Referencing help and advice

It’s the start of session, most of you are probably getting ready to start your first assignment and experience the joys of referencing!. Referencing is the acknowledgement of information sources in your work; it is the appropriate way to give credit to the original owner of an idea, piece of writing or creative work. All assignments at CSU are expected to be fully referenced unless advised otherwise, and as most schools within CSU use the American Psychological Association (APA) referencing style – commonly known as APA 6th, the Library has put together a few tips to help you get started with APA!

The Academic Referencing Tool (ART) provides detailed referencing examples for the referencing style – APA 6. The tool includes examples of in-text referencing, direct quotations, paraphrasing and footnoting. Bibliography/ Reference List and detailed style notes are also available. Another great tool is the CSU APA Referencing Summary, A guide to referencing based on the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). This summary gives examples of the APA referencing style for a number of commonly used information sources.

If you’re just starting at CSU you may not have heard of the EndNote Software for referencing. More than just a reference manager, EndNote moves you through the research process as you search, organise, write, publish and share. EndNote can be downloaded for free from the Library website, and you can explore using EndNote by checking out the Library’s EndNote resource guide. The Library is also running free Online Library Workshops on EndNote for PC and Mac, so if you’d like to learn more about using EndNote, register now for one of our workshops.

A fantastic new resource that is available to students through the Library website, is the APA Style CENTRAL database. APA Style Central is the American Psychological Association’s official online resource for teaching, writing, and publishing in APA style. The database is an invaluable resource for staff and students, and consists of 4 main sections:
  • Learn: Covers scholarly writing and includes short video guides; longer video tutorials; quizzes; and sample papers, references, tables, and figures. 
  • Research: Includes tutorials, dictionaries, and reference books on research, and includes a tool to search for and manage references.
  • Write: A writing centre which contains templates to assist with preparing a paper, and has step-by-step instructions on APA Style.
  • Publish: Tips and tutorials on the publishing process, and links to journals as potential publication outlets.

You’ll find links to APA Style Central through the CSU Library’s Journal Databases page (under the letter A), and on the Referencing at CSU page of the Student Portal. For more information about APA Style Central, or assistance using ART, the APA referencing Summary and EndNote, contact us at the Library.

If you have additional questions about referencing, you can always contact the ALLaN Team, who are your resident referencing experts at CSU! The ALLaN (Academic Literacy, Learning, and Numeracy) Team provides free
support services 7 days a week, online and on campus for all CSU
students, so why not book an appointment now?