You may have heard that, apart from Law modules, the whole OU will begin moving referencing guidance starting this October from OU Harvard to Cite Them Right Harvard. Once the transition is complete, all tutors, staff and students will be using the same referencing guidance whatever the module.
The differences between OU Harvard and Cite Them Right Harvard are minimal, so if you have already been studying with us don’t worry, you will not have to learn a drastically different referencing style. Plus, the Cite Them Right online guidance is packed with helpful examples and tutorials.
Here are the Top 5 things to LOVE about Cite Them Right
- Using Cite Them Right Harvard across the OU means you will have the same referencing guidance across your modules making for a consistent experience
- The Cite Them Right online guidance is user-friendly, practical and contains tutorials on referencing fundamentals and formatting
- Cite Them Right is widely used and highly regarded in Higher Education
- Cite Them Right is regularly updated to reflect new sources of information that can be referenced in your work
- Cite Them Right is also available in reference management tools like Mendeley so you can automatically generate your reference list
During this transition, you may see Cite Them Right Harvard or OU Harvard referencing guidance in your module. If your module has switched to Cite Them Right Harvard, use that guidance. If it still points to OU Harvard guidance you can use either Cite Them Right or OU Harvard unless the assignment says you must use OU Harvard.
Cite Them Right online guidance
Help and support available
You have plenty of options! The Cite Them Right online guide has lots of examples of how to cite different items and helpful tutorials you can watch any time.
If you can’t find what you need in the Cite Them Right guide, you can check your module for guidance or ask your tutor.
And don’t forget you can also get help from the OU Library. Their Helpdesk is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! They also have videos, which you can access at any time, and live online tutorials about the hows and whys of referencing.
Learn more at:
Library Helpdesk – Help available 24/7
Referencing and Plagiarism – Information from the OU Library on how to reference at the OU and avoid plagiarism
Quick tour of Cite Them Right – Short video providing a tour of Cite Them Right and how to use it to find examples for references
Top 5 Questions Answered! – These five short videos feature OU Associate Lecturers and students in conversation. They talk about the changes to referencing and answer some big questions about Cite Them Right and referencing.
Online training for referencing – Check the current schedule for online, interactive training with OU Librarians covering lots of topics to improve your research skills.
Do you have any tips on referencing? Share them with us in the comments below!
When I did my PhD at the University of Essex (2014-2018), my supervisor said that the referencing style didn’t matter, just as long as I provided enough information for someone else to find whatever I’d cited. I created my own style based on that used by IEEE ‘Transactions’ journals.
Yes, as a librarian I have always emphasised 1) Can your reader find the sources you reference? 2) Be consistent
The problem is the lack of consistency between tutors, on my last module my tutor just said use a consisten style I can easily find the source from, other tutors on the module docked marks for the smallest deviation from OU Harvard.