Section 05 Citation method for In-text citations

Impilo e Abundant uses the standard Harvard (author, date, page-numbering) system. The in- text citation will be a short referencing method to acknowledge the source you have used when you use information from a source outside the Impilo manual to answer the question in your assignment. You will still need to paraphrase the answer from the source; in other words, you are not allowed to copy and paste the information as it is originally in the source that you have used.

The purpose of in-text citations is to give direct credit to the source you used to write the particular paragraph that you wrote to answer the IAC question.

Credited sources that are allowed to be used other than the manual:

  • Accredited books from accredited academic scholars.
  • Internet sources: Google Scholar, EBSCO Host, (please do not use other sources like Wikipedia, for example, the Internet source must be an accredited Academic source.
  • Accredited Journal articles or E-books are also accepted.

Format of In-text citations for Books:

The standard in-text citations that would be used when one has used a book’s information to answer the question can be in the following two ways.

  1. According to Venter (2022:113) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. This is when you use the author’s surname as part of your sentence, then only the publication year and the page numbers will come in the brackets.
  2. Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Venter 2022:113-114). When you do not use the author of the Book’s surname as part of your sentence, but the information was gathered from the author’s book, then the author’s surname, the publication year of the book, and page numbers must be in the bracket together.

Also, note that when you cite the page numbers of a book, no more than 2 pages may be cited at a time.

For example;

Venter (2022: 77-89) = Incorrect.

Venter (2022:77-78) = Correct.

You need to cite a source at least once per paragraph, but the rule of thumb is that whenever you have used information from another source, you will be required to provide an in-text citation. Furthermore, you will need to give an in-text citation for each paragraph.

What to do if some of the basic elements are missing:

If the author’s surname is missing:

When you have, for example, an online article or journal article that does not mention the author, you can substitute the author’s surname with the book’s title or journal or online article’s title. If the title is too long, you can abbreviate it (Atmore 2013:42).

For example, Xxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxx (Early Child Development, 2000:89). Please note that there is a comma after the title of the book or article.

If there is no date or year of publication:

  • This can usually occur with internet sites or online journal articles if there is no indication of the year in which the book, article, or source was published, then one can add the abbreviation “n.d.” (no date), (Atmore 2013:44).

For example:

According to Venter (n.d.:447) ……………………………..

………………………………….. (Venter n.d.:447).

  • If you have used information on a website where there is no indication of when the article or when the website was published, you may use the date when you accessed the website.

For example, if there is no date on the website and you accessed it on March 13th, 2006, you can write the author of the website or the article’s name and the year you accessed it with the page number. (Meier 2014:8).

  • If one uses an e-book and both the printed book and the e-book’s year of publication are mentioned in the e-book, use the e-book’s year of publication.
  • Always use the latest year of publication in your in-text citation.
  • You will find the year of publication after the title page on the 2nd or 3rd page.

What if there are no page numbers?

  • If a source has no page numbers (internet, website), then you are allowed to only name the author’s surname and year of publication/year of access (if no year of publication is mentioned).
  • If you are also referring to the source as a whole and not a particular page within the source.
  • If you want to refer to an entire section rather than just a page number, you can do it as follows.

You will need to use the lexicon § (Meier 2014:47).

For example: Impilo ECD (2021: § 2.1.1) (Please be advised that this is just used as an example; the Impilo manuals do have page numbers, this example is only if any source has no page numbers).

  • If a source has only chapters and no page numbers (usually internet sources). You can cite the chapter number instead of the page number.

For example: (Evans, Meyers and Ilfeld 2000: chap. 5)

  • A student is allowed to use direct quotes if referenced correctly; however, we would rather that a student paraphrase a source or scripture and reference the source that was used. You are only allowed to use 10% of the allotted word count for direct quotes.

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