Code of practice

Referencing code of practice for students

Updated on 15 March 2023

A code of practice for students when referencing.

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Why do you need a code of practice for referencing?

The ability to construct references effectively is a key academic skill required by all students. Accurate and consistent use of referencing is therefore an important aspect of assessments, demonstrating an understanding of academic practice and displaying a professional approach to the use of information.

This Code of Practice sets out the standards for use of referencing as part of your academic study, and also the standards to be used by staff in assessing referencing. It should help to ensure your referencing is consistently and fairly marked across the University.

What resources are available to support your referencing?

Resources which you should use to help you to accurately use the correct referencing style fall into two categories;

  • Official style guides maintained by the organisations or bodies responsible for their creation.
  • Reference works which explain the use of these styles.

The official styles used at the University of Dundee include the following;

  • APA (American Psychological Association)
  • Chicago
  • Harvard ('Cite Them Right' standard)
  • MHRA (Modern Humanities Research Association)
  • MLA (Modern Language Association)
  • Oscola (Oxford University Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities)
  • Vancouver

The reference work used by the University of Dundee to show the standardised use of the different styles is Cite Them Right Online, based on the best-selling book by Graham Shields & Richard Pears. You should use Cite Them Right Online in preference to any other guides you might find on the Internet as these may be inaccurate or may incorporate local variations on the main styles. Also, they may disappear from the Internet or be amended without warning, and consequently the advice they offer may not be the same as that found in Cite Them Right Online or the Official style guides.

If there is any doubt about accuracy of a reference, Academic Staff will use the Official version of whichever style you are using to reference. Appendix 1 details the location of these Official style guides.

Online tools for reference management are also available to help you should you need them. These are often used simply as a management tool for gathering references together but you can also use them to automatically construct correctly-formatted references in the varying styles. Whilst you are welcome to use these tools, remember that you shouldn't rely on them to be 100% accurate all the time, and you should always check references before submitting an assessment rather than assuming they have been correctly produced by the tool.

Reference management/construction products and tools include:

How will academic staff support you in learning to reference?

There are a number of actions which Academic Staff in your School should take to ensure that Referencing is taught, supported and assessed in a consistent manner;

  • Each School will, where possible, adopt a single Referencing style for all assessments across all Programmes;
    • It may be, however, that some Schools use several styles across different disciplines within a School, e.g. the School of Humanities may require the use of MLA, MHRA and Harvard across concurrent modules drawn from different disciplines. There are also some styles which are associated with one specific discipline (i.e. Law=OSCOLA, Psychology= APA)
    • Other Schools may permit the use of more than one standard in a specific Programme or Module to reflect the varying backgrounds of postgraduate students (e.g. a mixture of students studying Law, Economics and Business in CEPMLP may be required to use the standard favoured by their discipline)
    • Wherever possible, you should only be required to learn and use one referencing standard for a Module.
  • Individual Academic Staff should always use the agreed referencing style for their academic School and should not require that you use a different version of it or make any changes to it based on their personal preference.
  • A summary of guidance for referencing should appear in your Student Handbook and assessment guidelines, clearly identifying the chosen style and reminding you of the resources that are there to provide guidance (both Official style guides and Cite Them Right Online). Further help on an individual level is available from the Library & Learning Centre and from the Academic Skills Centre.
  • Additional documentation providing examples of subject-specific references to illustrate the agreed style may also be provided if there is a need. Such guides do not replace the Official style guide/Cite Them Right Online.
  • All programmes of study will incorporate a session on appropriate use of information in academic study and research early in the curriculum, covering Referencing and Copyright issues and how they affect you.
  • Academic Staff will mark your referencing according to a clear set of criteria, and will award marks on the general quality of your referencing rather than subtracting marks for occasional small errors.
  • The quality of your Referencing should be weighted and marked consistently across all assessments throughout your studies.

Appendix 1

Resources from official authors/owners of referencing styles

From Library Services
Corporate information category Learning and teaching