Academic Research Booklet

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Some information is considered to be common knowledge – for instance, we all know the sky is blue and you wouldn’t need to quote someone else saying that. In the same way, if you learned something in a class a year ago and can talk confidently about it you wouldn’t need to find a source for that information. However, if you need to check your facts or research further then you should cite your source. If in doubt over whether information can be considered common knowledge the safest option would be to include a citation. Referencing style There are many different styles of referencing, style in this context refers to the way references are formatted and determines what order the information appears in and what punctuation is used. The style you choose might be influenced by the academic discipline your essay falls under. For example, many historians prefer to use a style of referencing that makes use of footnotes. A footnote shows additional information at the bottom of the page and is indicated in text by a small number like this. The number will usually always be found at the end of the appropriate sentence after the full-stop and links to the same number at the bottom of the page. In other disciplines such as Geography for example it’s common to use in-text citations where the author surname and date the information was written is put in parenthesis directly after the quotation like this (Smith, 2011). At Teddies we lean towards using in-text citations as they are usually more straightforward and quicker to insert. 1

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Regardless of what style you choose, at the end of your essay you will need a bibliography where you list of all your references in alphabetical order.