OU blog

Personal Blogs

me

A short post about referencing

Visible to anyone in the world

Note: I counted to ten before writing this post.

When I am writing a long essay about something that is relevant to my studies I have to read lots of other sources. Its great. You learn, incorporate their ideas into your work and then acknowledge them. Its like the evolution of knowledge. 

Sometimes I even think, I'm going to literally just write something they have written down as a quote in my work because it is so befuddlingly brilliant I can't find another way to express it. Or its a famous or important quote, like, "Quite frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" (Gone with the Wind;).

When all is said and done I gather together all the things I've been pouring through and utilising then write all the names of them down so I can show off that I did a lot of stuff.

In TMA01 I have to answer questions, I'm not allowed in any way/shape/form to use anything other than the materials given to me by the OU to do so. So if I can't understand something from their material, I can't get another text, compare them and come to an understanding. If I use something which is in the other book not the W100 book thats fail. Which is fine and dandy, the W100 books are pretty damn comprehensive. If a little exhaustive. 

SO WHY DO I HAVE TO REFERENCE THEM!?

I have to write to a ridiculously obnoxious word count already, so obnoxious that I literally have to somehow guess what the audience I'm writing for do or do not know. There is no way to fully explain to somebody with no knowledge of Great Britan at all the things you are asked to explain in 600 odd words. You have to leave gaps and make assumptions, which again is fine, compression of information is part of learning to write accurate prose. 

However.

The idea that I then have to give up precious, precious words to do something that has no relevance whatsoever to my work is driving me utterly potty. It's not a case of, oh great I want to reference this point (or make a direct citation) because it identifies something clearly and I need that to make my word count work. Quite the opposite. I can find no way to squish some reference or citation into my work, simply because we are advised to, without it:

A) Dramatically affecting the flow of my answer 

B) Making me seem like a dolt because, realistically, the concept is simple enough that it can just be explained

and C) Wasting more of my time trying

I'm not saying I am having trouble, I can easily find a good reference for every point I make because I am only allowed to draw information from one source. So naturally they all have very easy references. Case citations are the same, all I'm doing is saying "The reason for this is because if it isn't that the other thing fails to work", then adding (for no reason), "And you can see proof of that in this case R v Insanely Aggravated Student 2013; SC".

table flip

Have a great evening. 

Kthnxbai

Joe

Permalink 1 comment (latest comment by Bren P, Wednesday, 20 Nov 2013, 19:17)
Share post

This blog might contain posts that are only visible to logged-in users, or where only logged-in users can comment. If you have an account on the system, please log in for full access.

Total visits to this blog: 169839