Collaborative Writing III

The relevance of APA in academic texts

As it is known, borrowing ideas without giving the authors any credit results in plagiarism. Swales and Feak (1994) express that plagiarism is closely related to the concept of property and they suggest that unacknowledged use of somebody else’s words can be considered disrespectful. In order to avoid plagiarism, in-text citations are utilized in academic writing texts, following a set of conventions agreed by the academia and thoroughly described in the American Psychological Association (APA) manual. Moreover, authors are supposed to include a list of these sources at the end of their work for their readers to be able to consult them.  The purpose of this analysis is to discuss in-text citations and the reference list in the article Beyond Reflection: Teacher Learning as Praxis (Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & López-Torres, 2003) according to the rules present in the APA manual (2002). 

In-text citations are used to include other voices in the text. One option is to paraphrase the ideas and to include the name of the author and the date of publication. It is possible to include the author’s name in a signal phrase and the date in parenthesis as in: “Dewey (1933) and Schön (1983) have argued that teachers’ work is complex and requires deep and foundational reflective practices.” (Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & López-Torres, 2003, p.248). In this type of citation, the authors had to use their own words to express the ideas they took from the sources.

Direct quotes, on the other hand, require the author’s last name, the publication date and the page number where the quote appears as in “In this way, teachers avoid having their work become “nothing more than the dissemination of rhetoric” (Morrow & Torres,1995, p. 268)” (Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & López-Torres, 2003, p.248). In this case, the exact words are copied, and as this is so, inverted commas are required. Another option is to divide the parenthetical citation in two as in the following example: “As John-Steiner and Mahn (1996) explain, “all higher psychological functions are internalized relationships of the social kind, and constitute the social structure of personality” (p. 192).” (Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & López-Torres, 2003, p.251). In this case, the name of the authors and year of publication are presented before the quotation, whereas the page reference appears at the end. 

In the text analyzed, there is also an example that includes a cite taken from another source: “A social language is “a discourse peculiar to a specific [societal group—e.g., professional or ethnic group] at a given time” (Holquist & Emerson, as cited in Wertsch, 1991, p. 57).” (Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & López-Torres, 2003, p.253). The authors based themselves in the reading of Wertsch’s text from where they extracted this idea and it is clearly acknowledged.

Some inconsistencies have been found in the analysis of the text in the use of paraphrased citations, according to the APA (2002) manual. One of the examples does not include the year of publication, as presented here: “However, Freire suggested consciousness alone is not sufficient; it must coexist with meaningful praxis.” (Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & López-Torres, 2003, p.249). It can be mentioned, that later on in the text, the same author is mentioned by the inclusion of a direct quotation, but this should also be referenced. 

Another inconsistency is found: “Case studies of teacher education programs based on reflection reveal that issues of social and political curriculum transformation are generally avoided, misinterpreted, or resisted (Vavrus & Ozcan, 1996, p. 3).” (Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & López-Torres, 2003, p.249). In this case, the type of citation is paraphrased and it does not require the page number.

The work analyzed provides the readers with the voices of different authors in a myriad of different sources, as presented above. These texts include books, papers, articles presented in conferences, journals, and online journals. All these have to be included in a reference list at the end of the article for the audience to be able to consult it. According to the APA (2002) manual, this list should be included on a separate page and it should be double spaced. Nevertheless, this article is part of a journal and thus, it is included right after the text and without double spaces. It is, however, alphabetically organized, and aligned with the required indentation. The use of punctuation and italics has been correctly applied and the sites from which the online articles have been retrieved are present. In some cases, it has also been included the date of retrieval. It is important to mention that according to APA (2002) this is only necessary when the content is prone to be changed.

To conclude, the importance of citing authors when writing formal texts to be published should be considered in order to avoid plagiarism. When others’ opinions are to be used for writing purposes, in-text citations should be utilized to develop professionally and be respectful with other authors. Academic texts, should, alongside citations, include at the end a complete list of the sources cited in the text so as the audience can refer to them for further research. Both, the citations and the reference list, should follow conventions for both readers to better understand what is being referenced. In this case, the authors have mostly followed the rules in the APA manual (2002), which allows readers to have a clear understanding of the information presented in the text.

References

American Psychological Association. (2002). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. 6th Edition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

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

Swales, J. M. & Feak, C. B. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills. Michigan, MI: The University of Michigan Press.