In this chapter, we look at the basics of referencing and citation: the conventional ways of identifying our sources and for showing where we have applied them in our work. Referencing conventions are catalogued in a relatively small number of documentation styles that are common across different academic disciplines – for example, APA 7, Chicago 17 and MLA 9 styles, which are outlined in this chapter. The chapter is organised in seven different parts. First, we explore the reasons for referencing in academic writing and we look at the different documentation styles used to format references and citations. Next, we survey the essential features that make up a reference and offer some ways of dealing with sources that may not conform to standard referencing templates. We provide detailed instructions on presenting references and citations in the APA 7, Chicago 17 and MLA 9 styles, including using in-text citations and discursive footnotes. The final part of the chapter looks at composing and formatting reference lists.

The ability to respond critically to any text is a learnt ability which needs some innate ability before it can be developed. That is, critical thinking is a variegated talent, linked to intelligence and curiosity, which is hard-wired into the human brain but is not always fostered equally. We are all different according to aspects of biology, intelligence and personality. Likewise, we are all different according to our experience of being encouraged to use these natural abilities. Indeed, there is even some evidence that critical thinking is an ability that is only really developed at all after the teenage years. This idea is consistent with other theories of literacy, which state that there must be an inherent ability to decode language before it can be developed, and that any form of literacy is incremental. That means that each layer of literacy builds on previous levels, and that we must be cognitively ready for each stage. Critical literacy is, therefore, a higher level of literacy which builds on foundational forms of literacy. We need to be able to decode language systems at the semiotic, denotational and connotational levels in order to produce sense. Once we produce this meaning through textual reception, we can start to definitively question what we are being told, building on whatever latent critical ability we already have.

In this chapter, we address the aspects of style and presentation that students most commonly encounter in preparing their essays for submission. What may seem like minor details of writing, like ellipses, italics and quotation marks, are actually aspects of clarity. They explain in shorthand form the nature of your material and how you are using it. As with the referencing conventions we looked at in the previous chapter, common style conventions are understood by other academic readers and are part of engaging in an academic conversation. The chapter is organised A–Z by topic so that you can locate the information you need quickly and easily when you encounter a style query in the course of your writing. However, the unique circumstances of your own writing assignments means that you will occasionally have to make judgements about how to present your information.

There is, typically, some resistance when the word grammar is mentioned, especially if it is in the context of a textbook. That is because grammar is often seen as something that must be forced on students. As with most ideas of freedom, compulsion in grammatical education is resisted when people see no value in it. Another reason for resistance to grammar is because formal grammar (beyond a few basics) was dropped from the education system in many English-speaking countries around 30 years ago, and it is thus unfamiliar, or even ‘strange’. Generations of students have been convinced that they do not need to ‘do’ grammar, since they can already speak the language quite fluently. There is even the belief, articulated by people who are most typically monolingual in English, which is that grammar is only for people who need to be taught how to speak English; that is other people.

In this chapter, we examine some basic principles for doing academic research. After defining primary, secondary and tertiary sources, we consider the different roles each source type plays in your research and the value of commonly used sources like journal articles and academic books. A research plan, as outlined in this chapter, plays a crucial role in your essay-writing timeline. It lays out your research strategy, so that you have a clear idea of what material you need and where you will find it. More than this, a research plan progresses your reading from most foundational to most sophisticated so that you can approach your highest value sources – such as journal articles – with more confidence.

In this chapter, we look at the key written form through which undergraduate students in the Humanities practise participating in this scholarly dialogue: the academic essay. Even where different disciplines have unique requirements for how information is delivered in an essay, Humanities essays share broad features such as their overall structure, thesis-driven argument and evidence-based argumentation. If you can master these foundational aspects, you can readily adapt your writing to meet different disciplinary contexts. Moreover, these same skills can be used in other types of academic writing that are not essays but which foreground argument just like the essay. This chapter is organised into three parts. It begins by looking at the essay as a distinct genre with recognisable conventions that support participation in scholarly dialogue. Next, it reviews the important steps that precede essay writing: breaking down the question, planning your argument and structure, and project managing your essay. The chapter covers the essentials of essay writing: the introduction, body paragraphs and conclusions.

The English language is the world’s first – and so far, only – global language. There are various reasons for this, including that it was the language used historically in the British Empire: the most powerful and extensive empire the world has ever seen. English is also the language exported to the world by the United States of America, through its economic, military, cultural and scientific power for the past century (Singh, 2005). This has resulted in English having high utility as a lingua franca, or a ‘common’ language, which is very useful as a means of communication between people and nations who typically do not share any other language. Consequently, English is learned and/or spoken to some extent by between 1.5–2 billion people today – or around one-quarter of the world’s population (Crystal, 2009, pp.61–9).

As Russell and Vogt pointed out in the 1920s, the properties of a main sequence star depend crucially on its mass. After the main sequence, the star’s mass is also vitally important in determining its physical properties. Will helium burning begin or not? If it begins, will it begin with a flash? Will carbon burning begin or not? The answers to these questions, as we have seen, depend primarily on the star’s mass.

Wave solutions of short duration, or transients, are shown to be equivalent to the sum of a large number of sinusoidal solutions over a range of frequencies. The range of frequencies is inversely proportional to the time duration. This result can be expressed mathematically as an uncertainty principle and explains why waves of very short duration do not have an identifiable pitch. A similar phenomenon occurs during a rapid rise or fall of a signal. Spectrographs can be used to represent a changing spectrum as a function of time, where data are collected and analyzed with a moving time window, similar to what appears to happen for human perception. In contrast to periodic signals, for a short transient signal, the phase factors in the Fourier series are most important for perception.