The Official Guide to Referencing Styles and Citation

Many scholars have mutual generalization on the idea of how to recognize some one’s work when developing your own work. From that notion The American Psychological Association developed the Manual describing various ways to mention in your some one’s idea. The manual called, – Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association of which now it’s 6th Edition.
From that point, now The American Psychological Association Referencing System has been widely and officially recommended by different scholars of which use that manual to develop Official Guide to Referencing Styles and Citation.

What is referencing?

Referencing is the process of acknowledging other people’s work when you have used it in your assignment or research… It provides the link between what you write and the evidence on which it is based.

What is citation?

A “citation” is the way you tell your readers that certain material in your work came from another source. It also gives your readers the information necessary to find that source again.
You may be confused because both describe the same concept of telling the reader about the idea of others in your work – text. But to conclude it all, reference is provided at the end of your work listing all sources of ideas you used in your entire work, citation tells the reader inside the text.

In Short

The American Psychological Association (APA) Referencing System

The APA (American Psychological Association) style requires two elements: in-text citations throughout your assignment, and a reference list at the end.

1. Throughout the text: In-text citations

Include information about a source within the text of your assignment:

• the name of the author or authors
• the year of publication
• the page number (see below for further information)

Citations may be placed at the end of a sentence (before the concluding punctuation) in brackets
Paraphrase of the source (in your own words)
Encouraging students to memorise information and then testing their memory has been a consistent criterion of pedagogy (Broudy, 1998).
Broudy (1998, p. 8) explains that memorisation does not result in an ability to solve problems.
Quotation (exact words from the source)
Broudy (1998, p. 9) argues that “on the common criteria for schooling, our sample citizen has failed because he cannot replicate the necessary skill or apply the relevant principles”.

2. At the end: References

At the end of the text, include a list of References, a single list of all the sources of information you have cited in your assignment. Begin the reference list on a new page and title it “References”. Centre the title on the page. Each entry should have a hanging indent.
Each list item requires specific bibliographic information. For example, in the case of a book, ‘bibliographical details’ refers to: author/editor, year of publication, title, edition, place of publication and publisher, as found in the title pages (some details will vary).
Wolpe, A. (1988). Within school walls. London, England: Routledge.
Woods, C. & Griffiths, A. (1995). The real McCoy. Design World, 12(3), 2-13.
List each item in alphabetical order (by author surname). Titles should be in italics. All of the references included in the list must also be cited in the text.

When to include page numbers
When you quote a source (reproduce material word for word), page numbers are required. When paraphrasing or referring to an idea contained in another work, the APA publications manual 6th edn. (p. 171) encourages you to provide page numbers, to help the reader locate the information in a long text. However, this is not a ‘compulsory’ requirement. Check with your lecturer about their preferences on the inclusion or exclusion of page numbers for paraphrased information in your assignments.

The American Psychological Association reference style uses the Author-Date format. Refer to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.) for more information. When quoting directly or indirectly from a source, the source must be acknowledged in the text by author name and year of publication.
To cite information directly or indirectly, there are two ways to acknowledge citations: 1) Make it a part of a sentence or 2) put it in parentheses at the end of the sentence.
Direct quotation – use quotation marks around the quote and include page numbers 1) Cohen and Lotan (2014) argue that “many different kinds of abilities are essential for any profession” (p.151). 2) “Many different kinds of abilities are essential for any profession” (Cohen & Lotan, 2014, p.151). N.B. See the Library’s APA webpage for a quotation of 40 or more words.
Indirect quotation/paraphrasing/summarizing – no quotation marks
1) Professional knowledge alone does not make someone a very capable professional (Cohen & Lotan, 2014).
2) According to Cohen and Lotan (2014), professional knowledge alone does not make someone a very capable professional. N.B. Page numbers are optional when paraphrasing, although it is useful to include them (Publication Manual, p. 171).
Citations from a secondary source
1) Gould’s (1981) research “raises fundamental doubts as to whether we can continue to think of intelligence as unidimensional” (as cited in Cohen & Lotan, 2014, pp. 151-152). 2) Intelligence cannot be believed to consist of one single entity any more (Gould, 1981, as cited in Cohen & Lotan, 2014). N.B. To cite a source you found in another source, you must acknowledge all the authors.

• The author(s) of the source referred to i.e. Gould, 1981
• The author(s) of the work which contains the original source i.e. Cohen & Lotan, 2014 In the reference list, only the book by Cohen & Lotan should be acknowledged. Do not list Gould.
• At the end of your assignment, you are required to provide the full bibliographic information for each source. References must be listed in alphabetical order by author.

We hope you got noticed in your mind. Now let us see on after another way of telling your reader where you got the idea. Because it is the deep topics we do not want to bore you with the long text. Just select the way to applying referencing system in different context.

How to Cite or Make Reference? Choose what you want to know.

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