Writing

Writing, correcting and editing

For writing, editing or correcting texts, you can use the contracted text agency Het Nederlands Tekstbureau. We have made price agreements with this agency. You can read more about these services on the Employee Portal: Copywriting, correcting and editing. There you will also find the style and writing guide of The Hague University of Applied Sciences. 

Academic writing 

Academic writing training is offered through The Hague Center of Teaching & Learning (HCTL) for example, scientific storytelling.When writing a text, you can use Grammarly for the correct spelling, get clear grammar explanations with hundreds of examples of how grammar is used in natural written and spoken English with English Grammar, and use the Dictionary of the British English Spelling System for the correct British English spelling.  

The library offers titles on the subjects writing skills and academic writing. Browse the catalogue to discover titles that best suits your needs or look for e-books through the E-Publication Finder. 

Citing

Plagiarism is the use or close imitation of another person’s work and the representation of them as one's own original work which can occur if you incorrectly acknowledge a source or if you do not comply with the other conditions of citing. To avoid plagiarism, use the APA manual and RefWorks (reference manager for online citation and bibliography). 

Within THUAS, the APA style is most commonly used. In the APA manual, you will find many examples and explanations on how to cite in text and create a bibliography according to APA standards.

Citing or quoting means to repeat or copy what someone else has said, written or made. This applies not just to a literal representation but also a representation in your own words (paraphrasing). Since it is the work of someone else, you must make that clear and meet the following conditions:

  1. Quotations are made in polemics, announcements, reviews or scientific treatises or for an expression with a similar purpose.
  2. The citation must serve a purpose. It must support the content of the work quoted and not serve as decoration.
  3. The size of the quote should be related to the purpose pursued. For example, long programmes or long texts may not be copied, but short text fragments may. Works of art and photographs may be "quoted" in their entirety.
  4. When quoting, the source, including the author's name, must be clearly indicated. Plagiarism is the use or close imitation of another person’s work and the representation of them as one's own original work which can occur if you incorrectly acknowledge a source or if you do not comply with the other conditions of citing.

Reference Manager RefWorks

There are many reference managers available free and paid versions. A free version is e.g. Zotero here you have no customer service for help if the system crashes or if references are lost. Also, free reference managers do not provide much storage space for large-scale literature searches. With paid versions such as Mendely, EndNote and RefWorks you have more options and support.  

With any reference manager, you are dependent on the reference import. It may happen that the import from a source is incomplete, e.g. the year or the link to the article is missing. It is therefore recommended to check the import from time to time. It can also help to evaluate which sources (databases, Google Scholar or Worldcat.org) give more or less data to the import.  

THUAS library offers a paid RefWorks license that allows you to:

  • Collect and store literature references; it is possible to export references from databases. For databases without a direct export option to RefWorks, you can use Google Scholar or Worldcat. You can also enter references manually or adjust.
  • Manage literature references by organising them into folders, tagging them with keywords, de-duplicating and searching them.
  • Share literature references with others using shared folders or shared RefWorks accounts.
  • Generate a reading list, where you can choose different styles (APA, MLA, Vancouver, Harvard, etc.).
  • Use the Refworks Citation Manager (RCM) add-on to cite in the text and generate a bibliography.

For more information, please visit this page of the library: Create a reference list/bibliography (RefWorks).