APA GUIDE SAMMARY

APA GUIDE SAMMARY

APA is a set of rules for referencing and formatting documents used in academic writing. It stands for American Psychological association. It is a publication manual of the American Pyschological Association (APA) which outlines the referencing styles used in academic writing.

Referencing or Citation is giving credit to the original creator of work by use of other people’s words, ideas, information, or images in a piece of work to identify source accuracy. It is important to acknowledge someone else’s ideas or words when paraphrasing in order to avoid plagianism and infringing copyright.

Plagianism is a form of academic misconduct when a student uses works of others but fails to accurately cite it. Infringing is actively break the terms of low while infringing copyright is the use of works protected by copyright law without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform some tasks on the piece of information. When referring, a standardized style is used to acknowledge the source of information used to enable the maker or reader to verify or read further on the topic. It also allows someone to retrace and locate the information used.

Referencing contains two main parts; (I) In text citation which is indicating within the piece of work the source of information you have used. (ii) Construction of a reference list which shows the complete details of everything cited. It appears in an alphabetical list on a separate page, at the end of the piece of work.

Ways of Referencing

1. In text citation – It’s a requirement to show original idea or information came from after paraphrasing. It has three elements which includes author’s name, year of publication and page number. Author/s (or editor/s) last name followed by the year of publication is used within an assignment when using this format. When a source is found on another source, it is best to track down the original source of the idea in order to cite it. It is advised not to omit some citations when the same source appears more than once in a paragraph.
2. Direct Quotes – This is done sparingly in order to emphasize or stress a point in the essay. A quote must be copied exactly as written in the original work including any punctuation or incorrect spelling(s). There are short-quotes with less than 40 words, longer-quotes with more than 40 words and quotations from online sources that do not provide page numbers. It’s advised to use the auther’s last name, year of publication and page number where the quote appears.
3. The Referencing list – In a separate page, all information or reference sources in any piece of work is written in a reference list at the end of the assignment, headed, Reference List. An accurate and properly constructed reference list provides credibility to the written work it accompanies.
4. Examples of various types of information sources – They include; images, illustrations, maps, chats, motion pictures, specific entry in an online dictionary, click view, brochure/pamphlets(with no author), blog post and act(statute/legislation)