MLM Toolbox for Students - Referencing Requirements

This document aims to provide Maritime and Logistics Management students with a clear guide to referencing, whether for an assignment, report, project, research proposal, dissertation or thesis.

In the event that special requirements do apply to some courses, students are advised to check first with their lecturers or course coordinators.

This document does not deal with copyright or intellectual property. These matters should be referred to the Academic Registrar, appropriate AMC Committees, or to Australian regulatory bodies.

The document has been written with the assumption that students can apply basic grammatical conventions. It is presumed that users already possess reasonable competence in spelling, punctuation, in the use of sentences and paragraphs and in the structuring of a piece of writing of some length.

Why reference?

1. Referencing demonstrates to your reader that you have researched the topic. You may of course use your own opinions, but referring to (‘citing') the opinions of others will give more depth to your work. When you mention an idea or source of information from somebody else's research, you must credit them with two references, one ‘in-text' and one in your references list.
2. Reference in order to verify quotatons.
3. Referencing enables readers to follow up and read more fully the cited author's arguments.
4. Avoid plagiarism by referencing. Reasonable length quotations from other authors may be used and are encouraged in academic writing as long as they are acknowledged. Plagiarism, however, is cheating and occurs when:

• Paragraphs, sentences, a single sentence or significant parts of a sentence which are copied directly are not enclosed in quotation marks and referenced in the text, including page number(s);
• Direct quotations are not used, but text is paraphrased (someone else's idea is expressed in your own words) or summarised, and the source of material is not acknowledged by reference in the text;
• A diagram or table is reproduced from someone else's work and the source is not acknowledged by reference in the text.

A student found cheating is liable to result in any of the following:

• No marks for the assignment/exam
• The award of a FAIL in the unit, module or subject concerned
• The award of a FAIL in all units in which the student would have received final results in the same academic semester
• Exclusion from the College for a period
• Expulsion from the College

Referencing musts

Referencing should be accurate, clear, simple, consistent and in accord with established conventions. It should enable the reader to locate the source.

There are two major systems of referencing used at tertiary level:

• The Harvard System (also referred to as the 'author-date' system)
• The Oxford System (also referred to as the 'traditional note' system)

In common with most Australian universities, the Department of Maritime and Logistics Management requires the Harvard method. The Oxford system will therefore not be dealt with here.

The Harvard system of referencing consists of two major elements:

1. Very brief references to the works used are given in the text of assignment (in-text referencing)
2. Full details which are provided at the end of the assignment in a list (list of references).

How to reference

Within the text - In-text citations

Include three pieces of information about a source in round brackets within the text of your work:

1. The name of the author or authors
2. The year of publication
3. The page number (when the information/idea can be located on a particular page, or when directly quoted).

At the end of the text - list of references

The References in the Harvard system is a single list of all the books, journal articles and other sources you have referred to throughout your assignment.

• References should be listed alphabetically by author family name and not numbered.
• Reference list should include full details of the in-text references i.e. author, date, title, and publishing details. Additionally, if an item is sourced from the internet, the URL and the date accessed should be included.
• Format the list with a hanging indent.
• Put the book or journal title in italics.

An example of an end - reference for a book

Note locations of punctuation in above example

Further examples of referencing

• A collection of reference examples (PDF)