EasyBib iPhone app

I'm pretty sure that we have mentioned EasyBib in the past, but for the benefit of newcomers, EasyBib, is a free web-based bibliographic formatting tool. Enter a website, book journal article etc. and EastBib will format a citation for you in a variety of standard referencing formats as required. You can use it to manage bibliographies much like Zotero but without the reliance on Firefox. Anyway, EasyBib have released an iPhone app that will, well you'll never guess, create accurate citations in mere seconds by scanning a book bar code or by typing the name of a book. It's almost enough to make me want an iPhone (almost, but not quite, Maria). Get your free EasyBib iPhone app here if you so wish

Plagiarism

Plagiarism can be simply defined as "a piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is being presented as your own work". That's not my definition", I've copied it from someone else (from here), which is why I've put it in quotation marks and given the link to where it appears ( a nice online dictionary named Wordnet).
There's often confusion over what constitutes plagiarism, but it's quite simple - see the definition above. I'd add a couple of words to that definition. At the end of the definition, I'd add "even inadvertently". We sometimes see assignments in which some text has been lifted word for word from another source, but the source is referenced in the bibliography. This, I'm afraid still qualifies as plagiarism. Why? Two reasons:
When you use the exact words of another, you must use quotation marks, otherwise the reader is led to believe that those words are your own. Secondly, there's no link between the text and the source; without any indication of where the non-original text comes from, the use of quotation marks is meaningless. Even if you're paraphrasing someone else's words
Hence in my definition of plagiarism above, I put the non-original text in quotation marks and I gave a link to the source of the quotation. When writing assignments, you need to put the source of any non-original text beside that text. You don't need to put the entire reference, the author's surname and year of publication will normally suffice. If you're unsure about referencing, why not take one of the library's great referencing classes?

Referencing resources

Students sometimes, understandably, struggle with referencing their sources. The referencing aspect of our library classes is very popular and basically we could run entirely classes on this subject. This post will look at some resources available to assist you with referencing:
Books: The library contains a fair number of books on referencing, most of which can be found starting with Dewey number 808. Clicking this will find most of them
Guides: There are a number of guides - on the library website - and elsewhere on referencing conventions. Here's the library guide to referencing, and here's a couple of podcasts on Harvard and APA referencing we created ourselves. Externally, most academic library sites have referencing guides, but we have long recommended those of Curtin University, Australia for their completeness. We also recommend the referencing section of The APA cribsheet for APA referencing guidelines.
Reference Generators: You can do pretty much anything online these days, so why not generate your references online too? Bibme is an automated reference generator for APA, MLA, Chicago and Turabian formats. Free registration allows you to create and save entire bibliographies online. Harvard format reference generated has been promised for a while now but has not yet appeared. A similar service is provided by Easybib, which only offers free trials to students. Similar to Easybib is Noodlebib which allows you to create a couple of citations for free. None of these support Harvard referencing, but you can create Harvard citations using Neil's Toolbox Harvard Reference Generator The Neil's Toolbox site looks quite interesting, including as it does a Plagiarism Tester and something called a "Lazy Researcher"
The library also recommends Zotero a fantastic add-on for the Firefox web browser. What do you mean you don't use Firefox? Zotero is a web-based reference management system akin to EndNote and Reference Manager (except that it's free). On similar lines to Zotero, except that it's not a Firebox add-on is Connotea
No matter what you do and what you use. Note the following:
1. Always cite your sources
2. Don't get bogged down in trivialities pertaining to punctuation or font styles. The bottom line, and the rationale for referencing, is: can the reader easily retrieve material that you reference?
3. Be consistent - adopt a style and stick with it; you may lose marks if your referencing jumps between formats.