LibGuides: Referencing and Avoiding Plagiarism: Home

Welcome to NCI's online referencing guide. In this guide, you will find information about referencing and avoiding plagiarism, NCI's three main referencing styles, and referencing tools that can assist you with this important skill.

What is referencing?

In your assignments at NCI you will be expected to support your arguments by referring to information written or produced by others. This information could come from academic journals, conference papers, textbooks or websites. You will expected to use a wide variety of sources and reference them throughout your work.

Referencing (or citing) means acknowledging the sources that you used to inform and support your arguments in your assignments. Referencing is an important feature of academic writing and a skill you will need to learn.

When you use information that someone else wrote or produced, you need to give them credit and ensure that the person reading your assignment can easily locate the source where you found the information. In order to do this consistently and accurately, we use referencing styles. A referencing style is a set of rules to help you format the references in your assignment, both within the text of your assignment and in a reference list or bibliography at the end.

Three referencing styles are used at NCI: Harvard, APA and IEEE. Which referencing style you should use depends on what course or subject you are doing. Harvard is required by most courses; however, Psychology students use the APA style and some Computing students use IEEE. Please double check with your lecturer or supervisor regarding which referencing style you are required to use.

You may also hear lecturers talk about plagiarism and academic integrity in relation to referencing and academic writing. You can find out more about these important concepts on this page, or see our Academic Integrity Guide for more information.

Citation – a small reference inserted within your writing to indicate the source of the information used when it is not your own
Reference – listed at the end of your assignment, a reference follows the format dictated by the referencing style you are using. A reference features additional details about the citation inserted within your writing, enabling the reader to locate and access the original source of the information you used
Bibliography/Reference List – a complete list of formatted references at the end of your assignment, listed in a particular order and providing full details of all the sources you have used and cited within your writing
Style - the exact formatting to follow when creating citations and references

NCI Library's interactive Tutorial on Recognising and Avoiding Plagiarism is is designed to help students learn about the importance of referencing the information used in assignments as well as how to avoid plagiarism. Access the tutorial through the 'Academic Integrity Hub' option on the Library dropdown menu on Moodle.

The What, When, Where and Why of Referencing

To enable the reader to locate and check the sources you have used and confirm/contest the information for themselves
To strengthen your arguments, support your own ideas and give them credibility
To demonstrate that you have read and used relevant sources for your research
To acknowledge and credit the original source of the information, thereby avoiding plagiarism

By properly referencing your written work, you are rightfully giving credit to the words and ideas of others that you have used; you are also clearly demonstrating the level of your own reading and research. By following a specific referencing style, those who read and grade your work can easily identify and locate the sources you have used. Lastly, correctly referencing in your written work will improve your grades and help you to avoid plagiarism.

You should reference whenever you use a source of information:

as your inspiration
as the source of a theory, argument or point of view
for specifics such as statistics, examples or images
for direct quotation (using the author's exact words)
to paraphrase or summarise an author's work

Generally, references need to be included in two different places in your assignments:

In the text of your assignment at the point where you use or refer to information from another source. This is called an in-text citation – here you only provide brief details of the source.
In the list of references/bibliography at the end of your assignment – here you provide the full details of the source you cited in the main text of your assignment.

This guide includes the 3 main referencing styles which are currently used in NCI. These styles are:

(i) Harvard – used in most courses in the School of Business plus some courses in the School of Computing

(ii) APA - used by students studying Psychology, Education and Learning and Teaching

(iii) IEEE – used in some courses in the School of Computing.

Always clarify with your lecturer which referencing style is required.

Plagiarism refers to taking another person’s words, ideas, data or images and using them as your own without giving credit to the original source of the information.

Examples of plagiarism

Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving them credit
Copying illustrations, graphs or computer code (for code, check permitted use with your lecturers)
Paraphrasing another's work too closely, with only minor changes, but with the essential meaning, format and/or progression of ideas maintained
Failing to put a quotation in quotation marks – this is considered plagiarism even if you reference the source because you have presented the work as a paraphrase
Relying on a specific idea or interpretation which is not your own, and which has not been properly cited
Piecing together the work of others from multiple sources, and representing this as original work
Presenting as independent work done in collaboration with others (i.e. collusion)
Preparing an original and correctly referenced assignment and submitting part or all of the assignment twice for separate modules
Using AI tools (ChatGPT, CoPilot, Gemini etc.) to generate content for your assignments without permission from your lecturer

See Page 11 of the NCI Library Referencing Guide, 5th edition for more examples of where and how plagiarism occurs.

A few ways to avoid plagiarism:

Don’t copy and paste text as this will inevitably lead to you using wording that is too close to the original text
Use a variety of good quality sources, i.e. don't rely on just one source for whole sections of your written work
Keep good quality and accurate notes - good referencing starts with effective note-taking
Make sure that you paraphrase properly and reference correctly
Don't use AI tools to generate content for your assignments (unless given permission to do so)

For further advice on avoiding plagiarism, take a look at the Avoiding Plagiarism Tutorial. You can access the tutorial through the 'Avoiding Plagiarism' link on the dashboard of your Moodle page, then select the enrolment link.

Tips to remember:

Is it a quote? Reference it!
Is it a paraphrase? Reference it!
Is it another person's idea/theory/image? Reference it!

Collusion is the presentation by a student of written work as their own when it is in fact the result in whole or in part of unauthorised collaboration with another person or persons. Collusion involves the cooperation of two or more students in plagiarism or other forms of academic misconduct. Both the student presenting the written work and the student(s) with who they have collaborated are considered participants in the act of academic misconduct.

Academic integrity is highly valued in the National College of Ireland. It is important to use your own thoughts and words in your assignments, exams, and other course related activities. Academic writing is built on trust and students are expected to be honest. When information has been taken from another source, you are expected to give full credit for the use of another person’s thoughts and ideas. Intentional or unintentional use of another's work, without proper acknowledgement is plagiarism.

Plagiarism constitutes serious academic misconduct and the penalties are severe if a student is found to have deliberately plagiarised the work of another, including copying the work of other students. As a student, it is your responsibility to avoid plagiarism.

NCI uses similarity detection software called Turnitin to help academic members of staff to detect possible instances of plagiarism. If a lecturer has serious concerns about plagiarism, they will notify you and then seek a second opinion. If concerns are found to be justified, the consequences can range from the following:

Your written work grade being capped
Loss of mark in part or whole
Submitting a new piece of work
Suspension
Expulsion

See our Academic Integrity Guide for more details.

Need advice for your assignments or research?
The Library Academic Support Centre is here to help!
We offer in-person and online appointments, remote assistance via email and a drop-in service.
For more details about how we can help you, see here.


Keith Brittle	Shannon Mallon	Isobel Dunne