Religion and Theology - Information Competency: Referencing

Scientific publications don't exist in isolation, but serve as a medium for communication between academics and are therefore part of the wider scientific process. During your work always keep in mind that you are part of a community. In other words: try to look 'beyond your own shadow'. What else is going on in the field? And how can your research contribute to this academic dialogue?

The video "Scientific Field" helps you to expand the reach and impact of your own investigations.

The research community is defined by academics responding to each other’s work. They can do this in various ways:

• through (informal) personal contact (discussions at work, phone conversations, e-mail and paper correspondence);
• orally at scientific conferences (lectures, papers);
• through scientific publications (articles, research reports, dissertations);
• via social media (e.g. Twitter, Linkedin).

In new publications, this continuous passing on of knowledge is reflected in and facilitated by the inclusion of references to earlier publications. In the course of time, a huge body of scientific publications has been created, distributed around the world in libraries, archives and databases, to which the academic community constantly refers. By referring to other sources you acknowledge the contributions of others to your research field. 

A reference is a statement of key details identifying a particular book, a particular chapter in a book or a particular journal article. A reference includes at least the name(s) of the author(s), the title of the document and the year of publication. These serve to distinguish clearly between the findings of your own research and text and data that you have gleaned from other sources. This is so that the reader may go back to the original publication and check out the information you have reproduced.