Referencing is a way of acknowledging other peoples’ ideas and work. You do this through a citation (in the text of your work) and a reference at the end of your work.
References to other people’s ideas and work are an important part of academic writing as they:
Remember to reference every source that you use:
The citation within the text of your work is a brief acknowledgement to a source you have used for any of the reasons listed above. If you are using a direct quotation or are referring to a specific idea or assertion by an author, you need to let your reader know where you found the information by giving the author/creator’s surname, the year and the page number, e.g. (Surname, Year, Page).
Example 1: Research has shown a direct link between body image and self-esteem (Jones, 2019, p.4).
Example 2: Jones (2019, p.4) found a direct link between body image and self-esteem.
The page number is important, as one of the prime functions of referencing is to enable your reader to quickly locate the information you have used and to verify the conclusions you have drawn. By using the page number, your reader can do this without having to read the entire work. If you are not referring to a specific idea or assertion, but are referring to a work by an author in its entirety or to a more general argument you only need to include the author / creator’s surname and the year, e.g. (Surname, Year).
If you have named the author in the flow of your text, you only need to provide the year and page number (if applicable), e.g. (Year, Page).