REFERENCING TECHNIQUES

When you have read material sourced from the library or even those of your own, it is essential
that you keep a record of those sources, just in case you may want to read them another time.
This will make it easy for you to retrieve them the next time you require to use them. You also
need to keep a record of what sources you read because it is academic morality to show which
sources you have used when your turn, for others to read what you have written, comes.

Referencing involves the acknowledging sources. In this section we shall briefly mention what
acknowledging sources of your information means. To acknowledge sources means that you are
recording the details of the source of your material after you have read when you engage in an
academic writing activity.

There are various ways in which you can show the sources of your information. These include
what you will from now generally refer to as CITATION. To cite a source is therefore to
mention the author of the material, the date of publication and the title of the material. But this is
not uniformly done. There are two basic techniques.

In-text citation is the means through which you will be required to indicate the sources of your
information briefly as you write text.

Reference list – a list of citations coming at the end of an essay, article, chapter or book which
includes all the material you have used and named in your writing.

Examples of In-text citation:

(a) Distant learning in adulthood is the most effective mode of career mobility (Mareri and
Wanyoike, 2004).

-This means that the idea, which is presented here is originally not yours but you have
read it from a source that was written by Mareri and Wanyoike, in 2004 and paraphrased
it (put it in your own words)

- “Distant learning in adulthood is the most effective mode of career mobility” (Mareri and
Wanyoike, 2004: 56).
 -This will now mean that you have written down the exact words as you read them from
thebook written by Mareri and Wanyoike in 2004 and the material is found on page 56 of that
book.

(b) Footnotes are used to indicate that certain material has been used and you wish to provide
further information about them. For example you could be writing your essay and you
indicate:

“Distant learning in adulthood is the most effective mode of career mobility”¹

As you can see, the statement is followed by a numeralical superscript at the end. At the bottom
of each page, you will then be required to draw a line and provide some information using the
numerals you have indicated. That information should always be one, which you did not want to
include in your main body of your write up, but you believe, will be of interest to your reader.
Thus this will appear at the ‘foot’ of the page with the superscripted line:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 The information is written by Mareri, L. and Wanyoike, P. (2004) Communication Skills II.

Egerton University Press. They are the authors of this Module

Footnotes are tedious to prepare you have to be very keen and patient if you choose to include
them in your writing.

End notes: This means that as you write your text as you state your ideas, you assign each a
numeral, which you will later use to show the source of the information in the reference list at
the end of the text. For example:
Conflict is a relational event¹. It is in fact a normal part of the process in which people define and
redefine the nature of their relationship. It is therefore a natural and predictable consequence of
people in ongoing relationships spending time with each other².

What follows here is the reference list to be found at the end:

1. Sillars, A.L and Weisberg (1987). “Conflict as a Social Skill,” In Roloff, M.J. and Miller, G.R.
(Ed), Interpersonal Processes: New Directions in Communication Research. Newbury Park,
Calif: Sage, 140-71.

2. Scott M.D. and Brydon, S.R. (1997). Dimensions of Communication: An Introduction.

Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing Company.

Reference list and bibliography

Bibliography is a complete alphabetical list of the sources of your information by authors’ last
name. This list should include all the works, which you have cited in your text as well as the
sources you may have used and not necessarily cited in your writing. This is placed at the end of
the main text. The bibliography can also be all written works, which could have helped you
formulate your ideas, even if you have not cited them in your text. An example is:

Bedward, D. et al (1997). First Line Management: A Practical Approach. Oxford: Heinemann.

Corner, J. and Hawthom, J. (1985). Communication Studies: An Introductory Reader. 2nd Ed.
New York. Edward Arnold.

Donaldson, T. (1986). Issues in Moral Philosophy. McGraw-Hill Publishing Company.

Fiske, J. (1990). Introduction to Communication Studies. 2nd Ed. London: Routledge.

Little, P. (1977). Communicating in Business. 3rd Ed. London: Pitman Publishing.

NB. A Reference list is similar to bibliography, but this is a list of ONLY those sources, which
you have shown and mentioned in your writing. The list is also written in alphabetically order.

How to cite/reference different information sources- See Academic literacy handbook

Book (one author, more than one)

Journal article, online journal

Chapter in an edited book

Unpublished thesis/conference paper

Newspaper article

Government report

Statutes and Laws/Constitution

Press release

Website, online articles, articles without dates/authors

Encyclopedia