Referencing is the practice of acknowledging and describing other pieces of work that you have read or used whilst completing your own work. When you are asked to write an assessment at University, your lecturer will expect that you cite your research within your writing and produce a reference list at the end of the piece of work. You will quickly start consulting a number of different sources of information. It's important to manage your sources carefully from the start and know that you are referencing them correctly. This page offers some handy hints and advice on how to manage your references and citations.
Assistance on referencing can be found by visiting the Learning Development Centre.
Your guide to referencing and avoiding plagiarism
Cite Them Right Online is an interactive eBook that will help you reference a wide range of sources, including: books, films, journals, web resources, images, tweets, and much, much more in a variety of referncing styles.
The site's interactivity means that you can find the information that you need quickly and easily. You'll wonder how you ever survived without it!
Cite Them Right is an online platform designed to advise students on how to reference correctly across eight referencing styles.
The Complete Guide to Referencing and Avoiding Plagiarism by 
Aston University subscribes to this commercial reference management software package.
It is used to manage bibliographies and references when writing dissertations and articles
Watch this video for more guidance:
Consult the EndNote X7 - The Little EndNote How-To Book
Alternatively, catch up on Aston University's Research Bites series, where you can learn how to "Cite it! Sort it! EndNote it!"
Cite This For Me is a tool designed to help students prepare their whole bibliography or reference list quickly and easily. APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA, Vancouver, plus thousands of other referencing styles are all supported. With a simple, sophisticated design, Cite This For Me can assist students of all ages and education levels.
Please note: The free version requires you to export your Bibliography before closing the software otherwise you will lose it.
CiteThisForMe is now a Chegg product.
Colwiz is free reference management software that grown out of Oxford University.
Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your research, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research:
Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources.
Take a look at what you can do with Zotero:
1. Find the item (e.g. book or article) you require in Library Search.
2. Click on the 'cite' button to the right of the title.
3. Select the citation style required for the assignment e.g. Harvard and copy the citation into your work.
Alternatively, if you are using a citation management software such as EndNote, you can export it by selecting an option to the left.
If the reference management tool you use allows you to access full-text content, you will need to input authentication information in your settings in order to use this feature off-campus:
Authentication URL:
https://go.openathens.net/redirector/aston.ac.uk?url=
OpenURL Path:
http://widgets.ebscohost.com/prod/customerspecific/s9815128/redirect.php
This authentication URL should work with most of our subscribed resources, but if you find that you encounter an error, please try the OpenURL route from the reference management tool, or check that we have access to the content you need using Library Search.
Please note that EndNote is not currently compatible with either our Authentication system or our OpenURL link resolver.
