A list of sources only includes references that can be consulted by the reader. Therefore, items such as interviews, e-mails, personal interviews, classes, workshops, etc. are not stated. These can however be referred to in the text. According to APA style guidelines, the title, ISBN or ISSN is never cited.

5.3.1 : APA in practice

Detailed information on APA guidelines can be found in the Library guide APA guidelines or consult the Publication manual of the American Psychological Association.

A series of videos from Project APA7 explain different parts of referencing.

Citing sources according to the APA guidelines is often difficult if you have no experience doing so. Microsoft Word can help with this. And there is also bibliographic software - specialist software that can greatly facilitate the proper handling of sources in papers and publications.

5.4.1 : Source citation in Word

Microsoft Word 2013 and 2016 offer the possibility to help you with citing sources according to the APA guidelines via a special menu. The user only needs to enter the the details of the source consulted (book, article, website, etc.). A brief explanation of the use of this option:

Add a quote or paraphrase

• In your Word document click on the References tab
• Click on the arrow next to Style and select APA (this is probably already selected)
• Click Insert Citation and then Add New Source
• Fill in the citation details (check the example at the bottom of the screen) and click OK
• Your reference will now appear in your text

Create a bibliography

• In your Word document click on the References tab
• Click on Bibliography and then click Insert Bibliography
• Only the sources that you added by using the Manage Sources button are included in your bibliography.

For more information, click the Microsoft Office Help button (the question mark in the upper right of your document) and type in APA in the search box. To see some examples, you can take a look at APA guidelines with Word.

5.4.2 : Bibliographic software

To facilitate the correct processing of sources in papers and publications, you can use specialized bibliographic software, such as Mendeley.

Mendeley

Mendeley is a reference manager. With a reference manager you can easily:

• Save
• Organize
• Retreive
• Import/export

your sources. It works largely automatically, which saves you a lot of time compared to processing your sources manually via Word.

The Library guide Mendeley explains all the steps, where to find and install the software on your computer, how to enter sources and how to organize the sources in Mendeley. You will also learn how to process sources in your Word file and create a bibliography.

• Process of information
• Why do I need to reference my information sources?
• When am I not required to reference my information sources?
• APA guidelines
• Tools
• Practice