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English Skills Week 5 Reading - 'APA style made easy' (Referring…
English Skills Week 5 Reading - 'APA style made easy'
Referring to other authors
Use last names only and do not mention the titles of their works
Publication year is a necessary part of the citation but is rarely presented in the sentence
It is more appropriate to keep the year in parentheses unless you are making a special point of the date - so NOT 'In 2012, Smith studied...'
When referring to the same study twice in a paragraph do not include the year after the first instance unless there is possibility of confusing the reader about 2 studies by the same author published in different years
Title of works is only mentioned in references section
There is the option of inserting surname and year in parentheses - (Smith, 2010) - if you do this, do not include the author in the body of the same sentence - 'Smith's study of x reveals... (Smith, 2010) <-- NO
Rare exception - when you wish to name a theorist or compare two authors' works - normally, the point is what the author did not who it is
If you cite examples from secondary sources, do NOT cite the source they cited if you haven't read it yourself. You can mention the original work and indicate that you found mention of it in a secondary source, which you cite.
Do not use 'the current study' or 'this study' to refer to someone else's work
Be aware of your tone when describing a controversial issue - present both sides and indicate what kind of data support one conclusion and what kind support the other (objective)
Useful words and phrases to collect
Use a person (e.g. the researcher, or a proper name) rather than a product (the study, experiment, or finding) as a sentence subject
Do not indicate what a researcher thought, felt, believed or said
Avoid confident language when making claims, may/might are good hedge words
Results support a hypothesis, rarely confirm it, and never prove it
Common mistake with transition phrases is to use them by themselves e.g. on the other hand, when they require an explicitly stated preceding statement (e.g. on the one hand)
If you are going to enumerate your points, use first, second, third not firstly, secondly, thirdly - don't use second if you have not been explicit about a first
Wordiness and redundancy
Avoid using more words than you need
Don't say the same thing twice
Eliminate unnecessary words
Do not overly rely on the passive voice
Informal language and slang
Tone of technical writing is NOT colloquial
example 'write up' instead of 'report'
Do not use contractions - won't --> WILL NOT
Do not be afraid to use because
Use 'while' in its temporal sense only - if you cannot substitute simultaneously then you should be considering although or whereas
Long quotations and frequent short quotations
Strive for clarity and economy of expression
Literary criticism is an exception were long quotations are needed
When reporting on someone else's work just summarise their main point
Cite page numbers when quoting from another's work in parentheses after the close quotation mark
Indent long quotations when they are >40 words
The editorial we
Publication manual advises against using the editorial we (referring to yourself as we)
You can use we if there was actually more than 1 person contributing to the work
You can use 'I' but sometimes the passive voice can be used instead - best solution however is to take yourself out of the sentence completely
The use of 'you'
Do not call the reader you
When writing about a hypothetical person use third person or don't reference anyone
One sentence paragpraphs
State every paragraph with a topic sentence and never write a one sentence paragraph
Overstatements
e.g. enormous or tragedy
Don't use them
Sexist language
Do not use (s)he or s/he
Do not alternate he and she as if either can be used generically
Use their - but be sure that you have used a plural noun prior to replacing it with a plural pronoun
Do not write he when you mean he or she
Using prefixes as if they were words
Prefixes can not stand alone - they must be attached with hyphens or stuck onto the root words
General APA rule - most prefixes do not take hyphens - common exception is self (self-esteem, self-conscious)
Extra rules for hyphens - if the base word is capitalised, if it is a number or if it is an abbreviation
Incorrect plurals
data, criteria, phenomena, stimuli, hypotheses --> datum, criterion, phenomenon, stimulus, hypothesis
i.e., e.g., et al. - learn to punctuate them properly