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Studies - Guides

Using and referring to sources

A previously published information is usually used as help when writing a publication, an essay, or any kind of report. The information may be published by the author herself but usually it is published by someone else. The information may also be something else than a description, for example, a piece of computer program source code (that is published and allowed to be reused) should also be referred to when used again by someone.

Library of the Helsinki University of Technology organises a course called Searching for Scientific Information. This course is mandatory for Computer Science students. The course teaches, in addition to searching for information, how to refer to sources and how to select proper sources of information.

Selecting the source of information

The referred source of information should be the first one presenting this information. For example, when writing about a protocol, the original standard defining the protocol will be used as a reference. You should only refer to material you have read yourself. If you must refer to a source that is not available, but is referenced in some other text, you should refer the available text (for example, "see [23] and the references therein").

Using the references

There are two things in proper referring. One is marking the reference, that is, in the text one "tells" which information or ideas originate from somewhere else and from where the original information was found. Another is building a list of references. These concepts are more thoroughly explained in the following sections.

Referring to a source

Once the sources of information are selected, they are referred to in some systematical way by marking the reference in the text, right next to where the source is being used. There are several acknowledged methods for marking the reference. One widely used method in computer science is embedding the number of the reference enclosed in square brackets within the text. Another example is embedding the original author's lastname and the page number in the source enclosed in parenthesis. Detailed information about the source is written in the list of references.

If you quote some source in your text, the quoted part must be between quotes and source marked as usual. (You should note, however, that often it is mandatory to write everything in your own words to show to the teacher that you really have understood everything, not just copied it. Even if references are correct and quotes appropriately marked, teacher may fail your paper if there are too much quotes and too little written in your own words.)

List of references

Of all the referred sources, a list of references is built and appended to the text. The list contains only the references that are referred to in the text. Other references may be included in a chapter for further information. TKK's library has a good page about making a bibliography.

[1] Wilson, S. 1984. Electron correlation in molecules. 2nd ed. Oxford, United Kingdom: Clarendon Press. 281 p. (International series of monographs on chemistry 11). ISBN 0-19-855617-9.

The purpose of a reference is to identify and locate a referred publication. Network publications are referred to in a similar fashion but the date of referring is usually included in the list of references (network publications may change or move unexpectedly to a different URL). The aforementioned bibliography instructions from TKK's library also cover electronic publications.

Further information

This page is maintained by the assistants of basic courses, E-mail: perus@tml.hut.fi
The page has last been updated 16.1.2008.
URL: http://www.tml.tkk.fi/Studies/Guides/refer.html