Tips on Referencing a Dissertation

Referencing is a critical aspect when it comes to academic writing. When you correctly reference your work, you will have a perfect finish and also have support for your arguments, as presented in the dissertation.

Scholarly referencing

It refers to a collection of pointers to the sources that have been mentioned or quoted. Different institutions employ different styles of referencing, but they have the common factors that must get included, which are:

• Author
• Title of work
• Publication type
• The date it got published
• Place of publication
• The publisher

Reasons for referencing

• Steer clear of plagiarism. Through proper citations, you can get away with plagiarism. You will do this by making a provision of all the work you have used that was previously done by other people.
• Other easons may be that your readers may want to get in touch with your work on a personal level. You must make sure that they can trace the source of your work so that they can easily relate to it.
• Citing your work also informs the readers that you did an excellent job of reading and that you got information to the core.

Types of referencing styles you can use

There is not much of a big window when it comes to this sector. Most universities already have their systems of referencing in place, which every student is required to follow. You can choose between the parenthetical or footnote style, which is purely for Arts and Humanities, or you could opt for numerical formats that get applied in Sciences.

How to reference sources effectively

• Get systematic

Referencing a dissertation will get you dealing with tens or even hundreds of sources. If you do not keep track of your sources and wait till the end to list them down, you are going to have an uphill task. Developing a systematic mannerism of tracking the work you have read or cited will help you a great deal.

• Utilize software

You have choices to make at this point. You may use a spreadsheet or keep notes while you write. The best way to do this is to use software to manage your references. Most institutions will use subscription packages like EndNote and RefWorks to help students. You also have the option of using Zotero.

Such software contains the following features:

1. A platform that you can modify into several folders to cut the large numbers
2. A set of inputs to help you get all the required information
3. An auto generator for the records, especially on web plugins that can extract data directly from the sources.
4. Plugins that can assist you to input in-text citations
5. Several means through which you can generate your reference lists.

The packages can immensely help you save time and steer you toward completing your dissertation. Keep in mind that these platforms are man-made. Therefore, they cannot be ultimately accurate. Some errors may occur, and it is up to you to cross-check your documents for such setbacks and clean them up. You may sometimes feed in a piece of information to the wrong box, which will result in an error of placement of words. It is, therefore, best if you proofread your work before submitting it to your supervisor or tutor.