A Critical Analysis of the Use of APA style in Academic Writing
APA stands for the
American Psychological Association, an organization that promotes “the
creation, communication, and application of psychological knowledge.” APA style
has been designed by a group of psychologists, anthropologists, and
business managers with the objective of establishing certain parametres for
academic writing. In the light of this, the purpose of this paper is to
analyze deeply the article by 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) concerning the use of in-text citations, signal phrases
and reference list according to APA style.
To begin with, in-text citations are used in order to provide the
reader with information about the bibliography used in the article.
Regarding the use of in- text citations in the article US-
China Education Review (2005), the authors employ
paraphrase to refer to their sources. Thus, the following are examples
of indirect quotations with parenthetical citations in the
article: (Boughey, 2002), (Sweetnam-Evans, 2001), (Barkhuizen, 2001),
(Martindale, 2002). Under these citations, there is evidence that they refer to
works of one author. On the other hand, the text also presents citations making
reference to groups and organizations such as Department of Education and
Department of communication (2001), Council on Higher Education (2001) and
Rhodes University-Information Technology Division (2004). Specific sources such
as Webster's online dictionary (2005) and High Tech
Dictionary (2005) are cited. Furthermore, another relevant feature of APA style that
can be seen in this article is indirect quotation with author/s as part of the
narrative (University of Minnesota, n.d.). Examples of this include Heugh
(2002) Halliday and Martin (1993). However, the authors do not use black
quotations or direct quotations.
The American Psychological Association also mentions signal
phrases as a technique to include quoted or cited material into texts. In this
case,Dalvit, L., Murray, S. and Terzoli, A., mainly use the expression
“according to” to make the distinction between writer and source clear for the
audience. This is evident in the following examples: According
to Heogh (2002), According to Halliday and Martin (1993).
Finally, the reference list is used to provide appropriate details
about the sources that have been used in the article. There is evidence that
the reference list of the article analysed do not fully follow APA style.
Although it has been presented in alphabetical order directly at the
end of the article, it has not been written in a separate page from the
main text and the word Reference has not been placed in
the centre. Moreover, the references has not been double-spaced. As regards the
structure, the reference list also presents some flaws. The title of the
articles should not be italicized and web pages have been not introduced
properly.
All things considered, it is clear that the authors have used the
APA style so as to avoid plagiarism even though the reference list does not
fulfill all the requirements stated in APA style.
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)
Walden University. (2003). What Is APA
Style and Why Do I Have to Use It. Retrieved from
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