You already know how to check whether something is free to reuse. Today you will learn to write a proper reference, which is a credit that lets anyone find the original and check that you were allowed to use it. First you will sort some badly written credits and work out what each one is missing. Then you will write a few references for your own sources.
Read these two made-up credits for the same photo.
Weak: "Photo from the internet."
Strong: "Harbour at dawn" by Orla Byrne, https://freeshots.example/h441, free to reuse with credit (CC BY 4.0 licence), accessed 4 March 2025.
A good credit answers four questions:
- Creator: who made it?
- Link: where can someone find the original?
- Licence or permission: are you allowed to use it, and what rules must you follow?
- Date: when did you look at it?
With a partner, take 90 seconds. Which of the four questions can the weak credit not answer? Which of those would be hardest to find out later, and why?
A good reference helps you avoid plagiarism, which is pretending someone else's work is your own. It also respects intellectual property, meaning the things people create that belong to them by law.
Each card below is a badly written credit for something made up. Your teacher will go through the first card with the whole class, like this:
- Read the card. What could a stranger still not check?
- Decide which box it goes in.
- If you think two things are missing, pick the one that stops someone finding the original or reusing it safely.
- Agree on the exact words you would add to finish the credit.
After that, you will sort all four cards yourself in Class Play, on your own device, starting with the one you did together.
The aim is to spot a broken credit in under ten seconds and say how to fix it.
Credit it right: what is missing?
Now everyone sorts all four cards on their own device, starting with the card you just did together as a warm-up.
For each card, choose a box and say how sure you are: just checking, fairly sure, or certain. The surer you say you are, the more points you stake, or bet. If you are right you win those points, and if you are wrong you lose them, so being certain and wrong costs the most. You can change your answer until time is up.
The points go to your whole table, not just to you, so you can talk it over quietly first.
When the round closes, your teacher will ask someone to explain the answer.
Class Play
First, watch your teacher and the class fill in the template on the board for one starter source. This takes about 60 seconds and shows you what a finished reference looks like.
Then, on your own, write three references the same way. Later in the course you will make a piece of your own to publish, and these are the lines you will paste under it, so finish them properly now.
Write one line like this for each source:
Title or description. Creator: … Link: … Licence or permission: … Accessed: …
The licence or permission is what you are allowed to do with the source, and Accessed is the date you looked at it.
If you do not have your own sources yet, use the three in the starter set below as practice, and use today's date as the access date for each one.
- A made-up free photo: "Pier lights" by Maeve Collins, at https://freeshots.example/pier22. Its licence is called CC0. This licence means anyone can reuse it for free, and you do not even have to credit the creator.
- A made-up article: "Why school radio still matters" by Tomás Ó Broin on YouthWire.example, at https://youthwire.example/school-radio. There is no licence that lets you copy the full text, but you may quote a short line with credit.
- A made-up sound effect: "Soft whoosh" by North Loop Audio, at https://northloop.example/whoosh3. It is free to reuse with credit.
- You have referenced at least three online sources, such as an image, sound, web page, clip or data.
- Each reference has a creator, link, licence or permission, and access date, where they apply.
- If a source has no clear licence or permission, either swap it for another one or mark it "not cleared" and do not plan to publish it.
- Save the list where you keep your work for this course, so it is there when you build and check your piece.
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