Glossary
A section at the end of a paper, report, article or book that contains additional information, such as figures, tables, charts, graphs, statistics or transcripts.
Citation of a source that emphasises the author of the source in your writing. The inclusion of the author’s name in the main text is usually followed by a reporting verb.
For example:
Doolan suggests …
Howard and Custance (2018) claim that …
See also: Idea-prominent citation.
A list of sources at the end of a paper that includes works cited in the text, as well as works that have contributed to the preparation of the paper. A bibliography differs from a reference list, which only includes sources you have cited in your text.
The AGLC and Oxford referencing styles require a bibliography.
In some referencing styles, a block quote is a long quote that is set apart from the main text in an indented paragraph. See your required referencing style for further details.
To include a source and reference it as evidence in your work.
To quote, paraphrase or summarise a work, and provide details of where you found that work.
A citation may take the form of an in-text citation (author-date), a footnote, an endnote, or a numbered citation. See your required referencing style for further details.
Acting with another person with the intention to deceive.
When submitting your own work, it is unacceptable to (a) have someone else write any part of an assignment for you or (b) hand in a work, or part of a work, of someone else who has studied the subject previously, even with their permission. This is a serious academic offence that carries penalties.
Copyright is the legal right of an author or owner of a work to control the reproduction of that work. If you include, for example, someone else’s image or table of data (or you adapt that work) in your assignment, you may need to acknowledge the original source with a copyright statement in addition to a citation. See your required referencing style for further details.
Critical analysis is an essential component of academic writing.
When you select a source to include in your work, you need to quote, paraphrase or summarise it and provide a reference in your required style. It is also essential that you comment on and analyse your sources – this might include discussing, comparing and contrasting, and questioning sources in order to build your response to your task. You then base your conclusions on your analysis.
Learn more about using sources and also critical reading and note taking practices.
In many referencing styles, you are required to provide the day month and year that you accessed a web source. This is either referred to as a ‘date accessed’ or ‘date retrieved’. It is used in citations because many web sources can be easily updated and therefore change over time.
Note too that for some styles, such as Harvard and APA, a date accessed or date retrieved is not usually required for a journal article with a DOI, nor for an e-book (as these sources are never updated).
A collection of resources, such as peer-reviewed journal articles, images, videos or other data.
Deakin students have access to over 400 databases via the library catalogue.
See the Deakin library resource guides for recommended databases for different disciplines.
A DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is a unique identifier that is provided for many journal articles and e-books. A number of referencing styles require you to provide the DOI, as it is a more stable identifier than a URL.
It most commonly appears in a format such as this: https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2019.2106
DRO (Deakin Research Online) is Deakin's research repository, which describes and preserves the research output produced by Deakin University researchers, staff and higher degree research students.
Visit DRO.
EndNote is a reference management tool available for free to Deakin students. In general, we do not recommend EndNote for undergraduate students. It is more common for research students to use in managing a large number of references.
Learn more about EndNote.
This is the abbreviation of the Latin 'et alii' which means 'and others'. It is used in many referencing styles to indicate multiple authors without having to list all of the authors' names.
A footnote system of citation uses a superscript number within the main text that refers to a numbered note at the bottom (foot) of a page. The note contains bibliographic details of the source. Footnotes are used in Oxford, Chicago and AGLC referencing.
Footnotes can also be also used for including additional information to the main text.
Endnotes, which are placed at the end of chapter or paper, are an alternative to footnotes.
In your writing, the citation of a source that emphasises the idea/findings rather than the author of the source.
For example:
Long-term low-dose exposure was shown to alter the signaling system between the hypothalamus and pituitary gland.6
For referencing styles that requires Author-Date in-text citations, this means that the in-text citation usually goes at the end of the sentence.
For example:
Racism is claimed to be deeply embedded in our political and legal frameworks (Stevenson 2020; Howard and Roberts 2019; Custance 2017).
See also Author-prominent citation and Reporting verb.
The acknowledgement of a source in the body of a paper, used in Author-Date styles of referencing. In APA and Harvard , the family name of the author(s), the year of publication, and sometimes the page number, are provided in the main text. See your required referencing style for further details.
For example:
Racism is claimed to be deeply embedded in our political and legal frameworks (Stevenson 2020).
To paraphrase is to change both the words and the structure of a source text; to rewrite a source into your own words. Paraphrases accurately convey the meaning of a brief and specific section of text from a source in roughly the same number of words. Paraphrases always require a citation and in many referencing styles they require a page number.
Learn more about paraphrasing, summarising and quoting.
Peer-reviewed articles and books have been reviewed by a panel of academics who assess the work, ensuring that the research is valid and original.
Learn more about peer-reviewed articles and how to find them.
A publication consisting of a collection of articles (e.g. journals, magazines or newspapers) published at regular intervals.
Used in AGLC citations, pinpoint references direct readers to specific clauses, pages or sections of a work.
The use of someone else's work (e.g. words, graphs, images, ideas) without proper acknowledgement. This is a serious academic offence that carries penalties.
To reproduce the exact words of a source. Short direct quotes are usually placed in quote marks, while longer direct quotes are usually placed in an indented paragraph. Direct quotes always require a citation, including a page number. See your required style for specific details on how to incorporate direct quotes in your assignments.
Learn more about paraphrasing, summarising and quoting.
A list of sources at the end of a paper that includes all of the works cited in that paper. For example, the Harvard and APA styles require a reference list of sources arranged alphabetically by the family names of authors. In Vancouver style, sources in the reference list are arranged numerically in the order that they are first cited in the text.
A reference list differs from a bibliography, which includes both works cited and all works that have contributed to writing a paper.
Reporting verbs are used to report what others have said. You can recognise a reporting verb by substituting it with the word “says” (as in “Doolan says…”). If it still makes sense, you have identified a reporting verb. They can also be used to enhance your analysis of a source.
In this example the writer implies that they agree with Stevenson on an established fact:
Stevenson (2020:23) warns that racism is deeply embedded in our political and legal frameworks.
In this next example, the writer is undermining Stevenson’s idea by suggesting this is an unproven opinion:
Stevenson (2020:23) claims that racism is deeply embedded in our political and legal frameworks.
See also Author-prominent citation and Idea-prominent citation.
- Secondary sources are sources that summarise, interpret or analyse primary sources. Primary sources provide original evidence or first-hand accounts (e.g. in History, letters and diaries; in Science, scientific data). Learn more.
- The term secondary source is also used when citing a source within a source. For example, you have read Author A who is citing Author B. While you have not read Author B directly, you want to cite them. In some referencing styles, you are permitted to cite Author B and provide the details of where they are cited in Author A. See you required referencing style for further details.
A ‘source’ usually refers to a publication that you have used as supporting evidence in your writing.
Depending on the needs of your assessment, a source can be a book, a journal article, a government website, a podcast, a video, a dataset, or an artwork.
All sources that you use in your assessments must be referenced. See your required referencing style for further details.
Summaries condense larger pieces of text down to their key idea(s). Ideally, your summary should be no more than a sentence but the original source may be an entire article or chapter. Summaries are in your own words, although they might repeat technical words or phrases that are commonly used in the discipline. They always require a citation.
Learn more about paraphrasing, summarising and quoting.
A software program that supports the detection of plagiarism and collusion by identifying similarities in wording between assignment submissions and the program's database of material.
Learn more about Turnitin.
Practise using Turnitin in UniStart.
A URL (Uniform Resource Locater) is web page address. A URL is required for citing some, but not all, online sources. See your required referencing style for further details.
See also: DOI.