How to Write Better Essays

For example, you need not give a reference for the fact that the

French Revolution began in July 1789, but you would have to for a

particular historian’s account of the causes of it. You might not need a

reference if you were to explain that the Wannsee Conference in

January 1942 cleared the last obstacles for the application of the Nazis’

Final Solution to the whole of Europe, but you would need evidence

and references if you were to make the unfamiliar claim that Hitler

knew nothing about it.

It wouldn’t even be necessary to give a reference for a distinctive

contribution made by someone in a particular discipline, if this is well-

known within that discipline. In politics or sociology, for example, it

wouldn’t be necessary to give a reference for Marx’s concept of ‘alien-

ation’, or in philosophy for Kant’s ‘categorical imperative’, but if you

were to refer to an author ’s particular interpretation of either, this

would need a reference.

Take the word ‘paradigm’, meaning a dominant theory in an area of

study, which sets the conceptual framework within which a science is

taught and scientists conduct research. It was first used in this sense

by T. S. Kuhn in his seminal work, The Structure of Scientific Revolu-

tions(1962). Today the term has spread throughout the social sciences

and philosophy. But in none of these areas would you be expected to

cite the reference to Kuhn, if you were to use the term; so common has

it become within each of these disciplines.

Other types of common knowledge come in the form of common

or familiar opinion. It may seem to you undeniable that the vast

majority of your fellow citizens are in favour of staging the next

Olympic Games or the World Cup in your country, but no survey

may ever have been done or referendum held. Similarly, it might

generally be held that the elderly should receive special treatment, like

free bus passes and medical help. In appealing to such common

knowledge you would have to judge how familiar it was. The rule is,

‘if in doubt, cite’.

The six-point code

To make it easier for you to decide exactly when you need to cite, use

the following simple six-point code. This is another of those notes

worth sticking to the side of your computer screen or pinning to the

notice-board above your desk. Wherever you keep it, make sure it’s just

a glance away.

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