Why Is It Important to Reference in Your Assignments?

Students of all disciplines often need to write different kinds of assignments. They can include term papers, research papers, and essays. In each type of assignment, it is important to have good writing skills. Written assignments require the student’s research of material.

Then you should present the information in a well-structured manner. You should write your thoughts using academic language and with no plagiarism. Such written assignments should be credible and look scholarly. So, it may cause difficulties for some students. You can use cheap assignment writing services to help you with custom homework.

How can you write the best paper? It is important to provide references to the facts and statistics you present. This will make your assignment look professional and scientific. Each reference should be cited in the text. So, your readers will be able to see the author’s opinion. There are different reference formatting styles. Some of them are related only to references. Others concern the paper as a whole. You should format the references depending on your professor’s instructions. Formatting is an important part of each paper. You will get some points for it.

Why are the references so important? Let’s look at the main purposes they have.

1. Avoid plagiarism

Plagiarism is a serious issue in written assignments. If you have plagiarism in your paper, you will lose a lot of points. In some cases, you will fail to pass the assignment. You will need to write it from scratch. To avoid plagiarism, you should reference the books you use. For example, you find useful information in a credible resource. You should not write it word-by-word in your paper. What you need is to paraphrase the thought or remove it. If you include a citation, you can leave it. You should put the fact or figure in brackets. Then you write the author of the scholarly paper you used.

There are a lot of programs that check the paper for plagiarism. The most popular free plagiarism checking program is Copyscape. It is used by most universities to check simple papers. It shows the sentences that you copy from other sources. Then the program shows the plagiarism percentage in your work. By this percentage, your professor will calculate your mark.

For important papers like dissertations or research papers, professors use paid programs. The programs are considered professional and used by most universities. They calculate your plagiarism percentage exactly.

For research papers and dissertations, you may need a plagiarism report. You can generate it with paid programs. A plagiarism report shows in color the sentences you copied or paraphrased. Citations and referenced text is not considered plagiarism. You can download the report online. You can also address a writing company for a reliable plagiarism report.

2. Make your paper credible

It is important that the topic you choose is credible. You will write the results of your research and your opinion. Then you prove your point using the already existing theories. You should reference these facts. This will let you show that your statements do not have arguments. In written assignments, you will often have the literature review chapter. This chapter is specially provided to state other authors’ opinions and research. You can also use a reference as an example to prove your arguments.

3. Make your paper more persuasive

When you state your opinion without any arguments, it looks vague. Papers with references look more scientific and reliable. People understand that different points exist. They will see the comparison of your point with other authors. It is especially important to cite figures. Otherwise, your readers will not believe them.

4. Show your knowledge

When you cite authors in your field, the readers see your knowledge. This means that you know the best experts in your area of study. You understand their research and can use it in your paper. In some papers, you can agree or disagree with the authors. Then you can provide your arguments. So, your professor will see that you have read the resources. You value the research of these scientists and can use it. You will prove to be a professional in your field. So, your writing will be more structured and persuasive.

What Should You Reference in Your Paper?

You need to reference facts, figures, and other authors’ ideas. Remember that you can’t state citations in any place of your text. The information you provide should coincide with that in the author’s work. You can’t cite your opinion or general phrases. They do not bear any scientific value. So, you can write the sentences yourself without citing them.

What should you reference in your paper? You need to reference credible scientific resources. In some cases, you can reference videos on YouTube or web pages. Yet, you should cite the material in your work at least once. You can find the best academic resources in Google Scholar. This will let you have no mistakes when choosing credible sources.

The most important source of references is books and articles. You should mostly use peer-reviewed articles. In some cases, your professor can state that it is compulsory. You can also reference electronic sources and credible videos. There are certain rules for citing each of them. In many cases, it is necessary to use a certain number of your professors’ works. You can find them in the library of your university.

What shouldn’t you reference in your paper? There is no need to reference your opinion or results. When you conduct your own research, you draw results and conclusions. Then you make an analysis of other authors’ works. This is your own analysis, so there is no need for references. You should not also cite generally known facts. There can be different authors who talk about them. Yet, these books do not provide their original opinion.

So, referencing is important in any type of academic paper. It is a crucial part of your assignment that will bring you more points.