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Help! I can't understand referencing.

I am doing an online access course that is equivalent to 3 A levels. So far, I am finding the actual assignments fairly straighforward, but I can't understand how I am expected to reference.

I have followed the instructions the college gave me on using the harvard referencing system, but I am being told every time that I am doing it wrong.

I am looking for a page, poster, literally anything. I need it laid out as "this is how you reference a book, this is how you reference an article, this is how you reference a video etc.". I can't cope with "this is the order you do it in for everything except for A,B,C,D). I have found pages from so many universities that explain it in that second way and I am completely unable to understand them.

If you're wondering why I'm asking this here rather than contacting the tutors... there is a different tutor for every unit. Every tutor just seems to pass it onto the next. The most help I've received is a "no, that's wrong", followed by being sent a very condescending powerpoint that did literally nothing to explain what I was doing wrong. (I am incredibly frustrated, if you hadn't worked that out from reading this!)

Thanks for any help.

Reply 1

Original post
by ratterpat
I am doing an online access course that is equivalent to 3 A levels. So far, I am finding the actual assignments fairly straighforward, but I can't understand how I am expected to reference.
I have followed the instructions the college gave me on using the harvard referencing system, but I am being told every time that I am doing it wrong.
I am looking for a page, poster, literally anything. I need it laid out as "this is how you reference a book, this is how you reference an article, this is how you reference a video etc.". I can't cope with "this is the order you do it in for everything except for A,B,C,D). I have found pages from so many universities that explain it in that second way and I am completely unable to understand them.
If you're wondering why I'm asking this here rather than contacting the tutors... there is a different tutor for every unit. Every tutor just seems to pass it onto the next. The most help I've received is a "no, that's wrong", followed by being sent a very condescending powerpoint that did literally nothing to explain what I was doing wrong. (I am incredibly frustrated, if you hadn't worked that out from reading this!)
Thanks for any help.

Simply stating what I learnt from epq that I’m currently doing is to use Harvard referencing

Reply 2

Original post
by van-van
Simply stating what I learnt from epq that I’m currently doing is to use Harvard referencing
What???? This doesn’t even make any sense.

Reply 3

I’m not sure if you have already tried this one, but I find it useful. If you select the source type it gives you instructions and examples. https://library-guides.ucl.ac.uk/harvard/web-page

Obviously some things are not straight forward in terms of what category they fall under, but I just try to be consistent across the assignment.

It’s also worth noting that there are sometimes different ways to use Harvard and I find things like italics and where to . or , is different depending where you look. I do an access course too and follow this and have always been told it’s fine, but it might depend on the college.

Reply 4

Original post
by SLR546
I’m not sure if you have already tried this one, but I find it useful. If you select the source type it gives you instructions and examples. https://library-guides.ucl.ac.uk/harvard/web-page
Obviously some things are not straight forward in terms of what category they fall under, but I just try to be consistent across the assignment.
It’s also worth noting that there are sometimes different ways to use Harvard and I find things like italics and where to . or , is different depending where you look. I do an access course too and follow this and have always been told it’s fine, but it might depend on the college.
Thank you! That looks like it will really help, I will bookmark it.

Reply 5

Original post
by ratterpat
I am doing an online access course that is equivalent to 3 A levels. So far, I am finding the actual assignments fairly straighforward, but I can't understand how I am expected to reference.
I have followed the instructions the college gave me on using the harvard referencing system, but I am being told every time that I am doing it wrong.
I am looking for a page, poster, literally anything. I need it laid out as "this is how you reference a book, this is how you reference an article, this is how you reference a video etc.". I can't cope with "this is the order you do it in for everything except for A,B,C,D). I have found pages from so many universities that explain it in that second way and I am completely unable to understand them.
If you're wondering why I'm asking this here rather than contacting the tutors... there is a different tutor for every unit. Every tutor just seems to pass it onto the next. The most help I've received is a "no, that's wrong", followed by being sent a very condescending powerpoint that did literally nothing to explain what I was doing wrong. (I am incredibly frustrated, if you hadn't worked that out from reading this!)
Thanks for any help.


hiya! i know this can be frustrating. for my epq references i solely used the site ‘mybib’. you first select on there what type of thing you’re trying to reference eg article, book, podcast,
video, then you copy and paste in the link and it’ll do the rest! it’ll give you a nice formatted reference in whatever style you want and you just copy and paste it in.

there are difference referencing styles to use like footnotes or harvard references. it depends on the type of work you’re doing and what style you prefer. like footnotes may be more useful if you use lots of quotes and want people to keep track of where all the info is from whilst they are reading your essay. most people use harvard so you’d probably be safe with that unless your college asks for a specific type (mybib can do most types though so dw, it’ll ask you what style you want and you just select one). if you need more guidance pls lmk

Reply 6

Original post
by Flower2007!
hiya! i know this can be frustrating. for my epq references i solely used the site ‘mybib’. you first select on there what type of thing you’re trying to reference eg article, book, podcast,
video, then you copy and paste in the link and it’ll do the rest! it’ll give you a nice formatted reference in whatever style you want and you just copy and paste it in.
there are difference referencing styles to use like footnotes or harvard references. it depends on the type of work you’re doing and what style you prefer. like footnotes may be more useful if you use lots of quotes and want people to keep track of where all the info is from whilst they are reading your essay. most people use harvard so you’d probably be safe with that unless your college asks for a specific type (mybib can do most types though so dw, it’ll ask you what style you want and you just select one). if you need more guidance pls lmk

Thank you. I will have a look at this tomorrow. I feel like I need to learn to do it myself without computer assistance. But that will be very useful for putting things in at first and learning from the patterns as well as checking they are correct.

Reply 7

Original post
by ratterpat
Thank you! That looks like it will really help, I will bookmark it.


The only thing I have ever been told is to used an accessed date for all sources. On the UCLH guide it isn’t used for sources with a doi but I have been told to use for all online sources regardless, which might just be my college.

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