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What is the importance of correct citation?


In a thesis or project, every statement must be substantiated by citing its source. Student often has a tendency to make statements or sometimes sweeping generalizations without providing the supporting documentation. This is an especially common occurrence when the project subject is one with which the student has considerable familiarity through clinical experience. These statements may be accepted as fact by those knowledgeable in that field and it doesn’t occur to students that these assertions must be backed with citations. A few examples of this type of statement are ” intellectual capital = competence × commitment.”; “Organizations around the world are increasingly being confronted with complex, intractable problems”; “Changing the nature of the composition of ages has a big impact on the education system.”. As self-evident as these types of statements may be, for the project they require the substantiation of one or more citations. Without citations, the work lacks credibility.

The other important issue related to citations is that scholars are expected to credit the source of ideas. For example, if you report one author’s critique of another’s work, you can not report the critical analysis as if it were your own. To do so would amount to plagiarism.

References to the work of others can take three forms. The author and year can be mentioned directly in the text: proposed by Ulrich (1998): intellectual capital = competence × commitment.

If an author’s ideas or work is discussed but the author is not mentioned directly in the text, the author can be cited at the end of the sentence or at the end of the paragraph in a lengthy discussion:

Organizations around the world are increasingly being confronted with complex, intractable problems (Hall, 2008).

When a direct quotation is used, the page number is included in the citation. Short quotations may be included with a paragraph; while longer quotations should be presented in an indented, single spaced block.

Graham (2003, p. 112) noted: 
Changing nature of the composition of ages has a big impact on the education system.

Please refer for more information  http://www.thesistrainer.com/p/do-citation.html

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