ECON2420 Assignment One Guide on Style and Layout
Dr Bruce Littleboy 15 Aug. 2020
Have you done the Academic Integrity Module yet? This is recommended.
These modules can be accessed via the Library website:
https://web.library.uq.edu.au/library-services/it/learnuq-blackboard-help/academic-
integrity-modules
Imagine you are writing for your boss or the Board of Directors. Nobody wants to read
padding, irrelevance or trivially basic material (such as definitions). Get to the point, and
prove you have done focused research and are alert to what matters. Don’t annoy the
marker.
Citation and referencing systems
The reader needs to be able to locate which points come from which source. And the reader
needs to be able to locate the source and check.
The consistent and appropriate use any recognised citation and referencing system is fine:
e.g. Harvard, Chicago, APA etc.
Many of these differ only in minor matters of punctuation.
E.g., so long as you are consistent, I don’t care whether you write Smith (2017, p. 96),
Smith (2017, 96) or Smith (2017: 96).
Or simply imitate the style in a major journal or in a book by a major academic publisher
(e.g. Oxford or Cambridge or Princeton University Press).
You may use the ancient and fiddly op. cit. and ibid. system, but it is not recommended.
You may use the citation and referencing system used in courses in the Business School. You
may write it as a business-style report, but it’s a short report that should not need an
‘Executive Summary’ if well written.
Online Sources? Provide the link you used in the list of References, and it’s conventional to
add the date you accessed the link.
Quotations and specific citations
If you take a specific point from an item, provide a page number, whether or not it is a
direct quotation.
Remember that paraphrasing is still plagiarism, even if you provide the exact source.
Either quote it directly or put the content into your own words.
If using Endnote, you may need to find out how to insert a page number into the brackets
with the year. A lazy, but acceptable solution here is this: According to Smith (2017), ‘blah
blah’ (96).

Indent [use Tab] long quotes, and without quotation marks. E.g.
According to Smith (2017, 66),
Blah blah----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------- etc.

For short quotations (less than two or three lines), use quotation marks.
Don’t italicise entire quotations! (Why do so many students do this?)
==
There are detailed style guides online, but I don’t care about the very fine details: e.g.
https://guides.lib.monash.edu/citing-referencing/apa
‘APA requires use of an en dash between pagination numbers. An en dash is longer and thinner than
a hyphen. Type in an en dash, or if an en dash is unavailable on the keyboard, use a single hyphen. In
either case there is no space before or after. We recommend consulting your faculty staff to
determine their requirements.’
• Double-space your reference list and have a hanging indent:
• To double-space, highlight the reference list then choose "CTRL 2" (PC) or "Command 2"
(Mac)
• Hanging indent: Left align the first line of each reference with subsequent lines indented to the
right to a width of 5 -7 spaces or 1.25 cm. Highlight the reference list then choose "CTRL t"
(PC) or "Command t" (Mac).
You are not preparing your paper for publication, so I don’t expect this level of crazy detail!
=
Other
Either endnotes or footnotes are OK to make extra points, but use them sparingly and ask
yourself whether they could instead be in the main text, perhaps in brackets. Try to avoid
the disruption to flow, the clutter, and the digression that footnotes and endnotes tend to
invite.
Only in rare cases would you provide a Bibliography which also includes sources consulted
but not cited in the text. Normally, it’s just References that are appropriate.

BL