Most of what university students hear about documentation is couched in terms of plagiarism avoidance. Why is such a big deal made out of this? From high school on, students are told NOT to plagiarize. A more fruitful approach may be to ask "Why do we document?" Here's why.
When any kind of research is undertaken, the process begins with a careful, often critical and analytical, review of the work that has already been done that is relevant to the project at hand. Some of this earlier work will be incorporated into the current project, to support the researcher's basic approach and theories; some of it may be refuted by the research being done; all of it is important to understanding how the researcher's work fits into the field in which they are working.
Documentation is the careful way in which the researcher tells her/his readers which of these works he/she is using, and to what purpose. Without documentation, subsequent researchers will waste valuable time replicating work that has already been done, but not documented for others to find.
Whenever you're doing research, you should always document your work. First of all, you want to satisfy your assignment, and the research paper assignments are all going to require some kind of search for sources of information to support your research question. Make your professor happy, and get full credit, all at the same time. Second, when doing work for a grade, you need to be sure to give the person grading your work something to assess. Your careful analysis of works that you have found on your own is among the things that your professors are looking for when they grade your research assignments.
Many of the GALILEO databases include citation helper utilities. Similar tools are available free on the Internet. NO citation helper or documentation management tools -- even the expensive ones -- are 100% accurate. Use them as short-cuts, not as the last word. Always use the manual, or a guide to the manual, required for your assignment to verify that your details are correct.
Note: When using online citation guides, be sure to double-check the edition of the documentation manual that the guide was based on. Don't use a guide for anything older than the edition of the manual that you're using in your course.
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
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APA Style Guide to Electronic References
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I'm sure you have been told to never, ever plagiarize, but how can you be sure that you're not plagiarizing anything?
The following links can help you with avoiding plagiarism: