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Writing and Presentations

Referencing and Plagiarism

Referencing means showing where you found information that you use in your assignments. It is an important part of guiding your reader back to the sources of information you have used, and giving credit to the person who created the information.

Properly referencing helps you avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism refers to copying information from someone else without giving proper credit to them. Plagiarism is a serious academic offense, and MIT uses Turnitin plagiarism detection software to check assignments for plagiarism.

Our Subject Librarians have created a whole section on referencing on the MIT Library and Learning Services website on referencing with useful tools and examples of reference lists. These will help you learn how to reference properly in various citation styles (e.g. APA, IEEE).