APA style: Reference list

APA Style in a Reference List

Papers and participants who want to belong to the academic community must follow certain requirements so as to be accepted by the rest of the members of the community. In order to gain this membership, academic writing is ruled by conventions which should be accomplished. Each academic field works with different manuals of conventions. As regards the social and humanity sciences the “American Psychological Association (APA, 2010) is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences” (Purdue Owl, Reference list, Basic Rules, para 1) while “MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities” (Purdue OWL, 2014a, MLA Sample Works Cited Page).

Each manual has delimited its own conventions for writing references lists and in-text citations. However, little research has been developed how papers acknowledge its sources in reference lists, so as to avoid plagiarism. The aim of this paper is to contrast some reference entries and to show if they comply or not with what an APA Style papers requires.

APA general requirements for reference lists

According to Salmani-Nodoushan and Alavi (2004) academic writing under APA style requires providing an alphabetical list of references at the end of the paper in a separate sheet. This manual also says that each reference entry needs to be written by certain features. For example, entries are indented and alphabetized, authors´ names are inverted and respect capitalization.

Authors

APA style states that authors should come first in a reference entry.  In such a case that the writer is non-existent, the source is shown. Authors are established by their “last first name and the authors initials” (Purdue Owl, Reference List: Author/Authors, para 1). The first work cited in the samples´ list ("Blueprint Lays Out Clear Path for Climate Action." Environmental Defense Fund. Environmental Defense Fund, 8 May 2007. Web. 24 May 2009.)  lacks of author and starts by displaying the name of the article. The second source (Clinton, Bill. Interview by Andrew C. Revkin. “Clinton on Climate Change.” New York Times. New York Times, May 2007. Web. 25 May 2009.)  firstly, shows the author of the material but neither the name´s initial nor the date requirements are shown while the last font (Dean, Cornelia. "Executive on a Mission: Saving the Planet." New York Times. New York Times, 22 May 2007. Web. 25 May 2009.) follows the same structure as the previous one.

Sources

As regarding referring to sources the University of Southern Queensland states that after the year of publication, the source must be clarified. The entry will depend on what kind of source the work belongs to. The first sample illustrates the name of the article and the font of the work. Lastly the dates of publication retrieval are shown.  The second sample reference belongs to a news on-line paper article. APA style determines that the title of the article should precede the name of the newspaper (University of Southern Queensland, 2013). In this case, as well as the third example, this rule is complete although the date is written at the end of the entry.

All in all, the sample entries analyzed demonstrate many inconsistencies as regards APA style conventions. These references acknowledge the sources under other rules since they display the same data but not in the style proposed by APA. So, it might be stated that the sample references belong to the MLA Style Manual.

         

References

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC.  

Purdue OWL (2014). Reference List: Author/Authors. Retrieved May 2014, from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/06/

Purdue OWL (2014a) MLA Sample Works Cited Page. Retrieved May 2014, from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/12/

Salmani-Nodoushan M. A, Alavi. S. A (2004) APA Style and Rese arch Report. Zabandekah Publications

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