As an editor, I often read papers and theses with varying degrees of consistent and well-considered referencing. The most recent MA thesis I edited presented the inspiration for this post – many references included in the text and left out of the list (10 pages’ worth), and several easily corrected errors, such as transposing author initials, and mixing up the order of authors’ names in the citations. The particular inspiration, though, was references that had incorrect book titles, missing information, and incorrect details, like year of publication, spelling of authors’ names and dead website links. Taking what was there and plugging into Google Scholar took all of 10 second to find the correct reference. It got me thinking, does sloppy, incorrect or inconsistent referencing say something to readers/examiners/reviewers about your ability to do research? 

I think, yes. Let me explain. Finding a useful text that doesn’t immediately tell you upfront all of the citation details, like the date of publication, or the place of publication (for example a working paper you find online, or a research report) prompts you to do some research to be able to cite the resource properly. You can’t just provide whatever you know and hope that the reader will be able to find the resource too. Remember, a reference list is more than an account of what you have read; it is a reading list for your readers, so that they can delve deeper into the research if they are interested, or need to look beyond your paper for further reading.

To provide your readers, then, with a useful and complete reference list, you need to do some research. In most cases this literally means going to Google Scholar, and typing in what you do have:

Press ‘search’ and you end up with a list of sources:

You could then, if it is available to you, click on the link to the right [PDF] to find the paper (usually a free version), like this from the author’s university repository:

This also contains the citation for both in text (Archer, 2010) and the reference list. But, if all you need is a citation, in one of the accepted formats, you can click underneath the reference on either ‘Cite’ or the quotation mark (in the newest version of Chrome):

This will give you the screen below:

You can then very easily copy and paste, and edit if needed, into your text.

This is the easy version of doing a bit of research to find ALL the information you need to consistently and completely include a reference in your text.

Sometime, though, Google Scholar is not entirely helpful. You type in the information you have and end up with incomplete citations, like this one:

Although this has most of the details, it is missing a place of publication. Thus, you would need to do a bit more research and plug this into Google to find out where SUNY Press is located. This reveals with a few clicks that the Press is located in Albany, New York. This detail can now be added to the reference to complete it.

But it can get more complicated, like referencing working papers or legal statutes, or research reports. What you need to do here, is work with Google, Google Scholar, and other people’s reference lists (who have also cited the paper etc you are using), and find the information you need, and then reorganise it into your chosen citation format.

Example:

This may become a version of this: Republic of South Africa. 2006. Children’s Act, 2005 (No. 38 of 2005), Government Gazette, 492(28944), 19 June 2006.

Or this:

which may become a version of this: Piper, N. 2007. Enhancing the migration experience: Gendering political advocacy and migrant labour in Southeast and East Asia. IDRC Working Papers on Women’s Rights and Citizenship, No. 1, February. Online at: https://www.idrc.ca/sites/default/files/sp/Documents%20EN/WRC-WP2-Piper-Migration.pdf [accessed 15 November 2017].

Most of this information is on the cover page, but the URL needed to be copied and pasted from the website.

Or finally this:

Sometimes, Google Scholar gives you a citation with no hyperlinks to follow. What you can then do is click on ‘Cited by X’ and choose one of the resulting papers that has a full-text link. Scroll down the the reference list, and find the details you need. You can then transpose these into your paper or thesis references, in your chosen citation format.

Part of the problem with references that are incorrect, incomplete or inconsistently presented, perhaps, is the misunderstanding about the technical work the references perform in a paper or thesis. They create, for your readers, a cumulative sense of the credibility of your work – the basis for your claims and arguments – and they provide, as noted above, a clear and complete reading list, which other researchers can use to read further, or more widely in their own research.

Your writing, whether in a thesis or paper, contributes to knowledge in your field, and gives other researchers, like you, knowledge and learning to draw into and build on in their own work. How do they do so if you don’t give them the information they need to read what you have read, and move on to other and further reading from there? You don’t just contribute through your argument; you contribute through tracking the resources you used to build and make that argument too.

Take the time to do the research around your referencing carefully, and persistently. This persistence in getting your references right, for editors, reviewers and examiners, reflects well on you as a researcher and writer. It says you can do basic and slightly more complex searching and research, that you care about your work, and that you understand the role of referencing in providing readers with a full account of the sources you have used in building and making your argument.