Why reference?

What is referencing?

Referencing means acknowledging someone else’s work or ideas. It is sometimes called ‘citing’ or ‘documenting’ another person’s work.
Referencing is a basic school and university requirement.
It is mandatory for all students to cite or acknowledge information that has come from other sources.
Without appropriate referencing students are in effect “stealing” the work of others - this is tantamount to academic fraud.

In University there are consequences if students fail to reference their assignments.
These may include:

Reduction in marks for assessment tasks.
Failure in a course of study.
Expulsion from a program.

Why do we reference?

To draw on the ideas, language, data, and/or facts of others. (You are expected to read and research widely).
To provide depth and support to academic work through citation of theories or key writers whose work supports your answer, argument, or contention.
To support academic writing, essays, business reports and oral presentations.
To demonstrate your ability to synthesise and analyse ideas sourced through your research.
To acknowledge work from others that you have quoted, summarised, paraphrased, synthesised, discussed or mentioned in your assignments.
To provide a list of the publication details so that your readers can locate the source if necessary.
To demonstrate the level and breadth of research undertaken by a student.
References used correctly will benefit your work and add to your final grade.

When do I reference?

You reference whenever you have used a piece of information of image that comes from

Text books
Journals
Published papers, (e.g. conference or working paper)
Newspapers
Websites
TV/Radio interviews
Personal communication
Others

You must cite the origins of the information you are using, whether you have copied the words directly or whether you have paraphrased.

If in doubt----REFERENCE!

The above information was retrieved from The RMIT University Referencing Guide