Reports and assignments as a part of the academics needs to be precise and fulfill certain standards. Reports made either for scientific or technical reasons, are often done as a result of a lot of referencing around material found on similar topics in others reports. It is always recommended to keep the source of information as transparent as possible. Otherwise, when one cites directly from another’s work without acknowledging the source of information, they can be accused of plagiarism which in itself is a very serious offence. If a student found guilty of plagiarism might receive grade zero or maybe even completely suspended.
There are different ways of acknowledging the original work but they all share two common pointers which are:
1.) A citation is inserted at the point of your text thus indicating the existence of that particular sentence
2.) A full reference to the citation is given at the end of the report so as to guide the reader to refer to the original report as well.
In a place like the Harvard University, everyone is required to follow the Harvard System of Referencing. It is nothing but a collection of rules and conventions that are applied onto the use of citations and references.
The two most important features of the Harvard System of Referencing are:
- In the main text, when a particular part is cited from another source, It is acknowledged thereby in parenthesis next to the statement made. It basically consists of the author’s name, year of publication and page numbers (optional). This is done so that it is easier to find further information in the reference list.
- The reference is the detailed version of the citation. The format of the reference may vary according to the type of work being submitted. For eg. If the source is a website we need to mention the uniform resource locator (URL) while its different for books.
Citations are done in two ways. The first is, if the mention of the author name does not hamper the flow of the text only the year of publishing is mentioned in parenthesis. The second one is when the mention of the author name may hamper the flow of the text then author name is placed within brackets along with other details.
For including quotations into the report, also there are two ways. The first one is when the quotation is a single sentence wherein it is simply accompanied by quotation marks on either side along with the normal citation. In the second method if the quotation is longer than a sentence it is shown as a separate paragraph. One must make sure that they do not edit the quotation and leave it as it is, but in case if there is an utter need to edit it, one must take care that it does not change the actual meaning and the edited portion is indicated with three dots within square brackets. As for reference list, one must take care that it each reference starts in a new line and is categorized on the basis of the author name.
Finally, Harvard referencing system is one such referencing system that is widely used and it avoids unnecessary accusations of plagiarisms. Not only that, it also helps the readers to easily refer to the original author’s work if required and the presenter of the report leaves a very good impression on the minds of the reader in the context of having put in a lot of efforts in researching content from outside sources whilst trying to prove his hypothesis with relevant information.
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