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THE LINGUISTICS STUDENT’S HANDBOOK 200
When should I give a reference?
The short answer is every time you are taking an idea or some words from
another author (whether the other author is Chomsky or your friend at the next
desk). Some instances should be obvious.
(1) Chomsky believes that this is because …
(2) Chomsky says that this only happens if …
(3) Chomsky calls this ‘…’
(4) As Chomsky says, ‘…’
In any of the cases above, we want to know where this appears in Chomsky’s
work, so that we know that you can justify your claim. In each of these cases,
give a reference.
(5) Many scholars believe …
(6) It is a paradox often cited that …
(7) Earliest mentions of this idea seem to come from the Greeks, …
Again, in each of (5)–(7) we need to be told how you know: which scholars
believe it (or alternatively, who has made the same claim before you), who cites
the paradox, where have you discovered these early mentions? Provide references.
More subtly, you need references when you could have given the kind of
introduction that is provided in (5)–(7) but did not. If instead of putting
in a phrase such as that given in (5) or ‘It is commonly believed’ or
‘Some suggest’ or an equivalent, you simply said ‘Syllables are divided into
an Onset constituent and a Rhyme constituent’, you still need to give references
in the same way. (I have here chosen a controversial matter, to make it
clear that a reference is needed. There comes a point where something is so
generally accepted that no reference is needed. For example, ‘Adjectives in
English pre-modify nouns’ would not require a reference. In general, if you
can tell something by looking at the data or if you know it from your own
experience it does not need a reference; if you have to check it, it needs a
reference.)
How specific a reference should I give?
If you are giving an actual quotation or referring to a very specific point, you
should always give a page reference. If you are not referring to any specific
passage in the work in question, it is sufficient to cite the work. So we would
expect things like