Discovering the Importance of APA in Academic Writing and the Discourse Community

             The purpose of the present analysis is to delve into the use and importance of in-text citations, signal phrases, and reference list on the basis of the American Psychology Association (APA) Manual. The text to be analyzed is the article Providing increased Access to English L2 Students of Computer Science at a South African University by Dalvit, Murray and Terzoli (2005).

 To begin with, the authors of this article have mostly resorted to in-text citations to refer to their sources. They have paraphrased the information provided by other professionals and included the surnames and the year of publication between brackets, as indicated by APA. As regards the use of one author in-text citations, we are able to locate several examples, such as “Boughey, 2002” (Dalvit, Murray, Terzoli & Zhao, 2005, p. 73). They have also cited multiple author sources, paraphrasing their contributions to the field of study. As an example of this case, we find “Sweetnam-Evans, 2001” (Dalvit et al, 2005, p. 74). Furthermore, they have correctly cited institutions as sources, including their full names and the year of publication. “Department of Education and Department of Communication, 2001” (Dalvit et al, 2005, p. 72) is an example. It can be noticed they have also consulted online reference tools, as the Webster’s Online Dictionary and the High-Tech Dictionary. However, it should be stated that they have not made use of direct quotes. All in all, they have cited their sources correctly throughout the text.

Furthermore, the authors have made limited use of signal phrases. Following the APA documentation style, they have opted for a very common signal phrase to indicate the introduction of cited material into the text. There are two examples: “According to Heugh (2002)” (Dalvit et al., 2005, p. 72) and “According to Halliday and Martin (1993)” (Dalvit et al., 2005, p. 73). Overall, they have not resorted to numerous signal phrases, in spite of the numerous alternatives to select from.

Moreover, the authors provided an inappropriate list of references. On the one hand, references to both books and organization as authors follow the APA style correctly. (Paiz, Angeli & Wagner, 2012). On the other hand, the authors listed articles from a data base, sections from web pages and online dictionaries, but they did not fully adhere to the APA rules. In the case of references to websites (journals and dictionaries), the phrase “retrieved from” should have been included (Paiz et al, 2012). Moreover, definitions from online dictionaries did not contain the word entry first and the date was absent in several of the items listed. Additionally, the list is alphabetized but does not begin on a new separate page. The text is not doubled-spaced or formatted in hanging indent and the references should not be numbered. Furthermore, the word References should not be in bold or followed by a colon; instead, it should have been centered. Thus, the reference list cannot be framed within the principles of the APA system of referencing as it contains several errors in adhering to its principles.

As a conclusion, although the authors have respected the rules laid down by the APA when quoting their in-text references, they should have paid the same attention to the reference list. Having a correct, properly formatted reference list is as important as giving credit to their sources. Members of the discourse community seeking to extend or verify the content of the article would find great impediments in the list the authors have provided.

References

Dalvit, L., Murray, S., Terzoli, A., & Zhao, X. (2005). Providing Increased Access to English L2 Students of Computer Science at a South African University. US-China Education Review, 2(9), 72-75.

Paiz, J. M., Angeli, E., Wagner, J., Lawrick, E., Moore, K., Anderson, M., et al. (2012). Welcome to the Purdue OWL. Purdue OWL: APA Formatting and Style Guide. Retrieved from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/06/

University of Minnesota Center for Writing. (n.d.) Quicktips: APA documentation style: Reference list. University of Minnesota: Student Writing Support.