Academic Referencing and Citation Conventions
With Emma and Ethan, Academic Skills Specialist
Key Takeaways
- Referencing is how you show your ideas are built on credible evidence, not personal opinion.
- In midwifery, where practice must be evidence-based, referencing demonstrates you're drawing on current, peer-reviewed knowledge.
- Harvard referencing is standard in most UK health programmes, including Access to HE.
- It uses author-date citations in the text and a full reference list at the end, ordered alphabetically.
- If you're paraphrasing, you write the author's surname and year in brackets — for example, Jones, 2021.
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Full Transcript
Emma: Today's episode covers Academic Referencing and Citation Conventions. I'm Emma, and with me is Ethan, our Academic Skills Specialist. Ethan, why does referencing matter so much in academic writing?
Ethan: Referencing is how you show your ideas are built on credible evidence, not personal opinion. In midwifery, where practice must be evidence-based, referencing demonstrates you're drawing on current, peer-reviewed knowledge.
Emma: What's the most commonly used referencing style in health and midwifery programmes?
Ethan: Harvard referencing is standard in most UK health programmes, including Access to HE. It uses author-date citations in the text and a full reference list at the end, ordered alphabetically.
Emma: Can you walk through what an in-text citation looks like?
How is academic referencing and citation conventions applied in real-world midwifery?
Ethan: If you're paraphrasing, you write the author's surname and year in brackets — for example, Jones, 2021. If you're quoting directly, you add the page number: Jones, 2021, p.45. Always link it to the full reference in your list.
Emma: What does a full reference entry look like for a journal article?
Ethan: Author surname, initial, year in brackets, article title, journal name in italics, volume and issue numbers, and page range. For online sources, add the URL and the date you accessed it.
Emma: How do students avoid plagiarism when they're paraphrasing?
Ethan: Put the source away, write the idea entirely in your own words, then add the citation. If you find yourself matching the original sentence structure closely, that's paraphrasing poorly — rethink the sentence from scratch.
What should learners understand about academic referencing and citation conventions?
Emma: What makes a source credible for a midwifery assignment?
Ethan: Peer-reviewed journals, official guidelines from NICE or the Royal College of Midwives, government health publications, and reputable textbooks. Aim for sources published within the last ten years unless the work is seminal.
Emma: Any last referencing advice?
Ethan: Be consistent. Inconsistent formatting — even minor differences in punctuation or capitalisation — signals carelessness to a marker. Check your entries with a referencing tool, then read them manually one final time.