Adding references to your work:
- Adds credibility to your claims – people can use other sources to verify your assumptions.
- Allows others to read on from your work into similar areas (ones you have deemed useful to your work).
- Shows that you are aware of other research in the subject area.
References are essential the research equivalent to a bibliography, with papers listed at the end in a References section.
There are two main ways to cite work: (in no particular order)
- Harvard system (references listed alphabetically by name, with a short reference in your text)
- Vancouver system (references listed numerically by order of appearance, referenced to by numbers in your text)