As a student citing is important because it shows your reader (or professor) that you have invested time in learning what has already been learned and thought about the topic before offering your own perspective. It is the practice of giving credit to the sources that inform your work. Our definitions of academic integrity, academic misconduct and plagiarism, also give us important reasons for citing the sources we use to accomplish academic research. Here are all the good reasons for citing. Misrepresenting your academic achievements by not giving credit to others indicates a lack of academic integrity. This is not only looked down upon by the scholarly community, but it is also punished. When you are a student this could mean a failing grade or even expulsion from the university. One major purpose of citations is to simply provide credit where it is due. When you provide accurate citations, you are acknowledging both the hard work that has gone into producing research and the person(s) who performed that research. Think about the effort you put into your work (whether essays, reports, or even non-academic jobs): if someone else took credit for your ideas or words, would that seem fair, or would you expect to have your efforts recognized? Providing accurate citations puts your work and ideas into an academic context. They tell your reader that you’ve done your research and know what others have said about your topic. Not only do citations provide context for your work but they also lend credibility and authority to your claims. For example, if you’re researching and writing about sustainability and construction, you should cite experts in sustainability, construction, and sustainable construction in order to demonstrate that you are well-versed in the most common ideas in the fields. Although you can make a claim about sustainable construction after doing research only in that particular field, your claim will carry more weight if you can demonstrate that your claim can be supported by the research of experts in closely related fields as well. Citing sources about sustainability and construction as well as sustainable construction demonstrates the diversity of views and approaches to the topic. In addition, proper citation also demonstrates the ways in which research is social: no one researches in a vacuum—we all rely on the work of others to help us during the research process. To Help Your Future Researching Self & Other Researchers Easily Locate SourcesHaving accurate citations will help you as a researcher and writer keep track of the sources and information you find so that you can easily find the source again. Accurate citations may take some effort to produce, but they will save you time in the long run. So think of proper citation as a gift to your future researching self!
In general, you must document sources when you provide information that you ordinarily would not have known before conducting your research, and when you provide information that it cannot be assumed the reader knows. You must cite a reference when you:
While you are doing research and locating sources, be sure to document materials thoroughly, noting the author, title, publisher, place of publication, date, and page numbers of all sources used. For electronic materials, you should also note the DOI number (Digital Object Identifier) if available. Note the URL of any website you consult; depending on the source, you may need it for the reference. APA style no longer requires a database name for most references; MLA style still requires it as part of your citation. In either case, make a note of it in case you need to retrieve it at a later date. Common Knowledge Things that are common knowledge do not require citation. For example:
However, if someone draws an original conclusion from a common fact, then you must cite the source:
Also, common sayings or proverbs need not be cited:
Below is a famous saying you might recognize, but it's actually from a poem by Sir Walter Scott. If you read this in a book, of course, you would cite the book. If you already knew this expression, you should still give Sir Walter Scott credit for it because it has a distinct and identifiable origin.
In writing research papers and their evaluation, references or citations play a central role. Knowing the role(s) in detail will help you to cite accurately and responsibly.
Commonly understood roles of referencesAccording to several top search results, when “role of references in research” is searched in Google, referencing have the following important roles:
However, these commonly understood roles don’t clearly reflect the deeper impact (as listed below) references make on the research paper itself and science overall. References (summarised from here):
A wrong perception of referencingAccording to many search results, the most common role of referencing is to acknowledge or give credit to other researchers. This creates a wrong perception among authors that they need to cite references neutrally without constructive scientific evaluation (praise or criticism). No wonder an editorial published in Nature genetics reported that neutral, flavourless or unexamined citations frequently occur in research articles and supporting or contradictory publications are rarely cited. This is an increasing problem for the integrity of scientific communication. This situation can be improved by acknowledging that referencing is not a neutral act but a political act (without bad politics). In fact, acknowledging the political nature of referencing is a vital rule for responsible referencing. For more on responsible referencing, see here. But why referencing is a political act? By assessing many research articles, you select the articles you want to cite and discard others. To pose the research questions and support the claims and novelty of your research work, rather than neutral representations of the references, you accurately represent, inflate, or deflate the contributions of other researchers’ works. See the following examples. Example 1: Using references to establish the research question.
Example 2: Using references to support claim and novelty of the research paper.
ConclusionAppreciation of the broader roles of referencing and its political nature will enable researchers and scientists to produce research works by making citations accurately.
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