You must refer to the sources that you use. Normally, these will be academic books and journal articles, but you must also add a reference when using sources such as newspapers, websites, TV programmes, lectures, public documents, leaflets, previous master’s theses etc.
You must refer to the source when quoting verbatim (in which case you must also add the page number), but also when using ideas or arguments or describing findings without a verbatim quote. This applies irrespective of any reformulations to the phrasing in the original; if any idea, assertion or finding is retrieved from or based on another source, you must add a reference to this source.
In some cases, ethical concerns may call for an anonymization of written sources as well. Some people who themselves have published the information you use should be anonymized in the same way as in field notes and interview data. This is especially true if the person in question is not a public figure and if the data describe potentially sensitive topics (e.g. if an unknown blogger writes about experience from bullying or criminal acts). In such cases you should provide the source with an alias and state the ethical reasons for this choice. Keep in mind that if you quote text you have found online, locating the source will be quite easy. If you are in doubt, contact your seminar leader, your supervisor or the person responsible for the course for guidance.
1. Citations
There are two ways to cite a source. Citations of less than three sentences are placed in ‘quotes’ in the text, while those of three sentences or more should have a line spacing before and after the quote and an indent to make the left margin wider. The font size for long citations can be the same as for the overall text, and the citation shall not be enclosed in quotes, italicized or formatted in any particular way.
The same principle applies if you cite a source from an interview or fieldwork, with a separate indented paragraph for long citations and in quotes in the body text for short citations.
2. References in the text
In the body text you place your references in brackets, with the surname(s) of the author(s), publication year and page number, if relevant, like this: (Fangen 2010: 72). Here, the author’s name is Fangen, the number 2010 is the year in which this issue of the book was published, and the page number referred to is 72. The reference looks like this whether it follows a citation from this book or whether you refer to it without having quoted any text from it. It is essential to include the page number when quoting content and when referring to concrete assertions. Place the full stop in the sentence after the reference. Normally, the reference is placed at the end of the sentence; it does not suffice to add references at the end of each paragraph.
Example of a reference without a verbatim quote:
A key distinction involves participating in the activities going on in the field versus not participating, although this will be a matter of degree between two extremes (Fangen 2010: 72).
Example of a reference with a verbatim quote:
A key distinction involves participating in the activities going on in the field versus not participating, although ‘participation may vary from complete association to complete separation’ (Fangen 2010: 72).
If the author(s) is (are) referred to in the text, you need not mention him/her (them) in the reference, as long as it remains clear to whom the reference applies.
Example of a reference that names the author in the sentence:
According to Fangen, a key distinction involves participating in the activities going on in the field versus not participating, although ‘participation may vary from complete association to complete separation’ (2010: 72).
If you need to refer to a sentence or passage that covers more than one page, you put a hyphen between the page numbers, like this: (Fangen 2010: 72-4). If you need to refer to more than one place in the same text, you place a comma between the page numbers, like this: (Fangen 2010: 72, 75).
If there are two authors, you should always include both of them in the reference, like this: (Hermansen and Birkelund 2015). If there are three authors or more, you include all of them the first time the reference occurs, like this: (Armstrong, Hamilton, Armstrong and Seeley 2014), and subsequently only the first author and et al., like this (Armstrong et al. 2014).
If you need to refer to more than one text in the same place, you separate them from each other inside the brackets with a semicolon, like this: (Fangen 2010: 72; Grue 2011). The references are entered in chronological order.
If you need to refer to more than one text by the same author in the same place, you put the author’s name first, followed by the publication years in ascending order, separated by a semicolon, like this: (Grue 2011; 2015).
If an author has published more than one text during the same year, you distinguish them from each other by placing an ‘a’ behind the first of these that you quote, a ‘b’ behind the second one etc., like this: (Grue 2011a) and this (Grue 2011b), etc. You must use the same letters in the list of references at the end of your assignment to distinguish between these same works.
News articles published online, blog posts and so on that have a stated author are referred to by the author’s name and publication year, same as above, for example (Lindi 2014). Give the web address (URL) and access date in the reference list at the end of your assignment.
If a publication has no stated author, as in the case of leaflets, you give the name of the organization that published it, like this (Directorate of Health 2013). However, if this publication that has no stated author is part of a work of reference or a series, such as a series of reports, you should use the full name of the work of reference, like this: (Wikipedia 2016) or the name of the series, like this: (NOU 2001).
If two authors with same surname have published texts during one and the same year, you use their initials to distinguish between them, like this: (B Smith 2015) and this: (W Smith 2015). This will obviously apply only if you refer to both texts.
You may want to refer to a text or an idea found within another text, for example when Fangen quotes Quinn Patton and you want to refer to Quinn Patton but have no access to his original text. In this case you refer to Quinn Patton, who wrote the words you wish to refer to, but within Fangen’s text, like this: (Quinn Patton in Fangen 2010: 103). The publication year and page number are those of Fangen’s book, but you recognize Quinn Patton as the author of these words. You need not refer to the year of publication, title etc. of the original work (in this case Quinn Patton’s book).
3. The list of references
At the end of your assignment you include a list of all references you have used, before the appendices, if any. The list should have the heading ‘References’ or ‘Literature’ and include all sources used in the assignment. You must also commit to this by stating ‘All sources that have been used in this assignment are listed’ at the end of the reference list. The references are listed alphabetically by the first author’s surname. If you refer to more than one publication by the same author(s), you sort them by year of publication, starting with the oldest publication. Note that only the first author’s name is given with the surname first, all other names should be written in the format First name Last name. Different types of sources are referred to as follows:
Books: Last name, First name (year of publication), Title. Edition, if relevant. Place of publication: Publisher
Example of a reference to a book:
Fangen, Katrine (2010), Deltakende observasjon. 2. utg. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget
Contributions to an edited anthology (collection of articles): Last name, first name (year of publication), “Title”. In editor’s (-s’) First name Last name (ed./eds.) Title of the collection. Edition, if relevant. (p. from-to page numbers). Place of publication: Publisher
Example of a reference to a contribution in an edited anthology:
Grue, Jan (2011), "Maktbegrepet i kritisk diskursanalyse: Mellom medisinske og sosiale forståelser av funksjonshemming". I Tonje Raddum Hitching, Anne Birgitta Nilsen og Aslaug Veum (red.) Diskursanalyse i praksis: Metode og analyse. (s. 111-136). Oslo: Høyskoleforlaget
Journal article: Last name, First name (year of publication), “Title”. Title of the journal, volume number: page from-to
Example of a reference to a journal article:
Hermansen, Are Skeie and Gunn Elisabeth Birkelund (2015), "The impact of immigrant classmates on educational outcomes". Social Forces, 94: 615-646
Publication with no author (e.g. leaflets): Publishing organization/series (publication year), Title. Type of publication. Place of publication: Publisher/issuing organization
Example of a reference to a leaflet with no stated author:
Helsedirektoratet (2013), Ansvarlig vertskap. Brosjyre. Oslo: Helsedirektoratet
Example of a reference to a report in a report series with no stated author:
NOU (2001), Vårens vakreste eventyr…?. Offentlig utredning. Oslo: Statens forvaltningstjeneste
Webpage with no author or identifiable originator (e.g. works of reference):
Issuing organization/work of reference (year of last update), “Title”. Type of publication. Web address (access date: dd.mm.yyyy).
Example of a reference to a webpage with no stated author:
Wikipedia (2016), “Rosetta Stone”. Reference work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone (access date: 04.01.2016)
Webpage with an author or other identification of the originator: Last name, First name (publication year), “Title”. Name of the portal/website/blog. Web address (access date: dd.mm.yyyy)
Example of a reference to a webpage with an author:
Lindi, Marte (2014), "Ble tegnet med sprittusj i øyet av russen". NRK.no. http://www.nrk.no/nordnytt/tegnet-i-oyet-av-russen-1.11721655 (access date: 04.08.2015)
Example of a reference to a webpage with an identified originator:
TheViralFungus (2012), "Massive concrete construction fail". Youtube.com. https://youtu.be/D3WOFtJaWks (access date: 06.12.2015)
It is an advantage to insert a small spacing between the references in the list or a small indent after the first line in each reference. A list of references with the examples above will then look like this:
References
4. What NOT to do with your references
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Do not use first names in the references in the body text. If two authors with the same surname have published works during the same year, you use initials to distinguish between them, like this: (B Smith 2015) and this: (W Smith 2015).
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Do not include the title or other information on the work in the body text; such information shall be included only in the reference list at the end. Only the author’s name, publication year and page number should be included in the references in the body text.
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Do not use ‘ibid’ and ‘op.cit’, even though you may have learned this somewhere else.
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Do no use footnotes or endnotes for entering references. You should include references in footnotes only if you need to refer to a source for text used in a footnote.
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Do not subdivide your reference list according to how you have used the sources or the type of source (such as books, journal articles, anthologies). Nor should you include headings in your reference list (such as “Works by Bourdieu”, “Webpages” or similar).
5. Plagiarism
Plagiarism means presenting the work of others as your own. This applies to everything from ideas and arguments to phrases and specific formulations. Plagiarism is one of the most serious violations of good referencing practice. If this is discovered in journal articles, the publisher will normally retract the publication. In university assignments, plagiarism is considered cheating and may in especially serious cases lead to exclusion from higher education.
If you render someone else’s ideas in your own words without giving a reference, this will be considered plagiarism. It is therefore crucial that you refer to your sources, even when you are not quoting them verbatim. If you copy a phrase from another publication and include a reference to this publication, but fail to place the copied content in ‘quotes’ to signal that this is a citation, this will also be considered plagiarism.
When writing their first assignments and struggling to formulate ideas in their own words, many students commit the error of copying the content of another text, changing a few words here and there to avoid having to mark it out as a citation. This practice is extremely questionable, but very easy for examiners to detect, and it will have a strongly negative impact on the assessment. Depending on the scope and the way in which it is done, this may be considered plagiarism. If you are unable to find alternative formulations that fit your text, it is better to cite the original than to replace a few words here and there.