Many of our clients have questions regarding references and often struggle with various citation styles. From our blue program to green program, it is important to understand why referencing is important and identify the most common styles. Getting comfortable with referencing will help expand your writing skills and persuasive arguments. As Cooper (2020, 3rd paragraph) says “referencing or citation is a method of identifying and acknowledging someone’s work that you have used in your research.” Referencing is a method to incorporate external sources that you are using to support your thesis or main idea in an essay. References sources include, but are not limited to videos, audiotapes/files, peer-reviewed journal articles, online news articles, books, and websites. Santini (2018) states “the stamp of a good research worker is attention to detail at all levels of his/her research. Attention to detail cultivates good habits and the detail required in referencing and preparing a bibliography focuses attention on the whole research procedure.” Learning how to find quality references and cite them correctly lends credibility to an author, which in turn lends credibility to an author’s work. References show that the author is aware of their topic and has also thoroughly researched their topic and is connecting that previous research of their topic for their reader. There are several common reference styles frequently used depending on the primary subject an author is writing under. American Psychological Association (APA) style is most often used in social science papers (i.e., sociology, psychology, anthropology, communications, and political science). Modern Language Association (MLA) style is most frequently used when citing English and literature essays. Chicago style is often used for economic papers. A reference style that is more common in Australia and the U.K. is the Harvard referencing style. Scanmarker (2019) specifies four reasons that citing is important: plagiarism, credit, evidence, and persuasion. Citing information you find from other sources or people during the course of your research, helps protect you from the embarrassment of a plagiarism accusation. Referencing also helps an author give credit to past research and build upon that knowledge. Using references lends evidential support to your own research because it backs up your argument with other researchers’ findings. Finally, adding references makes your argument persuasive and increases the likelihood that someone will believe your argument because you took the time to research and present it to your audience. There are key pieces of information that should be included in your references. You should always include the author name and year for any in-text citations (or parenthetical citations). If you quote a source directly, you should include a page number or paragraph number if found on a website. For the bibliography, or works cited page, you should have the paper or article title, and either the journal name or website name. Finally, suppose you use an electronic source. In that case, you should include a doi for peer-reviewed journal articles or website URL for online web articles and pages. Finally, one of the most important things to remember in academic referencing is not using Wikipedia as a source. Wikipedia can help you gather some original sources, but do not ever use it to cite information. The reason for this is because Wikipedia is an open-source site that allows anyone access to add and edit information on their web pages. These web pages are not vetted by experts that can confirm or refute information on the page. Hence, it is a “user beware” situation in which researchers must find alternative, credible sources to cite their facts. We hope the basic information regarding referencing and its purpose has given you a new perspective on references. Referencing can be a very powerful academic tool when used correctly. Additionally, we have included several websites below where you can find the citation guidelines for the most frequently used citation styles. Additional Citation References Websites 1. Purdue Writing Lab: APA Citations https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_style_introduction.html 2. Purdue Writing Lab: MLA Citationshttps://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_and_style_guide.html 3. Harvard Referencing: https://www.librarydevelopment.group.shef.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.html 4. Purdue Writing Lab: Chicago Stylehttps://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/chicago_manual_of_style_17th_edition.html References Cooper, J. 2020. “LEARN THE IMPORTANCE OF REFERENCING IN ACADEMIC WRITING.” Accessed 14 February 2021 from: https://www.greatassignmenthelp.com/blog/importance-of-referencing-in-academic-writing/ Santini, A. 2018. “The Importance of Referencing.” Journal of Critical Care Medical, 4(1): 3–4. Scanmarker. 22 July 2019. “The Importance of Referencing in Your Essays.” Accessed 14 February 2021 from: https://scanmarker.com/2019/07/22/the-importance-of-referencing-in-your-essays/