Referencing in your Dissertation Report

Dr Ian Cornelius

Hello

Referencing

Referencing (1)

Why do we Reference?

Referencing is done to help avoid plagiarism
You must cite your reference when you do any of the following:
- use a direct quote
- paraphrase something you have read
- summarise what someone else has said
- inclusion of data, images and diagrams that you have not created yourself

Judging by some of the comments I have seen when moderating your work for other modules, there are still issues with students not being able to reference correctly. Even though you have been signposted to relevant material and even had a mini-lecture on referencing from me in the first year. Therefore, I am going to re-iterate the importance of referencing and how you will go about doing it correctly for your final report write-up.

Referencing is important, not only does it point the academic towards the correct paper, but it is also useful for avoiding academic misconduct cases; especially those revolving around plagiarism. You must always reference for any of the following:

when using a direct quote
paraphrasing the work of another author
summarising the work of another author (yes, this and the previous one are different)
including any data, images and diagrams (or code!) that are from someone else’s work

If you stick to these rules of referencing, then everything should be fine.

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Elements of Referencing

There are two elements to referencing:
- in-text citations
- a list of references (bibliography)

In-text Citations

A short reference that goes in the body of the text
Includes the authors/company’s name and the year of publication
- may include page numbers if relevant

List of References

Comes at the end of the report
Provides the additional information to the in-text citation
- i.e. title and publisher
Presented in alphabetical order by author and a single list

You should know by now, there are two key elements when it comes to referencing, in-text citations and a list of references, sometimes referred to as the bibliography.

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An in-text citation is a short reference that will go in the main body of the text. There are various ways you can go about doing this, but it would typically include the author (or organisations) name, and the year in which the article was published. You may also want to include page numbers, if they are relevant; e.g. when quoting directly.

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The list of references is located at the end of the report, before the appendices. The purpose of the bibliography is to provide additional information for the in-text citation. This will cover details such as the articles title, the location of the resource and in some-cases a date of when it was accessed. The list is presented in alphabetical order and is a single list that may span multiple pages.

Over the next few slides, I will discuss the various ways you can provide an in-text citation in your report.

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How to Reference: Authors

There are various different formatting methods when it comes to referencing authors

One or two Authors

Use all their names in both the in-text citation and list of references
Example for in-text citation:
- (Cornelius & Richards, 2022)
Example for list of references:
- Cornelius, I., & Richards, T. (2022). Referencing in 6047CEM (1st ed.). Coventry University.

3+ Authors

Use the first name of the author, followed by et al. for an in-text citation
You must list all authors for the list of references
Example for in-text citation:
- (Cornelius et al., 2022)
Example for a list of references:
- Cornelius, I., Richards, T., & Goldsmith, D. (2022). Referencing in 6047CEM (2nd ed.). Coventry University.

No Authors

Cannot find a name? use the company or organisation’s name
Example for in-text citation:
- (Coventry University, 2022)
Example for list of references:
- Coventry University (2022). Referencing in 6047CEM. http://github.coventry.ac.uk/pages/CUEH/6047CEM/ [Accessed 21st November 2022]

When it comes to referencing the authors of a paper, there are different methods of how they occur in your in-text citation.

If there is a single or a couple of authors (one to two) then you will need to use all the names in both the in-text citation and the reference list. For example, if Terry and I were to publish a book on referencing for this module, then our in-text citation would consist of the first authors surname, followed by an ampersand and the second authors surname, followed by the year of publication.

However, it becomes a little more tricky when there is more than three authors. It would be quite the pain in the backside to include all the particular surnames, especially if a paper were to consist of six authors. Therefore, in this instance you will only need to provide the first authors surname, followed by et al.; Latin for “and others”.

In this example, you can see from the bibliography we have added Daniel Goldsmith to our fictional paper on how to reference for 6047CEM. This means that there are now three authors for this paper, and as such our in-text citation will only list the leader authors surname, followed by ‘et al.’ and the year of publication.

In some cases, there may be no author present at all in an article you have found. Typically, this would be attributed to information sourced from a website. Therefore, in this instance, it is perfectly fine to use the name of the organisation. Therefore, your in-text citation would be the organisation (or publishers) name in full, and the yeaer of publication.

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How to Reference: In-text Citations

Two acceptable methods to using in-text citations in your report:
1. Parenthetical
2. Narrative

Parenthetical

All information pertaining to the reference is included at the end of the sentence in brackets
- the citation should be before the full-stop/period (‘.’)

“There was a lot of misconceptions when it came to use of in-text citations and the location of the citation itself. (Cornelius, 2022).”

Narrative

The author’s name is included in the structure of the sentence
The year of publication for the source should be provided in brackets
- placed just after the author’s name
If quoting a page number, it should be placed at the end of the sentence

“Cornelius (2022) stated in their work that”there was a lot of misconception when it comes to the use of in-text citations” (p. 1).”

When it comes to using in-text citations in the body of your report, there are two acceptable methods, parenthetical and narrative.

With the parenthetical approach, all the information that is relating to the reference is included at the end of the sentence in a set of brackets. Similar to the examples you would have seen on the previous slide. I should point out here, that the citation should appear before the period/full-stop or dot. Whatever, you want to refer to it as… I have seen it many, many times in reports whereby students end the sentence with a full-stop and then place their in-text citation. This is not correct, and will potentially reduce marks associated to referencing.

The narrative method is where you will include the authors name in the structure of your sentence. The year of publication would then be placed in brackets and come after the authors name. If you are deciding to quote the page number whereby a reference is coming from, then this would typically be placed at the end in a set of brackets. Typically, you would only need to provide the page number if you are using a direct quote from the authors body of work.

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How to Reference: Figures and Tables

Labels are used to describe what the figure or table is showing
For Figures, pre-fix the label with Figure followed by the chapter number and sequential number of the figure
- i.e. Figure 1.1 is the first figure in the introduction chapter
For tables, pre-fix the label with Table followed by the chapter number and sequential number of the table
- i.e. Table 4.5 is the fifth table in the fourth chapter
If you have copied information from a publication, you must provide an in-text citation
- this would be provided inside the caption for the figure or table
- i.e. Figure 5.6. Peoples favourite fruit (Cornelius, 2022).

Referencing is not just for papers you have sourced online or for books. They can also be used to refer to tables and images or graphs (typically referred to as figures) in your report.

When you are using graphs or images in your report, they should be pre-fixed with the label Figure followed by the chapter number and the sequential number for that image in the chapter. For example, Figure 1.1 would be referring to an image or graph in chapter one, and is the first figure to be in this chapter. When using tables, then you should label the table with Table and again followed by the chapter and sequential number. For example, Table 4.5 would refer to a table that is chapter four and is the fifth table to be present in that chapter.

It is most important you get into the habit of labelling your tables and figures correctly. This also means that if you are portraying a table of data from an authors publication then you must either recreate the table as a whole, or provide an in-text citation, with the table and page number included. The table should be a screenshot and then labelled as a figure. Again, I have seen this before and I thought I would raise it now.

The labelling of tables and figures are not just strictly enforced for those two. It is also applied to code and any equations that may be present in your work. If you are going to be including any code in your report, the it should be pre-fixed with the label “Listing” followed by the chapter and sequential number. Equations are slightly different, in the right hand-side margin the chapter number and sequential number should be provided in a set of brackets and in italic.

Finally, when it comes to using either a figure, table, equation or code listing from an alternative source, e.g. another author’s publication, then an in-text citation must be provided in the caption. An example is shown on the screen.

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Reference Formatting

Source	In-text Citation	Reference List
Books	[@KostCharlesP.author2015Sqrs, p. 204]	Kost, C. P. (2015). Student quick reference success guide to writing in the APA 6th edition style.
Journal	[@TyagiVirat2021EHaA, p. 236]	Tyagi, V. (2021). Ethical hacking and advance python. International Journal for Research in Applied Science and Engineering Technology, 9(5), 234–239.
Website (Author)	[@Cornelius6047CEM]	Cornelius, I. (n.d.). 6047CEM - cyber security report. https://github.coventry.ac.uk/pages/CUEH/6047CEM/
Website (No Author)	[@NoAuthor6047CEM]	6047CEM - cyber security report. (n.d.). https://github.coventry.ac.uk/pages/CUEH/6047CEM/

On the screen are a few examples of how an in-text citation and the associated item in the bibliography would look when compiled using the appropriate referencing style. Remember, at Coventry University, we use the APA 7th edition referencing style. Therefore, you will want to ensure you adhere to this styling convention as it is different to Harvard and IEEE etc.

I won’t go through each example, you can look at these in your own time. However, what is important to note is that for the GitHub pages for this module both have a n.d. stated in their in-text citation and bibliography entry. This is because there was no date of publication that was present in the bibliography entry, and as such n.d. is used to represent this. Essentially n.d. equals “no date”.

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Reference Managers

Great for keeping track of papers, books or articles you have read
Various methodologies for doing this:
- LaTeX: create a .bib file with all your BibTex sources
- Microsoft Word: Mendeley, RefWorks etc.
Provides assistance to reference correctly
- i.e. Microsoft Word has a built-in Mendeley plugin

Referencing using LaTeX

Referencing using LaTeX (1)

Sourcing LaTeX References

LaTeX uses a bibliography management package known as bibtex
- uses a database of references, a file with a .bib extension
Requires using a package called natbib to make citations
Google Scholar provides a BibTeX entry for each paper you source

Example of a Google Scholar Paper Entry

Example of a BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{cornelius2017dynamic,
  title={A dynamic Markov model for n th-order movement prediction},
  author={Cornelius, Ian and Shuttleworth, James and Taramonli, Sandy},
  booktitle={2017 4th International Conference on Systems and 
    Informatics (ICSAI)},
  pages={430--436},
  year={2017},
  organization={IEEE}
}

The first method of referencing I shall discuss is in the constraints of LaTeX. Why am I discussing LaTeX first? Well, you should be aware that I prefer this tool for writing reports over Microsoft Word, and I am still slowly trying to convert you all.

LaTeX uses a bibliography package manager known as bibtex. This uses a database file with the extension .bib to store all of your references. To make use of bibtex you will be required to use a package called natbib. You will see this present in my list of packages in the LaTeX template.

One of the main reasons as to why I like writing my reports in LaTeX is the sheer ease of managing my references. The .bib database file will contain all the references I will be using in my report. The database file can be easily populated by using a BibTeX entry often made available on websites such as Google Scholar and CiteSeerX.

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When you search for a paper on Google Scholar, and click on the “double quote” character below the paper name and link, you will be presented with a pop-up similar to the image shown on the screen. This is the cite window, and it includes the citation for that paper in the major referencing styles. However, at the bottom, and highlighted in pink, you will see that there is a link called BibTex. By clicking on this link, it will redirect you to the database entry for that paper.

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On the right-hand-side of the screen, you will see an example of a BibTex entry. This entry contains all the relevant information for the paper that you were reading. You will see tha the title, author, book-title and year of publication have all be included. These are the most important and relevant features that are required when making our citation and reference.

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Structure of the BibTex File

BibTeX’s entries will be located in the database file (.bib)
There are different categories for references:
- inproceedings: refers to a paper published from a conference
- phdthesis: refers to a report published as part of a PhD thesis
- journal: refers to an article published in an academic journal
- book: refers to a book

Example of a BibTeX Database: `inproceedings`

@inproceedings{cornelius2017dynamic,
  title={A dynamic Markov model for n th-order movement prediction},
  author={Cornelius, Ian and Shuttleworth, James and Taramonli, Sandy},
  booktitle={2017 4th International Conference on Systems and 
    Informatics (ICSAI)},
  pages={430--436},
  year={2017},
  organization={IEEE}
}

Example of a BibTeX Database: `phdthesis`

@phdthesis{cornelius2019dynamic,
  title={A Dynamic Stochastic Model for Real-time Analysis and 
    Predictions for Movement Exhibited by an Object},
  author={Cornelius, Ian},
  year={2019},
  school={Coventry University}
}

As I mentioned on the previous slide, the BibTex entry from Google Scholar will be located in its own database file, that is a file ending with the .bib file extension. You will have noticed from our bibtex entry earlier, that a inproceedings category was used. There are different categories for how a paper has been published, and some of these are: inproceedings, phdthesis, journal and book. However, there are also other categories, such as online, which I do not discuss in this lecture.

The inproceedings category is where a paper was published from a conference, whilst journal refers to an article that has been published in an academic journal. There is a difference between the two, and generally a journal article would of had a more thorough and strict review, whilst conference papers are not subjected to this and would typically have fewer pages.

There are also two other categories, such as phdthesis and book. Hopefully each of these are self-explanatory. However, the reason I touch upon these different categories, is because they both are structured differently.

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On the screen, you will see an example of a inproceedings and phdthesis bibtex entry. You will see that there is a slight difference between the two, with the inproceedings containing a few additional entries such as booktitle, pages and the organisation. Some of this information will be used to create the reference list item.

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Citing References in a LaTeX Report

In-text citations are made using either:
- \citet{Name_of_BibTeX_Entry}
  - provides a narrative citation: e.g. “Cornelius (2017)”
- \citep{Name_of_BibTeX_Entry}
  - provides a parenthetical citation: e.g. “(Cornelius, 2017)”
Add an asterisk (*) to the end of the above commands, to provide all surnames of the authors

Creating a Bibliography/List of References

Bibliography or list of references is created by using:
- \bibliographystyle{Reference_Style}
  - include a .csl for the appropriate referencing style
- \bibliography{BibTeX_Database.bib}
  - refers to the database file for BibTeX entries

When it comes to using the papers you have sourced and their bibtex entry, they can be achieved using the citet and citep command. I will not go into much detail regarding how these commands work, as you would have been taught this in your first-year of the course in Terry’s module.

However, what I will touch upon is the different citations that these commands provide. The citet command will provide a narrative citation. This is where the name of the author is provided and then the year of publication in brackets. This is a great method of introducing the authors work that you wish to discuss.

Alternatively, the citep command will provide a parenthetical citation, whereby the authors surname and year of publication will be provided in a set of brackets. This is often used when you are discussing the work of an author and you have not introduced it in a narrative convention. More often than not, this is when you are quoting from someones work, or comparing two pieces (or more) of work together.

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To create the bibliography, you will then need to use the bibliographystyle and bibliography commands. The first command will be the reference style. At this university, we use the APA referencing style, and as such it will be expected all students to be providing their references in this format. I have included an appropriate style for APA referencing in the repository for the LaTeX template.

The second command, bibliography is used to import the database file that contains the bibtex entries. You will want to ensure that any of the cite commands introduced on this slide is referring to a referencing that is included in this file, otherwise errors would arise on the compilation of your report.

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Compiling the LaTeX Report

Building your report requires:
1. Compiling the report using pdflatex
2. Compiling the bibliography database using bibtex
3. Compiling the report using pdflatex
4. Compiling the report using pdflatex
A handy Makefile is provided with the template to compile your report
- only works for a Linux environment
- need a Windows script? Ask!
Report and Project Proposal Template:
- LaTeX Template

When it comes to compiling your report, there is a specific process you will need to follow. Luckily for you, with the LaTeX template, I have provided a shortcut or cheaters method to compile the report by using a Makefile. This is only applicable for the Linux operating system, and if you require a Makefile for Windows, then reach out to the module leader via e-mail.

Essentially, when it comes to compiling the LaTeX report, you are first required to compile the report using the pdflatex tool. This will then be followed by compiling the bibliography database using the bibtex tool. Both of these commands will need to be used in the terminal window.

Once you have compiled your report and bibtex database, you can then proceed with compiling your report using the pdflatex command again. However, this time you will need to do it twice. The reason for this, is that the second compilation is required to ensure that the dependency links between the bibtex files and table of contents file is included, and they are compiled correctly. You can probably see why I have included a Makefile in the repository.

Referencing using Microsoft Word

Referencing using Microsoft Word (1)

How to reference with Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word consists of an in-built reference manager
There are alternative plugins:
- i.e. RefWorks and Mendeley
This lecture is concerned with the in-built reference manager
Uses an XML document to handle your references
- difficult and tedious to maintain
- custom Python script provided to convert .bib file to .xml
Handy Python script for converting:
- Python Script: Convert BibTeX to XML

I have provided a discussion on how you can reference using LaTeX, so it would only be fair that I provide a discussion for Microsoft Word too. Unfortunately, the process is not as straight-forward if you insist on using the in-built reference manager. However, there is alternative plugins by RefWorks and Mendeley, so you may want to look into those pieces of software and see what they have to offer.

However, if you insist on using the in-built reference manager, then I have provided a handy Python script that can be used to convert a BibTex entry file to an XML format that is recognised by Microsoft. This is not my finest work or coding work so do not judge me on it! It was hastily written to give you something that will “do the job”, it may be refined at some point.

But why does this script exist? Well Microsoft handles their reference database management in the form of an XML document. If you were to look at the output of the XML file from the Python script you would wince at the overly complicated nature of it. Therefore, I take this burden off you, and provide a method of automatically converting a bibtex database file, to an XML file.

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Using the Python Script

Create your .bib file with references obtained from Google Scholar
Install a third party module:
- python3 -m pip install bibtexparser
Run the Python script:
- python3 bib2xml.py --input filename.bib --output filename.xml

Limitations of the Python Script

Only handles the following types of references:
- Conference Papers
- Journal Articles
- Web Sites
Need something additional?
- Drop the module leader an e-mail, ab6459@coventry

Let’s have a look at how you would use this Python script. The first thing you will need to do is create a bibtex database, which is a file with a .bib extension. This file will consist of all your references that you have obtained from Google Scholar, or CiteSeerX. However, before you can begin using the tool, you will need to install a third-party Python module, called bibtexparser. Okay, so I took some shortcuts creating this script, but why reinvent the wheel? Let’s embrace what the developer community has provided us.

Once you have installed the third-party module, you can call the script as shown on screen. Essentially, the script requires two parameters to be passed through, one for the input file, and this will be the .bib and another for the name of our output file, in this case a file ending with .xml. This will then proceed with the conversion of the bibtex entries to an XML entry that can be used by Microsoft Word.

However, keep in mind that the current functionality is limited to conference papers, journal articles and websites. If you need further categories added to the script, then drop the module leader an e-mail, with the e-mail address shown on the screen.

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Importing the References into Microsoft Word

Reference management can be done under the References tab
- click on the Manage Sources label

Click on the Browse button and search for the exported XML file from the Python script
- once loaded, you will see your collection of references

With the bibtex entry converted to an XML file, you can now begin with the process of using the in-built reference manager of Microsoft Word. To begin, you will need to click on the References tab, and then click on the Manage Sources label.

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This will open a new dialogue window, where you can import the XML file that was created earlier. To do this, click on the Browse button, and search for this file. For the purpose of this example, the name of the file that was exported was example.xml. Once the file has been imported, you will see that the references were provided in the bibtex file have been converted and imported.

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Displaying the Imported References

Use the Copy -> button to transfer references you want to use in your report

List of references can be created using the Bibliography option in the References tab

When it comes to displaying the imported references, you will need to select the references that you wish to use. In the dialogue window that popped up earlier, you will need to click on the Copy -> button to copy across the references that you are using in your report.

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Once you have copied across the references you need to use, you can then create a bibliography by selecting the Bibliography option in the references tab. This will then create a bibliography in your Microsoft Word document, similar to the one shown on the screen in the screenshot.

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Using a Citation in your Report

Citations can be included using the Insert Citation option in the References tab
- limited to only parenthetical in-text citations

When it comes to using a citation in your Microsoft Word report, you will want to use the Insert Citation option that is available through the References tab. This will then enable you to provide a citation in the main body of your report. Unfortunately, unlike LaTeX, this is limited to being a parenthetical citation only, and you may need to make some changes to the formatting if you wish to use it as a narrative style.

Hopefully, based upon this tedious process, you can see why I was recommending students become accustomed to using LaTeX for writing their reports, as it really does make life a lot easier when it comes to writing your dissertation report.

Goodbye

Goodbye (1)

Questions and Support

Questions? Post them in the Community Page on Aula
Additional Support? Visit the Module Support Page
Contact Details:
- Dr Ian Cornelius, ab6459@coventry.ac.uk
- Mr Terry Richards, ac6860@coventry.ac.uk

Referencing in your Dissertation Report

Dr Ian Cornelius

Hello

Referencing

Referencing (1)

Why do we Reference?

Referencing (2)

Elements of Referencing

In-text Citations

List of References

Referencing (3)

How to Reference: Authors

One or two Authors

3+ Authors

No Authors

Referencing (4)

How to Reference: In-text Citations

Parenthetical

Narrative

Referencing (5)

How to Reference: Figures and Tables

Referencing (6)

Reference Formatting

Referencing (7)

Reference Managers

Referencing using LaTeX

Referencing using LaTeX (1)

Sourcing LaTeX References

Example of a Google Scholar Paper Entry

Example of a BibTeX Entry

Reference using LaTeX (2)

Structure of the BibTex File

Example of a BibTeX Database: inproceedings

Example of a BibTeX Database: phdthesis

Reference using LaTeX (3)

Citing References in a LaTeX Report

Creating a Bibliography/List of References

Reference using LaTeX (4)

Compiling the LaTeX Report

Referencing using Microsoft Word

Referencing using Microsoft Word (1)

How to reference with Microsoft Word

Referencing using Microsoft Word (2)

Using the Python Script

Limitations of the Python Script

Referencing using Microsoft Word (3)

Importing the References into Microsoft Word

Referencing using Microsoft Word (4)

Displaying the Imported References

Referencing using Microsoft Word (5)

Using a Citation in your Report

Goodbye

Goodbye (1)

Questions and Support

References

Example of a BibTeX Database: `inproceedings`

Example of a BibTeX Database: `phdthesis`