HOW TO REFERENCE WHEN PREPARING YOUR WORK (3 minutes read)
Why is it important to reference someone’s work properly?
Proper referencing is crucial in academic work as it gives credit to the original authors, acknowledging
their contributions and avoiding plagiarism. It also allows readers to verify sources and follow up on the
research, enhancing the credibility and reliability of the work. Perhaps, it would be a good idea to familiarize
yourself with the code of conduct for the prevention and processing of misconduct in studies at University
of Oulu: https://www.oulu.fi/external/Code-of-conduct-for-the-prevention-and-processing-of-misconduct-
in-studies-at-University-of-Oulu-2018.pdf
Next, let’s get some definitions straight:
A reference is a detailed description of the source of information that you want to give credit to via a
citation.
An in-text citation is a brief reference (often just an author’s last name and a date or page number) made
within the body of your work that helps a reader to identify an idea’s original source.
The references appear usually in the form of a list at the end of the work (e.g., learning diary). The reference
list is sometimes referred to as bibliography.
For the purposes of an illustration, I will use a paper by Jacobides et al. (2018). This is an in-text citation.
Reference: Jacobides, M. G., Cennamo, C., & Gawer, A. (2018). Towards a theory of ecosystems. Strategic
management journal, 39(8), 2255-2276.
These are in-text
citations
And below is an example of a full reference of the in-text citation “Teece (2014, p.1)”
There are different reference styles that have developed over time to address the specific needs of different
disciplines. For example, APA (American Psychological Association) style is primarily used by Education,
Psychology, and Sciences. MLA (Modern Language Association) style is used by the Humanities. But it is
not a written-in-stone rule; the boarders are rather fluid, and you have probably already noticed that both
of these styles are used in the management papers as well.
You can find detailed guidebooks on various styles on the Internet. Below, for example, is a link to APA
reference style: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines. Please, use this style when preparing
your learning diary.
You can use Google Scholar to help you compile a reference list. See the example below:
1. Go to scholar.google.com
2. Type the last name of the author. You may also use the year of the publication as well as some key
words from the paper to limit the search results.
3. Choose the right reference and click cite.
4. Choose the right reference style from the window.
5. Copy-paste the right reference to the reference list. That’s it
