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Griffith English Language Institute
HELP Yourself Resource Transcript: Referencing
In this video, we will look at
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the importance of integrating external sources into your writing
in-text direct quotations
in-text indirect quotations, and
writing a reference list.
To complement this video, you should also watch the video on paraphrasing.
Integrating external sources into your writing
Let’s look first at the importance of external sources. Integrating the work and ideas of
experts into your own writing is an essential skill at university. Your lecturers and tutors will
expect you to refer to external sources in most of your assignments; they won’t want to read
a paper filled with just your opinion.
You should refer to others to show that your ideas have been built upon the knowledge and
research of qualified experts in the field. It shows that you have read much about the topic,
and it allows you to introduce different points of view into your paper (by referring to different
sources). Also, by referring to the work of others, you can provide data, statistics and
examples to support your ideas.
There are two different methods to integrate an external source into your writing: a direct
quotation, and an indirect quotation. Both direct and indirect quotes are very common in
academic writing and you may well use both methods in every assignment.
Direct quotations
Let’s look at direct quotations, like the one on the screen now.
Direct quotations use the exact words of a source without changing anything - and that
includes any spelling or grammar errors. The format of a direct quote is important. You need
to include quotation marks on either side of the copied text plus the page number in brackets
at the end of the sentence, followed by a full stop. You should also provide the authors’
names and a date of publication.
There are, in fact, two ways to quote directly: you can either use an integral reference or a
non-integral reference. It’s a good idea to use both styles to vary your writing. This example
uses an “integral” quotation.
Notice that the author’s family name comes first, then the year of publication is given in
brackets, followed by the reporting verb ‘note’, and then the directly quoted words with the
page number in brackets at the end.
There are many commonly used reporting verbs in academic writing and you can see a list
of some of these words on the screen.
For non-integral direct quotes, the quoted text precedes the authors' names, which are
included in the brackets at the end.
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Note that in the Harvard referencing style, unlike the APA style, there is no comma between
the author’s name and the publication year.
Indirect quotation
Another way to reference is to use an indirect quotation. This means that you use your own
words to paraphrase or summarise the meaning of a passage from an external source, as
per this example.
Notice that there are no quotation marks this time because we have taken the general
meaning but not the exact words of the source. This means we do not include page
numbers, but we must still quote the source in brackets because this is not our own idea.
Look at the video on paraphrasing for more on this.
Reference lists
Finally, you must always include an entry for a referred source in the reference list at the end
of your paper. Only include the sources you have added in-text, not everything that you’ve
read.
Both the Harvard and APA6 referencing style guidelines have specific requirements for
reference list entries, particularly with regards to punctuation and spacing. These details are
very important, so you need to be aware of:
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commas
full stops
ampersands (“&”)
spacings
italics
quotation marks
indents, and
how volume, issue and page numbers are shown.
You can pause this video to compare these styles.
These examples are for a journal article. The formatting for references of a book, web page,
and newspaper article are all slightly different. It’s highly recommended that you consult a
style manual or use a digital tool such as the Griffith Referencing Tool to help you with the
formatting of your reference list. There is a link to the Griffith tool below.
This video has looked at the importance of referring to other sources via direct quotes and
indirect quotes, as well as the formatting requirements of reference lists. For more
information on referencing, you can explore the links below.
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