I have recently started a PhD and am having issues with when to reference. What is common knowledge and what is not? For example I am working on nitrate contamination. Do I need to find a reference that says that elevated nitrate leads to eutrophication? Or that elevated nitrate in drinking water can lead to the blue baby syndrome? These should be well-known...and if I cite people who said them I could find loads of references. So at what point do you stop?

Thank you

not in your subject area (biology???/chemistry???) but I would tend to reference the things you are saying - they are only 'common knowledge' because someone once tested it. I would tend to only put 1 or 2 references just to say there is evidence to back up what you are saying.

if there are loads of potential references, I sometimes put "e.g." like...

people say chocolate is addictive (e.g. Sneaks 2010)

hi ailicec
I would cite direct from the reference. For example if Smith et. al (1990) said that so-and-so much nitrate contributes to eutrophication at so-and-so level and then he puts another reference (say Sam et al. 1988) then I would get the Sam paper, read it and cite from there.

but there are always ways of citing more references; for example: you can say: According to the literature, elevated nitrate has done this (Sam et al., 1988; Harry, 1992; Kings et al, 1994).

good luck
love satchi

just to add, I always try and write so 'an intelligent layman' could understand my work - so if people on the street don't know what you're saying as common sense/commonly known, then I'd reference

Hello...I have another referencing questions. I have a list given by the same person. Where would you put the in-text citation, position A or B? Or should I put it after each bullet? For example:

The ideal characteristics of a house are (A, 2011):
1. It is cosy;
2. It is big enough;
3. I like it (B, 2011).

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I would do another way as I don't think it's that clear either way! 'B' looks like it is only point three that that reference refers to and 'A' looks a little odd right before the colon. I think I would go for:

Smith (2011) refers to the ideal charactertistics of a house as being:
1. It is cosy;
2. It is big enough;
3. I like it.

"The ideal characteristics of a house are (A, 2011):" and "A (2011) refers to the ideal characteristics of a house as being:" are quite different as they give importance to different things. So I wouldn't do that as Ady suggests. Besides it's no more direct definition as opposed to the first one which conveys better the information.
By the way the usual way to cite is A.