Referencing
What is referencing?
Referencing is the documenting of any sources you read, watch or use in writing your assignments. A source can include:
- an image
- a book
- an article (in print or from a website)
- video
- an interview with an expert in the subject you are writing about
- emails or blogs
- statistics
Why reference?
Referencing your work:
- shows that you have researched your subject
- gives credit to the people with the original thoughts and ideas
- allows your teacher to see where your knowledge has come from
- allows your readers to do further research
- helps you to avoid plagiarism
What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism is the using (or copying) of other people’s ideas or work and claiming it as your own. If you paraphrase (reword someone else’s work) without referencing it then that is also plagiarism. When deliberately quoting someone’s work, you must reference it both in the text, and in the bibliography at the end of your assignment.
What is a bibliography?
A bibliography is a list (in alphabetical order) of all the sources you used when creating your assignment.
Referencing styles
MacKillop Catholic College students are required to use Harvard referencing style as determined by SACE.
MacKillop Middle School students can use a simplified version of referencing:
Middle School Bibliography
MacKillop Senior students need to use a more detailed form of referencing:
Harvard Referencing
The SACE guide below offers a complete referencing guide:
Guidelines for referencing SACE
Referencing tools
The document above explains how to download and use Zotero – a free app to collect, organise and cite your references
How-to-Use-Bookmarks-in-Chrome to manage your website searches
Copyright
Australia has copyright laws that automatically protect any material item created by a human. Generally the creator is the owner of that copyright unless they sell the rights of use for that item. As a student, you can copy and use a certain amount of people’s material without having to ask their permission, for the purpose of your study. You must, however, acknowledge the use of that material through your referencing. Click here to further understand what copyright is, and what the limits of use are.