INFORM-e
Information skills for University

Law

Why and how to cite references

• Introduction
• Scenario
• Best solution
• Why cite?
• Plagiarism
• How to cite
• Top tips
• Topic map

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4: Top Tips for Citing References

• Remember that whenever you include the work or ideas of someone else whether as a direct quote, a paraphrase or brief reference, you must cite your source.
• You should also reference all cases and legislation used to back your statements or arguments so that the lecturer can see the legal basis for your decision.
• Keep the full details of all resources you use while doing your research so that you can use them to create citations and reference lists later.
• When taking notes from a resource make sure you mark which are direct quotations and which are paraphrasing or summaries of ideas so that you can cite them correctly later.
• Use the Numeric System unless your tutor has given you other instructions on how to reference for a particular assignment
• Be consistent, whichever system you choose, in the way you reference throughout each piece of work (punctuation, layout etc).
• Your footnotes should include all the resources you have cited in your text. You may also be asked to provide a bibliography. This is a list of everything you have read during your research and can include resources you have not cited in your text.
• Keep the Library help leaflets handy to look at when checking how to reference correctly or add the electronic versions of the leaflets to your favourite websites:
  1. Citing References: Law Resources (Numeric System)
  2. Citing References: Law Resources (Harvard System)
  3. Citing References: Printed Resources
  4. Citing References: Electronic Resources
  5. Citing References: Multimedia Resources
• Academic staff can spot plagiarism - they know the resources in their subject area, they can spot changes in writing style, they can search the Internet just like you or even make use of software that identifies text copied from other resources.

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