In-Text Citations and Reference List Analysis

Muñoz, Carolina

Sena, Barbara

There are certain requirements that all academic writers should follow in order to participate in a discourse community. Those who are part of the Social Science fields must use the Manual of Style of the American Psychological Association (APA). This documentation system provides guidelines on writing, formatting and using citations and reference lists. Documenting sources is a highly important part in the writing process as it helps the writer avoid plagiarism. In this paper, the article Beyond Reflection: Teacher Learning as Praxis (Hoffman-Kipp et al., 2003) is going to be analyzed according to what APA states for in-text citations and reference pages.

Writers must “cite the work of those individuals whose ideas, theories, or research have directly influenced them” (APA, 2020, p. 253). “In-text citations have two formats: parenthetical and narrative” (APA, 2020, p. 262). In the article analyzed both are used many times. Concerning parenthetical citations, Hoffman-Kipp et al. (2003) include correct citations when there is one author as they write the author’s surname and the publication date between parentheses. When there are two authors, both must be included using an ampersand. Although APA (2020)  states that when there are three or more authors, only the first surname must be included plus et al.; Hoffman-Kipp et al. specify the name of three authors in every parenthetical citation. When using secondary sources, the primary source must be identified and then it should be written as cited in the secondary source used. In the article analyzed, it is recognised only with the phrase cited in.

In narrative citations the author’s surname is part of the sentence, but the year of publication should go between parentheses next to the name. Hoffman-Kipp et al. (2003) incorporate many authors in the text, but on some occasions the date of publication is missing. According to APA (2020) the publication date can only be omitted from a citation when it appears many times in the same paragraph. After the subtitle Modeling Activity Systems for Proleptic Praxis, Hoffman-Kipp et al. cited the same publication many times in the same paragraph, they could have applied the guideline mentioned before so as not to repeat the same citation. Moreover, in some parts of the article, the author is mentioned at the beginning of a sentence, and then at the end of the idea they repeat the author and the date in a parenthetical citation; for example, when providing the cultural-historical view of teacher learning, Engestrom is cited twice in this way. If they had included the year between parentheses the first time he was mentioned, the later parenthetical citation could have been avoided. 

“The reference list at the end of a paper provides the information necessary to identify and retrieve each work cited in the text” (APA, 2020, p. 281). There is a connection between in-text citations and the reference list; every piece of information that is cited in the text must be stated in the reference list so that the reader or another researcher is able to retrieve that specific source. After reading the article certain considerations as regards the reference list can be taken under analysis. It is clearly observed that the writers have followed certain APA guidelines, but they have omitted some others. As regards the followed rules, it can be noticed that the publications in the reference list appear in an alphabetical order and all the list shows indentation as it is stated in the APA manual. Moreover, all the titles are written in italics.

However, there are some points that the authors have not followed from the APA manual. According to the APA Style, each reference list should be on a separate piece of paper and in this article, it is immediately below it. Besides, the articles cited  within the text do not show the retrieved site on the reference list, e.g. the link to the site. Another point worth mentioning is the fact that all the cites are mentioned in the references accurately. Only some of them do not follow the APA principle which states that the place of publication plus a comma, the abbreviation for the state followed by a semi colon. For example, in the last reference on the list “Milwaukee, WI.” the semicolon is missing. 

To conclude, it can be claimed that in-text citations and reference lists are used in academic writing to organize the sources used and to avoid plagiarism, they also help other researchers to retrieve the sources. Although the ability to cite in academic writing is complex and needs knowledge of APA rules, it is essential for the writers to master these principles in order to write according to the discourse community they belong to. In the article under analysis, the authors have applied APA Style, but not accurately. They should revise their work and correct the in-text citations and format the reference list according to what was mentioned before.

References

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org./10.1037/0000165-000

Hoffman-Kipp, P., Artiles, A., & Lopez-Torres, L. (2003). Beyond Reflection: Teacher Learning as Praxis. Theory into Practice, 42(3), 248-254.

My Performance during the First Term of English for Academic Purposes

 

During the first lessons of the course, we were asked if we were part of a discourse community, my immediate response was to answer negatively. However, after reading the material, reflecting upon it and participating in the forums, I found myself immersed in the academic discourse community of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course. I consider myself an active member of the group since I always participate and complete the activities proposed, yet I sometimes feel hard to follow the discussion forums or connect to the virtual meetings since my timetable is a bit complicated on week days. When doing the questionnaires and activities, I could apply my previous knowledge, but it struck me that English and Spanish apply different writing styles.

Regarding group participation, when I read we had to do a collaborative writing, a feeling of anxiety filled me. I have never been good working in groups as I know from experience that dealing with people is not easy. In the first task, we were asked to adopt a role in the group and write a vignette collaboratively. It was daring to adjust myself to the editor function and when we received the feedback, I realised I had not fulfilled my job. It reminded me that style, format and vocabulary are equally important in academic writing. In the second activity, I found it challenging to write a specific summary because there were many technical aspects to take into consideration. The outcome was acceptable; even though there were comments to work on. The main difficulty was the group organization as two members left the subject. Therefore, we could not meet the requirements since the self-evaluation section was incomplete. 

 To conclude with, my work throughout the course has been steadily and committed.  I still have plenty of aspects to work on, such as improving group work participation and enriching my academic vocabulary. I feel motivated to continue working in EAP developing and improving my writing skills. I consider that the corrections help strengthen self-awareness and by taking them into account, I think I am prepared to delve deeper into academic writing.

Figures and Tables: Differences Between APA 6th and 7th Edition

The Effects of Corrective Feedback

 

Yamashita, T. (2021). Corrective feedback in computer-mediated collaborative writing and revision contributions. Language Learning & Technology, 25, 75-93. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/73434

 

In this article, Yamashita (2021) presents her investigation on the effects of corrective feedback during in-class computer-mediated collaborative writing. The results show that learners improve their development and use what they have learned in the collaborative writing in their individual tasks. This study raises awareness of the importance of teachers’ feedback and the need of designing revision and corrections stages in the writing process. Although the research offers positive evidence, corrective feedback facilitates only long-term learning. Limitations of the study, such as the fact that learners' performance is situated in a laboratory seeting, have to be taken into consideration.                       

An Enthusiastic Lesson

Mrs. Peralta enters the 4th year classroom one Friday morning. It is very early in the morning and the learners already know that they are finishing with the topic of Simple Past in their English class. They are supposed to start with the “Diary Project.” After Mrs. Peralta greets them, she starts explaining the project and the activities they will have to undertake. They are asked to work individually and most of them seem to be curious about the task. 

They are supposed to write down all the activities they did last week, so with those notes, they are going to create a diary telling what activities they did each day of last week. They are said to describe all their actions in each day using the simple past tense, including regular and irregular verbs. Previously, they were showed an example to be used as a guide. They are also instructed to add pictures or drawings to illustrate their narrations. 

After listening to Mrs. Peralta's explanations, they are eager to start working. Some learners show confidence in the task while others look confused, so Mrs. Peralta helps and fosters them.  After some minutes, they start asking about the past tense of certain verbs and the teacher advises them to check on their irregular verb list. 

They work enthusiastically as they can not only talk about their own experiences, but also use the language they have learned in this context.