13 references

Discuss current events and changes in the education system and ways you'd like to see it improved, from secondary school through to postgraduate study.

Announcements Posted on
Please change your TSR password 23-05-2013
Enter our travel-writing competition for the chance to win a Nikon 1 J3 camera 20-05-2013
Sign in to Reply
  1. restoration's Avatar
    • Adored and Respected Member
    • Posts: 466
    13 references
    Just wanted people's opinions is 13 references to little for a 2,000 word essay the essay I have written is sort of like a literature exploration on ethics and clinical practice.
  2. Lord of the Flies's Avatar
    • The foul fiend Flibbertigibbet
    • Location: Paris, France
    Re: 13 references
    (Original post by restoration)
    Just wanted people's opinions is 13 references to little for a 2,000 word essay the essay I have written is sort of like a literature exploration on ethics and clinical practice.
    Hard to say without reading the essay but I would think not.
  3. hothedgehog's Avatar
    • TSR Demigod
    • Posts: 5,164
    Re: 13 references
    If it's a literature exploration then I think you should probably have included more as you can't have covered all of the important literature in only 13 references.
  4. Lord of the Flies's Avatar
    • The foul fiend Flibbertigibbet
    • Location: Paris, France
    Re: 13 references
    (Original post by hothedgehog)
    If it's a literature exploration then I think you should probably have included more as you can't have covered all of the important literature in only 13 references.
    You can't properly cover all of the important literature with a 2,000-word limit anyway.
  5. hothedgehog's Avatar
    • TSR Demigod
    • Posts: 5,164
    Re: 13 references
    (Original post by Lord of the Flies)
    You can't properly cover all of the important literature with a 2,000-word limit anyway.
    Yes but a simple sentence like 'Bloggs (2002), Jones (2004) and Hewit (2001) also provide further exploration on this theme.' and then you've got 3 more papers in which show you've done the reading even if you don't have the space to analyse them further.
  6. gutenberg's Avatar
    • Adored and Respected Member
    • Posts: 482
    Re: 13 references
    Is that 13 footnotes or 13 works consulted?
  7. kittyb99's Avatar
    • Benevolent Member
    • Location: The Ether
    • Posts: 675
    Re: 13 references
    Well, I wrote a 4500 word essay and had about 35 consulted works in the bibliography. As long as you benefit from each reference, it can only help to ensure that the broadness of consulted works is made clear to the marker. I would say 13 is too little for 2000, but then you can't just jam irrelevant ones in for the hell of it. However, less footnotes can simply mean more original thought, so quantity is by no means a representative of quality
  8. jelly1000's Avatar
    • TSR Legend
    • Location: London/Norwich
    • Posts: 12,684
    Re: 13 references
    I'd say its fine- for the essays I did this year at uni I averaged around 10 references for mostly 2,000-2,500 words and got high 2:1's and a 1st.
  9. crocker710's Avatar
    • PS Helper
    • Peer Of The TSR Realm
    • Location: Harrogate
    Re: 13 references
    Is that 13 footnotes or 13 different sources in your bibliography?
  10. Mr E's Avatar
    • Junior Member
    • Posts: 67
    At my Uni they'd expect at least 20 references for a typical 2000-2500 word essay. The more the better, just try to squeeze in as many as possible as long as they're relevant.


    This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App
Sign in to Reply
Share this discussion:  
Article updates
Moderators

We have a brilliant team of more than 60 volunteers looking after discussions on The Student Room, helping to make it a fun, safe and useful place to hang out.

Reputation gems:
The Reputation gems seen here indicate how well reputed the user is, red gem indicate negative reputation and green indicates a good rep.
Post rating score:
These scores show if a post has been positively or negatively rated by our members.