The process of referencing is essentially important because it allows the person writing the paper to acknowledge the contributions that other authors have already completed before them. Every paper that dwells on ideas that have already been touched upon by the scholarly community should contain references in order to highlight those ideas and help the readers navigate through them quickly (Pears & Shields, 2019). By giving credit to particular authors, scholars improve the credibility of their own works and show respect toward the intellectual property of the original researchers. Therefore, the presence of a peer-reviewed reference within a research paper increases one’s chances to strengthen their argument and also proves that the person writing the paper possesses enough knowledge and skills to cover the proposed topic (Pandey et al., 2020). Therefore, most of the referencing made throughout a scientific paper or a research article could be seen as a marker of the person’s awareness of what they are writing.
Another important question that has to be addressed when it comes to academic research is the presence of proper citations intended to help the person avoid plagiarism. There are multiple ways of avoiding plagiarism when writing a research paper, and the most common four strategies are as follows: (a) keep track of all the sources used, (b) paraphrase carefully and mix that information with unique personal ideas, (c) set up a proper reference list and provide an in-text citation for every entry on the bibliography, and (d) run the draft through a plagiarism checker to double-check the quality of the final product (Adhikari, 2018; Pun, 2021; Stander, 2020). Combined, these four strategies could protect scholars from plagiarizing other researchers’ works and increase the value of their investigation. The inclusion of reputable sources could also increase the readability of the paper and appeal to the expert audience as well as their less experienced counterparts.
References
Adhikari, S. (2018). Beyond culture: Helping international students avoid plagiarism. Journal of International Students, 8(1), 375-388.
Pandey, S., Pandey, S., Dwivedi, S., Pandey, D., Mishra, H., & Mahapatra, S. (2020). Methods of various citing and referencing styles: Fundamentals for early career researchers. Publishing Research Quarterly, 36(2), 243-253.
Pears, R., & Shields, G. J. (2019). Cite them right: The essential referencing guide. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Pun, M. (2021). Plagiarism in scientific writing: Why it is important to know and avoid. Journal of Political Science, 21, 109-118.
Stander, M. (2020). Strategies to help university students avoid plagiarism: A focus on translation as an intervention strategy. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 44(2), 156-169.