Documenting Sources –American Psychological Association (APA) Style: a Deep Analysis of In-text Citation, Signal Phrases and Reference List

            The aim of this paper is to examine how sources are cited in the article written by Dalvit et al. (2005). Taking into consideration the APA (2010) style, this paper will firstly examine the use of in-text citation; it will secondly focus on signal phrases and; it will finally give an account of the reference list.

           As regards the use of in-text citations, the authors cite paraphrases. Indirect quotations with parenthetical citation (University of Minessota, n.d.) can be spotted. They can be divided into one work by one author such as (Boughey, 2002), (Sweetnam-Evans, 2001), (Barkhuizen, 2001), (Martindale, 2002); and, groups as authors like (Department of Education and Department of communication, 2001), (Council on Higher Education, 2001), (Rhodes University-Information Technology Division, 2004)

            Indirect quotation with author/s as part of the narrative (University of Minnesota, n.d.) can be observed too. They can be divided into one work by one author such as Heugh (2002) and one work by two authors like Halliday and Martin (1993).

Concerning signal phrases, the following are used to integrate quotations: according to Heogh (2002), according to Halliday and Martin (1993). It can be seen that there is not a variety of them to alert the reader that the information is from a source.

            Finally, regarding the reference list, it can be seen that all the citations in the body of the article are mentioned in the reference list and, all sources included in the reference list appear in the body of the article (APA, 2010). The reference list is arranged in alphabetical order and it is composed of internet sources and books. The majority of the references are complete: author’s surname, author’s initial, year of publication, place of publication, publisher (e.g. Barkhuizen, G.P. (2001). Learners’ Perceptions of the Teaching and Learning of Xhosa as a First Language in Eastern and Western Cape High Schools: Summary Report. PanSALB Occasional Papers Nr. 3. Pretoria: PanSALB). But, there are some others, such as the online dictionary references which are incomplete. They do not include author(s) or editor(s), place of publication, and the name of the publisher; and apart from that, the information is not in the correct order (e.g. High-Tech Dictionary. (2004). http://www.computeruser.com/resources/dictionary/index.html, 28 April).

The reference list is not written on a separate sheet of paper and the word reference is not correctly typed; it should not have been bold.  Also, it should have been centered at the top of the page. And, the entries should have been doubled spaced. (APA, 2010)

            To sum up, it could be stated that, the authors fails to provide in an accurate way the information the reader needs to locate and retrieve the sources they cite in the body of the paper (Purdue OWL, 2013). However, they show attachment to the APA style, avoiding plagiarism and acknowledging the sources.

  

References

American Physiological association. (2010) Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Dalvit, L., Murray, S. and Terzoli, A. (2005). Providing increased access to English L2 students of computer science at a South African University. US-China: education Review, Sep. 2005, Vol. 2 (9). Retrieved from http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/folder/view.php?id=29446.

     Purdue OWL. (2013). Reference List: Basic Rules. Retrieved November 2013 from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/4/

University of Minnesota Center for Writing. (n.d.). Quicktips: APA documentation style: Reference list. University of Minnesota: Student Writing Support. Retrieved October 2013, from http://writing.umn.edu/sws/assets/pdf/quicktips/apa_References.pdf