Learning Hub
Clear, practical guidance to help students, academics, support teams, editors, and publishers learn about referencing, understand how citations and reference lists work, and recognise common issues that can affect the accuracy, credibility, and integrity of written work.
The Learning Hub is here to make referencing clearer. It supports users to learn the basics, understand why good referencing matters, and recognise common issues before they become bigger problems.
It brings together simple guidance, supportive explanations, and resources that can be used for independent learning, teaching, academic support, and review.
Referencing can feel complicated, especially when different styles, citations, reference lists, DOIs, URLs, and source checks are involved. The Learning Hub is designed to make these ideas clearer and more manageable.
It supports Ref-Check’s wider purpose: helping people write and reference carefully, accurately, and robustly, while keeping learning, judgement, and responsibility with the user.
Choose a starting point below. Each area is designed to be clear, practical, and suitable for users who may be new to referencing or looking for a quick explanation.
Learn the foundations of citations, reference lists, referencing styles, DOIs, and why accurate source use matters.
Understand the issues users often see in written work and what they usually need to check next.
Learn how to interpret Ref-Check feedback and use the results as a guide for reviewing written work.
Simple, supportive guidance to help students check work, avoid common mistakes, and build confidence.
Resources for teaching, feedback, academic skills support, and conversations about reference integrity.
Short explanations and walkthroughs for users who prefer to learn through visual guidance.
If you are new to referencing, the best place to begin is the Referencing basics guide. It explains the key ideas clearly, including citations, reference lists, how they work together, and why accurate referencing matters.
You can then move on to the common referencing problems page when you are ready to understand specific issues such as missing references, unused references, formatting concerns, DOI and URL problems, and sources that may need closer review.
Once you understand the basics, Ref-Check can help you review a written document by checking whether citations and references match, identifying formatting issues, checking DOI and URL problems, and highlighting sources that may need closer review.
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