EARLY CHILDHOOD IRELAND

ONLINE TRAINING PROGRAMME

Referencing

All statements, opinions, conclusion, ideas etc taken from another writer’s work should be acknowledged, whether the work is directly quoted, paraphrased or summarised. This is done through ‘referencing’. ‘Another writers work’ includes published books & articles, material from the internet and other learners assignments.

There are many referencing systems or styles. The referencing system used by Early Childhood Ireland is the Harvard System of Referencing.

Plagiarism is when you use or closely imitate/copy the language and thoughts of another writer and represent them as your own original work. Using others’ ideas and/or words without clearly acknowledging the source of the information is also considered to be plagiarism.

Referencing helps to:

  1. Prove your work has a sound factual basis
  2. Show the research you have done to reach your conclusions
  3. Provide sufficient, accurate information for others who wish to locate the material you have referred to
  4. Avoid charges of plagiarism
  5. Distinguish between your own opinions and those of others

There are two essential elements of referencing

  • Citing – referring to sources within your assignment
  • Listing references – giving a detailed list of the sources you have referred to
  1. CITING – referring to sources within you assignment

When you write someone else’s ideas in your own works this is called paraphrasingor using an indirection citation.

You should give the authors name, year of publication and page number/s. If you are not referring to a particular section or page you do need to include the page number.

Examples:

According to Bruce (1996) play is really important to the all round development of children.

Meggit and Sunderland (2000, p70 -71) agree that children in this age range have good gross motor control.

A quotation or direct citation is when you use the writer’s exact words directly from the text.

You should always:

  • Quote the authors words exactly as they are written
  • Give the authors surname, name, year of publication and the page number
  • Enclose the quote in single inverted commas
  • If leaving out some of the authors words from a sentence you should use….. to indicate this.

Examples:

Bruce (1996, p.44) state that it is important that ‘…..children are taught to put things away.’

‘Work experience is the experience that a person has in the word of work.’ (Douglas and O’Neill, 2006, p.8)

If there are more than two authors you should use the surname of the first author followed by ‘et al’

Example:

Beaver et al (1999, p.9) state that ‘all children should be able to contribute to the displays in their environment.’

  1. LISTING REFERENCES – giving a details list of the sources you have referred to

At the end of your work you should list, in alphabetical order, the books which you have made reference to. This is called a ‘list of references’ or ‘reference list’.

List the details for each book in the following order and format:

  • Author(s) Name,
  • Author(s) Initial.
  • Year of publication – in brackets
  • Title of Book, - in italics orunderlined
  • Edition in brackets – if not first edition
  • Place of publication:
  • Name of publisher

These details can be found on the cover, spine and the reverse of the title page of a book.

It is important to be consistent with your use of punctuation in the reference list. You can use italics or underline for the title but stick to one or the other.

Examples:

Bruce, T. (1996) Helping Young Children to Play, London: Hodder & Stoughton.

Donohoe, D. and Gaynor, F. (2003) Education and Care in the Early Years, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan.

Bruce, T. (2001) Early Childhood Edcuation, (3rd Ed.), London:Hodder and Stoughton.

Only use ‘et al’ when citing authors in the assignment - all authors of each source should be named in the list of references

Example:

Beaver, M., Brewster, J., Jones, P., Keene, A., Neaum, S. and Tallack, J. (2001) Babies and Young Children: Diploma in Childcare and Education, Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes.

Information from the internet should be reference in the following format: -

Author/editor, Year, Ttitle of document (on line). Place of publication (if known) Publishers name: (if known) Available from: URL (Accessed date)

Example:

McNamara, C, 199. Free Basic Guide to Management and supervision (online). Available from: (accessed 7th November 2005)

These details can be found on the top and bottom of the web page, the logos and the web address

Early Childhood Ireland Online Training PL2011