When you are writing an essay for school, college or university, and you come across an idea or quotation in another book, essay, article or website that relates to your topic but is by someone else, then you must cite where it came from, otherwise you may be found guilty for plagiarism.
The definition of plagiarism is citing someone else's work as your own. This could just be a quote or idea that you came across in a book but in an essay, if you do not acknowledge that it is someone else's, then there could be serious consequences as it is considered to be a form of cheating. A lot of University's nowadays will expel the student who has deliberately plagiarised. Sometimes plagiarism can be done accidentally but the student's future at the school is usually decided by a panel.
Now, your school will tell you which type of referencing you should use, e.g. Harvard referencing or Oxford etc, but here is what you should include in the Harvard referencing style when you are referencing a website: The author (last name comes first, with their first initial e.g. Smith, J), the article title, the name of the website, the full URL (copied directly from the URL bar at the top of the Internet page) and the date that you last visited the website.
Building a reference can be difficult to do, even if you know how to do it because there is a certain order for everything and some things have to be put in italics and brackets. For a quick and easy way to build a reference in the Harvard style, then log onto www.neilstoolbox.com and select the Harvard Reference Generator and insert all the information and click generate. Then just copy and paste it into the Bibliography at the end of your essay.
The definition of plagiarism is citing someone else's work as your own. This could just be a quote or idea that you came across in a book but in an essay, if you do not acknowledge that it is someone else's, then there could be serious consequences as it is considered to be a form of cheating. A lot of University's nowadays will expel the student who has deliberately plagiarised. Sometimes plagiarism can be done accidentally but the student's future at the school is usually decided by a panel.
Now, your school will tell you which type of referencing you should use, e.g. Harvard referencing or Oxford etc, but here is what you should include in the Harvard referencing style when you are referencing a website: The author (last name comes first, with their first initial e.g. Smith, J), the article title, the name of the website, the full URL (copied directly from the URL bar at the top of the Internet page) and the date that you last visited the website.
Building a reference can be difficult to do, even if you know how to do it because there is a certain order for everything and some things have to be put in italics and brackets. For a quick and easy way to build a reference in the Harvard style, then log onto www.neilstoolbox.com and select the Harvard Reference Generator and insert all the information and click generate. Then just copy and paste it into the Bibliography at the end of your essay.
