Referencing your work acknowledges the original source of an idea, concept or theory. All academic work is required to be referenced, to show where the ideas that you use come from. References serve several different purposes:
1. They acknowledge the original source of an idea
2. They pay respect to the originator of an idea
3. They allow the reader to locate your source and read more about it
4. They show that you, the writer, have done some research
5. They indicate where several previous researchers have had similar ideas
6. They indicate that you are not plagiarising: using someone else's ideas without acknowledgement.
APA is a system of referencing that uses in-text citations (author, date, page), followed by a list of references at the end of the work which match those in the text. APA is the style of referencing used by the American Psychological Association. It has achieved widespread use worldwide, and become an acceptable system for a broad range of disciplines. Consequently, Wintec has decided to use APA in all of its courses.
Wintec Library staff teach APA to all classes that request referencing training. If you are writing for a media arts journal or book, you may find that they require you to use an Arts or Humanities style of referencing, involving using numbers in text, with either a footnote at the bottom of the page or endnotes at the end of the article, chapter or book. Examples of this kind of referencing include MLA (Modern Languages Association) and MHRA (Modern Humanities Research Association). Your Subject Librarian can help you with these methods if you need them for research purposes or publications.
The Psychological Association does not have much cause to use visual media, so there are gaps which Media Arts users sometimes need to fill. Visual media are sometimes ephemeral, and you need to create a reference for the occasion. The Visual Guide in the top right hand panel shows how to reference a picture in a book, but if you saw the original painting in its gallery, that is what you reference:
Da Vinci, L. (c 1503). Mona Lisa [Painting]. Paris, France: Louvre.
(c stands for circa, Latin for around that time.)
Exhibitions
If you see an exhibition or a work that has recently been created, you may be the first to reference it. The same elements are used as in any reference:
Author, Creator, Fabricator. (Date of exhibition or that painting was created). Title of the work, or of the exhibition if it is being considered as a whole [Description]. Place exhibition held or where work was seen, Country, or if in USA, State abbreviation: Gallery displayed at, or where the work was exhibited.
So, for an installation seen during the 2015 SPARK festival:
Elliott, Z., Citizen, J., Nicholls, T., & Long, J. (2015). The whare korero, he maramatanga [Installation]. Hamilton, New Zealand: Wintec Library.
This installation later appeared at the University of Waikato. The place in the reference would change if you saw it there. Installation art may appear differently in a different environment. Hiorn’s installation, Seizure, was first exhibited in London, but I saw it in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2015. It is thought that this crystal installation will not physically last beyond 2017. The date on the reference is when it was installed in Yorkshire, not when I saw it.
Hiorn, R. (2013). Seizure [Installation]. Wakefield, England: Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Or for a student exhibition:
McGowan, J. (2014). Presence [Paintings]. Hamilton, New Zealand: Wintec Media Arts Gallery.
Performance
If what you want to reference is a one-off performance, it is irretrievable, and therefore best dealt with in text as a personal communication, giving details in text of the artist, date of performance, and venue. So your text might read:
Most graduation ceremonies are a bit dull, but watching the Finn brothers receive their Honorary Doctorates from the University of Waikato was not! On 12 July 2001, Tim and Neil Finn wore their doctoral gowns as they sang in the Academy of Performing Arts.
If it is on CD, DVD, YouTube, or an online news report, you reference that in the usual way. For a series of performances you can create the reference according to standard rules.
Artist or Company. (Date). Title [Type of performance]. City, Country: Venue.
For further information on the referencing the Arts using APA, go to APA’s official blog.
The Library provides help with referencing.
Contact your Subject Librarian to teach basic APA to your class.
Use the Wintec APA guides.
Get drop-in help at the Library Information Desk.
Ask your Subject librarian for help with referencing your dissertation or thesis.
APA operates a blog where you can ask for authoritative answers to difficult APA questions. For example, they give advice on referencing web pages.
But watch the dates of the blogs. The discussion above was in 2011, and most of the discussion participants are referring to the 5th edition of APA, whereas Wintec has been using the 6th edition since the beginning of 2011. One of the things that changed in the 6th edition was that the recommendation that retrieval date be included was reduced to only those items likely to disappear.
A more recent blog on copyright for reproduced images is interesting. Wintec belongs to a Copyright Licensing group which allows educational institutions to reproduce certain things for study purposes, including assignments. What you must be careful of is that your work is not subsequently made public, because if it is, you have no longer reproduced for purposes of study.
There is also a useful blog on off-limit sources.
You don't need to reference your own work within that piece of work, because when you produce a piece of work, it is all assumed to be your own unless stated otherwise. So, for example, you don't need to reference your own photographs, your own artwork, or your own writing, unless it has already been published somewhere else.
You may, or course, give your photographs or artwork a name if you wish. I would recommend that you do give your work a title, because there is nothing worse than tryimg to distinguish between fifty works all called "Untitled"!
