Documentation

Good documentation is an essential component of a well-prepared essay. You should include a bibliography listing all sources referred to directly in your essay, and any other sources used in the preparation of your essay.

You will also be expected, in footnotes or endnotes, to cite the source of any material that is not your own original work. This includes direct quotes, paraphrased material and musical examples.

Students are often uncertain how elaborate their footnotes should be. The following rules are a reasonable guide:

• Common information that is obtainable in any standard work does not need a footnote, but unusual or curious facts do.
• The source of all quotations must be given.
• The source of all important or controversial opinions must be given.
• If you wish to quote primary source material that you have found in a secondary source, you should state where it came from originally, and where you found it.

Footnotes may be used to qualify, amplify or make incidental comments on discussion in the text of the essay, but this should be done very sparingly. Footnotes should not contain arguments which properly belong in the text.

Inadequate footnoting can leave you open to the charge of plagiarism; if in doubt, include a footnote!

There are some subtle but important differences between footnote and bibliographical referencing styles. The correct citation conventions for footnotes are dealt with first and in slightly more detail in this section, but by clicking on the appropriate link you can move back and forth between footnote and bibliographical examples.