Excellent thoughts and resources, following this with interest - a
shameless plug for our refzone - referencing and plagiarism resources
http://www.staffs.ac.uk/refzone
best
Dave
David Parkes
Associate Director
Information Services
Staffordshire University
College Road, Stoke on Trent,
Staffs ST4 2XS
Tel: +44 (0)1782 294369
Mob: 07917721684
Fax: +44 (0)1782 295799
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: learning development in higher education network
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sandra Sinfield
Sent: 24 June 2009 08:50
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Abundance of Academic Referencing Style
Thanks for this lovely brief 'essay' on referencing, which I placed in
my 'resources' file! Yes, re-purposing looms (no, not plagiarism!)
Like everybody else in the UK we have had a moral panic over referencing
& plagiarism - and at one point we were tasked to de facto re-direct all
the Learning Development budget to run anti-plagiarism classes for
naughty students. Instead I devised an on-line course - with, I hope, a
little humour for the students - and using Leicester's already extant
resources (with their permission!). See:
http://learning.londonmet.ac.uk/TLTC/learnhigher/Plagiarism/
And I have what I hope are some good notemaking resources here -
prevention being better than cure:
http://www.learnhigher.ac.uk/learningareas/notemaking/home.htm
See what you think of the NoteMaker...
Best,
Sandra
McMorrow, Martin wrote:
> Thanks to Alex, Neville, Leonard etc for their contributions on the
> topic of referencing. The points raised in Neville's research and in
> Alex's article certainly ring true in my experience of dealing with
> students who are feeling frustrated or mystified by the requirements
of
> academic referencing. And this is in a context where most students
only
> need to use APA style (as it's been adopted by the College of
Business,
> where most of the students I see are studying). It's also the case
that
> lecturers are inconsistent both in their own uses / examplars of
> referencing and in their policy in assessing referencing.
>
>
>
> Yesterday, I saw a postgraduate student here whose lecturer had gone
> through her work with a fine toothcomb - the lecturer had, for
instance,
> deleted the date in the in-text reference whenever a work had been
> previously cited in the same paragraph. She did this about 20 times.
To
> be honest, I didn't realise that dates weren't to be included for
second
> references in the same paragraph - even after three years of giving
> workshops on referencing. Mea culpa. On checking in the tome known as
> the APA Publication Manual (fifth edition), I discovered that actually
> repeating the date isn't 'wrong' anyway, but just unnecessary - the
> relevant guideline appears on page 208, in case you're interested:
> "Within a paragraph, you need not include the year in subsequent
> references to a study as long as the study cannot be confused with
other
> studies cited in the article". By the way, I suspect that endnote
would
> be unable to help students with that decision. But in this lecturer's
> mind, such a practice was wrong - and had to be stamped out - every
> time! Like a sin.
>
>
>
> What's the best response? Leonard's ideas on showing students the
> purpose of citation seem very useful. But I don't share his faith in
> endnote etc - I don't see these programmes as sorting out referencing
> any more than spelling and grammar checks sort out students writing.
> I've seen too many examples of nonsensical lists produced by endnote -
> on the 'garbage in, garbage out' principle. And, in any case, it
doesn't
> help students much with in-text referencing, which is where the
biggest
> difficulties emerge, I think. Alex's reformed referencing scheme
doesn't
> seem to be a solution either. It doesn't seem very different from APA
> and the need to specify which kind of source it is, might actually add
> to the difficulty (students may, for instance, not know if something
is
> a blog, a podcast, an ebook etc).
>
>
>
> What I'd like to see from university departments is both more
> consistency and more flexibility in relation to the use and
> acknowledgement of sources. On the flexibility side, for instance, why
> should students lose marks over the punctuation of their reference
> lists? Their introductory essay on corporate social responsibility -
one
> of a thousand - is hardly going to be published - and the vast
majority
> of these students will not be going on to write up research in
journals.
> Ever. Mastering the intricacies of referencing 'rules' is a relevant
to
> them as Latin conjugations were to us at school. Could it be that our
> emphasis on referencing rules is actually making the students hate
writing?
>
>
>
> In terms of consistency, I think that the departments have to look
very
> critically (as they're ALWAYS asking the students to do!) at the mixed
> messages they're giving regarding referencing / intellectual property
/
> acknowledging sources etc. For instance, if it's always necessary to
> acknowledge your sources, why get the students to write essays in
closed
> book exam conditions? The implicit message is, I think: Sometimes we
> want you to act like us academics, and sometimes we want you to act
like
> traditional schoolkids, reproducing unattributed knowledge that you've
> crammed into your brains. And you students need to know which rules we
> are applying to which assessment - or you fail.
>
>
>
> Having said that, I think that many of the lecturers here are already
> pretty flexible and also see referencing, like all the other areas of
> academic literacy, as a developmental process. The student body is so
> diverse, they really have to be. But more consistency would be nice.
>
>
>
> Cheers from bright and chilly Albany, New Zealand
>
>
>
> Martin McMorrow
>
> International Student Podcast http://tinyurl.com/6xy9xy
>
>
>
> Oh, and do have a look at the referencing advice website produced by
> Jenny Marshall at Auckland Uni http://www.cite.auckland.ac.nz
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* learning development in higher education network
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] *On Behalf Of
*[log in to unmask]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, 24 June 2009 4:22 a.m.
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* response re. Abundance of Academic Referencing Style
>
>
>
> Colleagues
>
>
>
> It is a welcome change to read a peice about citations and referencing
> that doesn't get hung up on the somewhat red herring of plagiarism.
But
> I'm not sure to whom Alec is addressing his challenge.
>
>
>
> We do, of course, have to distinguish between (1) the citation and
> referencing requirements set by **publishers
>
> ** and (2) those **we** in HE set for student coursework of various
kinds.
>
>
>
> I don't think that it's worthwhile debating the former - publishers
will
> do what they want, even using different styles for different journals
> from the same publisher. There used to be a British Standard for
> citations and referencing - it was prior to the mainstream adoption of
> personal computing and I think that it's now defunct.
>
>
>
> And Alec's own article seems to miss out on the fact that the whole
> process of managing citations and referencing has been largely
automated
> with bibliographic software providing write 'n cite facilities.
Provided
> that relevant biblio details are entered correctly for each item, a
> piece of text can easily produced using any of the 3,000 (plus)
styles/
> conventions to which Alec refers.
>
>
>
> The **key** issue for HE is surely, then, to ensure that students (a)
> can and do use bibliographic management software (eg EndNote Web), (b)
> understand the role that citations and referencing play in **various**
> types of text, and (c) recognise and can use the conventional formats
> for their particular subject discipline(s) (particularly where there
may
> be two or more in operation. This is, after all, not 'rocket science',
> and surely comes way down, in terms of difficulty, the list of the
> practices that HE students should be expected to master. What next -
get
> rid of reading lists because students are 'confused' about library
> classification systems or the online catalogue?
>
>
>
> The issue of the type of text is important. For many
> professionally-related HE courses, students would be expected to
produce
> both academic texts and texts that are related to the professional
arena
> (eg reports). The issue of citation and referencing in academic work
is
> much more significant, and specific standards/ conventions would
apply.
> These vary between disciplines, often for good practical reasons, and
I
> don't see why imposing one particular convention (eg Alec's own
> proposal) (just to make it 'easier' for students?) should be seen as
> progress. For texts such as reports, there may be no need to
citations;
> indeed, putting in citations may detract from the text. (How often
have
> you seen citations in internal reports produced by your own
universities?).
>
>
>
> Sure, there may be inconsistencies within departments. But that is
> surely addressed by challenging departments to be consistent, not by
> trying to convert the whole world to some new format.
>
>
>
> One more point re. citations. To help my students to understand the
> significance of citation in academic literature, I get them to use
> Google Scholar. Use any relevant search term, search, and Google
Scholar
> produces a list of sources. Point out the item 'Cited by ...' on final
> line of each source located. Point out that, generally, the list is
> ordered in terms of the number of citations, so giving some indication
> of relative importance. **Then** click on the 'Cite by ...' for any
item
> to get new list, this time showing sources citing the original item,
> again listed mostly in order of number of works citing each source.
> Other things to do:
>
> - begin to recognise author names that keep cropping up
>
> - look at titles - what do they suggest?
>
> - look for titles with words like 'review', 'critical' or
> 'critique', etc
>
> - check which journals are taken by own university library,
and
> access (soon get to recognise these).
>
>
>
> But change to one universal convention? Not a real option and not the
> real issue. Get an account on EndNote Web (or buy own copy if doing
PhD).
>
>
>
> Regards
>
>
>
> Len
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* learning development in higher education network
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] *On Behalf Of *Alec Gill
> *Sent:* 23 June 2009 14:29
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* Abundance of Academic Referencing Style
>
>
>
> *Dear LDHEN,*
>
> *This Thursday's (25th June) issue of the Times Higher Education (THE)
> magazine contains an article by me (pp.24-25) highlighting the
absurdity
> and abundance of academic referencing styles. THE have entitled it
> */*"There are 3,000 ways to cite source material - why not make it
one?" */
>
> *As an academic tutor with the Study Advice Service at the University
of
> Hull, my sympathy is with the poor students. They often have to put up
> with inconsistencies in the departmental guidelines on 'how to
> reference' and endure some academics who have a 'fetish' for specific
> ways of listing references.*
>
> *I argue for a revised 'Harvard' system that could be described as the
> "Author-Year-Type" style. *
>
> *The long (original) version is set out at my blog:
> http://academicreflexions.blogspot.com/. This is nearly 2,000 words
long
> and the Times asked me to shorten it to a 750-word piece under their
> Opinion section - you know what it is like - so I did!*
>
> *Anyway, I have been emailing and getting good advice from Colin
Neville
> at the University of Bradford (he is the expert on Referencing
issues),
> and he recommended that I give LDHEN members a preview of the idea -
so
> here it is - I have never done this kind of thing before. *
>
> *If you feel like leaving a Comment on my blog, please feel free to do
> so. Equally, there might be an opportunity to leave Comments on the
THE
> online website. As Colin has remarked "*/*I hope that your article
> sparks off a discussion in HE about this long-neglected issue*//*".*/
>
> *This article could be the opening shot of a long-running campaign for
> change - for the benefit of our students.*
>
> *Cheers for now and thanks for your time.*
>
>
>
> *Take Care,*
>
> *ALEC GILL MBE*
>
> *[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>*
>
> *01482.466344 - Office*
>
> *Study Advice Service*
>
> *The University of Hull (UK)*
>
> *Academic Tutor + MultiMedia Developer*
>
> *www.hull.ac.uk/studyadvice <http://www.hull.ac.uk/studyadvice>*
>
> *www.hull.ac.uk/php/cesag <http://www.hull.ac.uk/php/cesag> - my
> research work*
>
> *01482.225009 - Home*
>
>
> Consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you
> really need to.
>
>
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--
Sandra Sinfield
University Teaching Fellow
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