13.5.3 Referencing
When you provide a reference in the main body of a document, you are signaling to the reader that the citation is an example of something you have just said without taking the time to analyze the content of the source. When a source is alluded to in this manner, the author signals that while this source is important in the chain of research, its findings or methods are not as relevant to the current document’s purpose and audience.
Most often, you will see referencing early on as part of a literature review or introduction to the document. References are less common in analytical sections of reports and articles, but they may still appear if the author needs to make a quick point.
To employ a reference, observe the following guidelines:
- Identify what the source or sources are doing as a whole.
- Provide in-text parenthetical citations that support the claim you made. These should go at the end of the claim.
- Provide full citations in a References page at the end of the document.
Example
In the above example the writer offers a claim regarding the three sources provided in the in-text citation. The claim is that those three studies “focus specifically on intersectionality.” Notice that the claim alludes to the general content of the cited articles and does not offer any additional analysis or page numbers. However, the combined claim and citations allow readers who are interested in this topic to more easily locate the three recommended sources. For the writer, referencing can show credibility and content expertise.
NOTE: UTA students please look up resources UTA Libraries offers such as an APA video on how to effectively paraphrase.
“This section is derived from Using Sources in Your Document” in Howdy or Hello? Technical and Professional Communication Copyright © 2022 by Matt McKinney, Kalani Pattison, Sarah LeMire, Kathy Anders, and Nicole Hagstrom-Schmidt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
