PRESS RELEASE:
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–June 20, 2016–
When it comes to accurate referencing practices and students’ success at university, it’s clear that the two themes go hand-in-hand. Citing is a fundamental exercise for students and due to the increasing abundance of information available today, the significance of ‘giving credit where credit is due’ becomes all the more important.
Leading digital reference management tool, RefME, conducted a survey to find out the primary concerns students have when it comes to plagiarism. Over 75% of respondents who don’t use a reference management resource revealed they are worried about citing references. It’s speculated that students are wary of citing unique material as they do not know how to correctly cite sources such as YouTube videos and tweets. Of those surveyed, 65% of students reported that they use a citation tool, and 49% say they use plagiarism checker tools before submitting their work
These findings expose the need for more readily available resources and support tools for students, and indicate that there is a lack of information available surrounding the key US citation styles, APA and MLA, which are often the source of confusion.
Unique findings:
- More than half of US students have lost points for incorrect citations.
- 3 in 5 students want more information about citing.
- 18% of US students were wrong or unsure about whether ‘ghost writing’ constitutes academic misconduct.
- The most common citation errors that students lose marks for are:
- Formatting citations incorrectly 54%
- Using the wrong citation style 44%
- Not submitting a full works cited list/bibliography 19%
“I personally lost marks for citing incorrectly at university and was fearful of citing sources I was unable to format correctly,” said Tom Hatton, CEO of RefME “based on these findings, it is a real problem which tools like RefME are trying to solve. We want students to do better research by knowing that they can use tools like RefME. I hope we can look back at these numbers in a couple of years and see evidence that the sentiment towards plagiarism has changed.”
About the Survey:
In February 2016, RefME conducted two online surveys among 2,111 US students currently enrolled in university. OnePoll and Survey Monkey conducted the surveys and the findings have been analysed and interpreted by RefME. Two groups were surveyed, students who currently use RefME and those that do not. The two sets of findings have been amalgamated and at times, where statistically relevant, the findings have been used independently to showcase the disparity between RefME users and non-users. Visit www.refme.com/blog.
About RefME
RefME Ltd., is a multi-platform tool that automates the citation, reference list and bibliography process in over 7,500 citation styles including Harvard, MLA and APA. It’s the world’s leading and most accurate citation generator and management tool that allows users to cite any source with a click via web platform or mobile app.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160620005622/en/
RefME Ltd.
Alanna Fallis
442030346060
alanna@refme.com