How can I check the citation rules for my first written assignment at a Korean university?
I am preparing for my first semester at a university in Chuncheon and want to understand how to reference sources in written assignments. If the syllabus does not name a citation style, should I ask the instructor or a campus writing centre for an example? I would also like to know how to cite a source that I translate from my own language into Korean.
Note: This is an editorial persona question created from common experiences of foreign residents in Korea.
1 Answer
Ask, and ask early. The syllabus is the first place to look, but if it does not name a style then the instructor is the right person, and a short email before the first assignment is due is completely normal. Ask which citation style they expect and whether they can point you to an example. Most instructors are glad to get that question rather than to mark a paper where you guessed wrong.
Expect the answer to vary more than you might assume. Humanities and social science courses in Korea often use APA, engineering and science frequently use IEEE or a specific journal format, and some Korean studies courses follow Korean conventions that differ from anything you have used before. It really is instructor by instructor, so do not carry one course's rule into another without checking.
The writing centre is worth finding regardless. Most Korean universities have one, often under the teaching and learning support centre, and they run workshops and individual sessions that international students can use. The library is the other underused resource here, since librarians teach citation and usually provide guides plus access to reference managers, which saves enormous time once you have more than a handful of sources.
On translating a source yourself, the convention is to cite the original work in its original language with the original author, title, year and publication details, and then indicate that the translation is your own. The usual form is to give the original title followed by a translation of the title in brackets, and to note that it is your translation the first time you quote translated material. Do not present it as though it were a Korean source, and never cite a machine translation as the source itself. If an official published Korean translation of the work exists, cite that edition instead and use its page numbers.
Two last things worth knowing. Korean universities routinely run submitted work through plagiarism checking software, so paraphrasing without attribution gets caught in a way it might not have at a smaller institution. And if you encounter a quotation inside another author's paper and cannot access the original, cite it as a secondary citation rather than listing the original as though you read it.