Referencing Skills and Data Interpretation

REFERENCING SKILLS AND DATA INTERPRETATION

Referencing Skills Definition

What is meant by reference skills?

Referencing is the ability to find out the required information from a suitable reference source is reference skills.

Referencing is the way that you must acknowledge the sources of information that you use in your assignments, reports, and dissertation. This includes ideas, theories, quotations, facts and figures, as well as illustrations and even diagrams that are originally created by someone else.

Referencing is simply acknowledging the sources you used when writing a document. Referencing should be used for all sources of information including, books, magazines, journals and WebPages.

What is meant by reference skills?

Being an educated person today is more about knowing where to find information and how to evaluate that information that it is about knowing large quantities of facts. As a result, one of our primary tasks as homeschooling parents is to teach our children to learn independently through reference tools.

In fact, reference skills are cross-curricular skills that are part of the scope and sequence of many academic areas – language arts, science, history, and math. You really could call them learning skills.

What are the types of reference skills/sources/ tools?

• Dictionaries.
• Encyclopedias.
• Almanacs.
• Directories.
• Handbooks and yearbooks.
• Atlases and bibliographies.
• The index and table of contents
• The atlas

What is referencing in communication skills?

Referencing is simply acknowledging the sources you used when writing a document. Referencing should be used for all sources of information including, books, magazines, journals and WebPages.

What is the importance of Referencing skill?

Ø    Helps you to avoid plagiarism (copying) by making it clear which ideas are your own and which are someone else's. ... Gives supporting evidence for your ideas, arguments and opinions. Allows others to identify the sources you have used.

Ø    Helps show that you have been thorough and careful (or rigorous) in your academic work 

Ø    Indicates what material is the work of another person or is from another source 

Ø    Indicates what material is your original work since you have provided a citation for work that is not your own

Ø    Allows the reader to refer back to any external material (i.e., not your own) that you have stated or discussed 

Ø    Provides the reader with an indication of the quality and authority of the material you are referencing (e.g., published article in a respected journal, unpublished opinion piece on a popular online website) Of course the relevance and importance of material is dependent on your topic 

How to improve you’re referencing skills?

1.     List your references as you go. Noting down the bibliographic (list of sources) details of your sources as you research can save you time and effort. ...

2.     Write your references manually. ...

3.     Be consistent with your format. ...

4.     Learn how to referencing less conventional sources. ...

5.     Proofread your reference list. What are the types of referencie types of referencing?

Widely-used referencing styles or conventions are  four types

Ø MLA (Modern Languages Association) system,

Ø The APA (American Psychological Association) system,

Ø The Harvard system

Ø The MHRA (Modern Humanities Research Association) system.