Policy On The Use Of Reference Materials In Languages Other Than English
The Northern College of Acupuncture recognises that on occasion, students may wish to refer to references based on texts that are not available in English translations, or where the English translation may be subject to some discussion about its veracity and accuracy. This policy determines what materials can be referenced in students’ assignments and how they must be referenced.
Students should note that the Northern College of Acupuncture is based in the United Kingdom, and students will be taught and assessed in English. Therefore, our policy is that non-English language materials may be referenced by students when the reference is written in a language in which the student is fluent, but the total number of such references must not exceed 10% of the total reference list. If for example there are 20 references, then only 2 of them can be in languages other than English. Numbers are rounded, so if there are 25 references in an assignment, the total number of references that can be in a language other than English is still only 2, but if there are 26 references 3 of these can be in a language other than English.
However, there may be exceptional circumstances where this policy may be modified to suit the needs of a specialist module (such as Chinese Classics) or stream. In these situations, Module Leaders can by agreement with their Course Director and the Principal determine a higher overall percentage limit of non-English language materials for any assessment within their module or stream. This will be clearly communicated to all students taking the module including in the module descriptor in the course handbook.
References in a non-English language are only acceptable if they were published in a peer-reviewed publication. In other words, the reference must come from a professional journal with an editorial policy only to publish material that has been checked and approved by independent experts in the subject area.
References to non-English language material should follow the normal rules for referencing. In addition, the title of the book or paper should appear first in the original (source) language. An English translation should follow in square brackets. All other elements of the reference should appear in English. In addition, an English translation should be included in the assignment and be placed in the Appendix, citing the software or translation service used to provide the translation. Basic translation packages such as Google Translate, Ginger Translate and Babylon may be used to translate the text into English.
Where the source language has specific rules on capitalisation (e.g. German where all nouns are capitalised) these rules should be followed even if they differ from the normal rules for referencing.
Where the source language does not use the Roman alphabet (e.g. Chinese, Arabic) information for the references should be transliterated into the Roman alphabet.
In-text references will count towards the word count exactly the same as other in-text references. The Reference List and Appendices do not count towards the word count.
