During your course at IADT, you will be asked to produce written assignments, and within those assignments, you will need to refer back to the work of others. Doing this is called citing and referencing.
This work can be articles, websites, books, films, art, and any other material produced by someone else that you have used in your assignment. It is important to be consistent and accurate in your references to enable readers to identify and locate the material to which you have referred to. To do this, the same set of rules should be followed throughout your written work every time you cite a reference.
Referencing styles provide a system for in-text citations and for the creation of a bibliography or references list to be appended to the end of your written work. Currently, there are four key referencing styles used at IADT – APA, MLA, Harvard, and MHRA. to know which style to use, please ask your lecturer or tutor.
Some of the work you cite will be licensed under a Creative Commons license as well as under copyright. When citing and referencing, make sure to not breach the licensing rules of the content you are using. More information on this can be found in the tab above.
Academic integrity is the practice of being honest and forthright in your academic writing. Essentially this means always giving credit to your sources and not claiming work as your own when it has been taken from someone else. This applies to individual assignments, as well as in group tasks. It applies to not only written material but to multimedia sources also.
You can attain academic integrity by citing fully and correctly, by providing reference lists, and avoiding plagiarism as a whole.
The majority of referencing and citation examples in this guide are sourced from UCD Library. UCD Library's full referencing guides can be found here.
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When researching and writing your essay, there are some steps you can follow.
There are two main ways to use references within your writing.
References should not be passed off as your own work. That is considered plagiarism. Here is some information on plagiarism and how to avoid it.
Citing: referring to sources you quote or paraphrase within your document. You should always cite the sources you use in your work. This brief citation refers the reader to the exact place in your reference list or bibliography where you will provide the extended details of the source.
Reference list: usually placed at the end of your assignment. It is the detailed list of sources that have been cited within the text. Every reference must have enough information for the reader to find the source again. This is only sourced that have actually been cited.
Bibliography: a list of all references consulted in preparing the document, whether you cited them in your assignment or not. It can also include titles useful as background reading.
Source NUI Galway & University of Limerick
The Complete Guide to Referencing and Avoiding Plagiarism by 
Doing your research project: A guide for first time researchers by There are several reasons why referencing is important in academic writing. Referencing properly:
Our past theses collection is available online HERE with your IADT login.
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