Referencing & citing

Referencing (or citing) is an important skill and expectation at UOW. This is because accurate referencing in your academic writing: 

• Helps you avoid plagiarism and demonstrate academic integrity 

• Shows proper acknowledgement for all contributions to your work  

• Ensures the sources you have used can be located 

• Demonstrates your research and understanding of a topic 

• Helps you build on the work of others and provide evidence for your ideas, making your writing more credible 

Adapted from Maynooth University Library (2024) and University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Libraries (2024) 

• Why do we reference?
• Plagiarism
• Other types of academic misconduct

Different referencing styles are used across UOW depending on the field of study. It is essential to check in each Subject Outline and/or check with your subject coordinator or tutor about which is the correct style to use.

Referencing guides for some common styles used at UOW

• UOW Harvard
• AGLC3
• AGLC4
• APA7
• Footnoting
• History style guide

More referencing styles hosted by other universities

• Chicago - Murdoch University
• IEEE style - Murdoch University
• MLA - Purdue University
• Vancouver - Griffith University

In academic writing, you need to use evidence to support your argument and the information you present, and there are various ways to integrate evidence into your writing.

Key points

• Paraphrasing: A critical academic practice of using your own words to talk about the work and ideas of others without changing the meaning. Learn more about paraphrasing
• Quoting: Using the exact words from another work and presenting them in an appropriate format in your text. Learn more about quoting.
• Summarising: A great habit to get into where you extract from a text the most relevant information for your needs. You probably already do this in your daily life. Learn more about summarising

When undertaking research for assessments you must decide whether a source is reliable or not, particularly if you have found it online. For instance, a peer-reviewed journal article is likely more trustworthy than a blog.

Learn more

• Evaluating the quality of online information

Before using generative AI when preparing your assignments, it is important to check your assessment instructions or with your Subject Coordinator to ensure this is permitted.

If you have permission to use generative AI in your assessment work, your use of generative AI needs to be acknowledged.

Academic integrity is the principle that academic work is produced honestly. This means acknowledging all sources of information in your assignment, including generative AI. It also means paraphrasing and summarising sources of information in your assignment, including generative AI.

Failure to take these important steps can mean your use of generative AI violates the UOW academic integrity policy and becomes academic misconduct. Notable types of resulting misconduct could include plagiarism, cheating, and ghost writing.

Different ways of acknowledging your use of generative AI:

Using generative AI as a writing or assistive tool – You must provide a statement addressing your use of generative AI in the assignment’s creation. This statement must specifically illustrate how you have used generative AI in your assessment. Follow any guidelines provided by your Subject Coordinator, e.g. if they are seeking specific information about your use of AI or if the assignment stipulated creating and/or evaluating generative AI content; if none are provided, the statement below can be adapted:

Example: The generative AI tool [Name] was accessed on [Date] to assist in the writing/editing/formulation of the [Subject Code] assessment task [Task Name]. [Name] was used to [List functions of AI in assignment creation].

Using generative AI as a research tool for coursework assessments – In addition to the above acknowledgment, if you are permitted to use generative AI as a research tool and draw upon this information in your assessment task, you will need to reference the original generative AI source. An in-text citation must be included at the point where you quote, paraphrase, summarise, or synthesise information from this source, with an accompanying reference list/bibliography entry added for this source.

Please note:

• • As generative AI is widely considered an unreliable source, you are encouraged to prioritise searching for quality peer-reviewed academic literature.
  • Not all referencing styles have guidelines for citing generative AI in their reference lists/bibliographies. Please see the guidelines below.
  • For citations that include prompts, for lengthy prompts include an excerpt in the citation, e.g. “Describe the features of the Revisionist Western …” and provide the full prompt in an Appendix.

Examples for citing generative AI across different referencing styles used at UOW

Further information can be found in UOW’s Referencing Guide.

There are several tools that can assist you with referencing:

• Endnote: This tool is supported by UOW and can be used by postgraduate students to help manage information sources when writing. Learn more about EndNote
• Other referencing tools: Tools recommended for undergraduate students include Zotero and Mendeley. Find out more