CS A5: Referencing and Harvard Rules

There is often a lot of chat on the various OCA forums about referencing and the Harvard rules. I try not to get too overly focused on these as I have so much to think about and I find it a bit distracting. It’s hard enough for someone who is undoubtedly dyslexic, but can’t officially say as I have never been properly diagnosed. Simply organising thoughts, getting names right, just putting words in the right order is immensely challenging anyway. However, of course, I want to get the citations in the right place too as it would be dreadful to lose % based on that.  I knew I would need to address this roundabout now and am lucky enough to know someone with a lot of academic writing experience who has proofed my referencing.

However, I think it would be useful for the OCA to offer a short online tutorial occasionally to cover referencing rules. This would have been especially helpful after they changed, a little while back. Tutors could attend too since they seem to give conflicting, out of date advice, if any at all – even though the guidelines are clear and categorical. When students make enquiries with various non-teaching OCA staff, again the replies can be confusing. The whole thing ends up causing students undue worry about something that we shouldn’t have to get too stressed about  – because the rules are actually clear. But! …yes, there is a but – there are lots of them, and if you’re not used to it/dyslexic, it’s too easy to get simple things wrong.

We also all have different learning styles for different types of information. For me, the lack of spoken interaction across the board with the OCA has been one of the biggest difficulties as I pick things up quickly when I hear them, but I can miss relatively straightforward stuff when it’s written down in a dry document. (Youtube videos have been a godsend for me – but having a live person answering questions is always the best.)

• For instance, I completely missed the fact you must put the citation after the surname when it’s in the text,
• i.e. Barad (2007: 49) talks about a “Cartesian habit of mind”.
• But when it’s in not in the text, it goes after the quote, as I had been doing with everything:
• We all live with a “Cartesian habit of mind” (Barad, 2007: 49).

It also took me ages to get it into my head that the full stop needs to be after the end bracket in the previous example – it’s something I should have been getting right throughout the course really. I’m aware, this might seem impossibly simple for anyone who has not spent a lifetime getting their left and right the wrong way round (a typical dyslexic habit).

These things are so simple and so obvious once they’ve sunk in, though. I am sure there are students who get it straight away. But for those of us who don’t – there are several, if the various emails and forum threads are anything to go by – I really think it would be good to have the chance to attend one-off tutorials (with someone who can be trusted) which I mentioned above, just about this topic. By keeping it consistent, so that everyone at the OCA is aware of the same advice, and limited to Harvard Rules, the information would not get buried. And the worry people feel about it would be a relatively easy stress to address or even do away with altogether.