Library & Information Science Library Guide: Plagiarism and Referencing

Referencing (also known as citation)  is the method you use to acknowledge that you have used various books or journal articles in the researching and writing up your assignments or projects. How to reference and cite your work:

1. Understand and apply the approved referencing style for your discipline, which is the UCT author- date style.
2. Add your in-text citation in the body of the work.
3. Incorporate a bibliography or reference list in alphabetical order.

NB: Referencing and in-text citations enable you to avoid Plagiarism.

With the use AI in Referencing AI tools in academic writing it is also essential to understand UCT's  AI policy. The  AI libguide provides helpful tips on how to reference AI Tools  Home - AI LibGuide - LibGuides at University of Cape Town

Keep full bibliographic details of books, journal articles and websites you use for your assignments.  This will save you a lot of grief and anxiety later when you discover you can't remember what you were using and where you quoted from. 

UCT has a campus-wide license to Refworks.     This reference management tool allows you to save citations to your own web-based database whilst reading articles for your assignment.   UCT also has a campus-wide license to Endnote. 

When writing your articles, you can choose the referencing style required to create the bibliography and easily change the style later if necessary.   

Plagiarism is a dishonest act of attempting to take someone else's ideas, writing, design or research and presenting them as your own.

This is viewed very seriously by UCT and may lead to explusion.   To avoid plagiarism, it is important to cite and reference your sources.

UCT's plagiarism policy and declaration form is available at Avoiding Plagiarism: a guide for students.