Analyzing the Use of American Psychological Association (APA) Style in an Article

The American Psychological Association (APA, 2010) has established a set of rules and procedures known as APA style for formatting academic papers and citing sources appropriately. This paper aims to provide some insights on the use of APA style in the article written by Dalvit et al. (2005).

Regarding the use of in-text citations it can be observed that, though most sources have been properly cited in the text, Dalvit et al. (2005) have not always followed the requirements proposed by the APA manual, because the names of the online dictionaries that have been cited have not been italicized or underlined as the APA manual states, according to Purdue OWL (2013). What’s more, Dalvit et al. (2005) have used a repeated pattern to acknowledge sources, as only paraphrasing has been used in order to do that, and direct quotations have not been included.

David et al. (2005) have not used a variety of signal phrases to introduce cited material. In fact, signal phrases have barely been used. The only signal phrase that they have used is “According to” when citing an author whose words have been paraphrased: “According to Heugh (2002)” (David et al, 2005, p.72).

The reference list in Dalvit et al. (2005) shows some inconsistences in the use of APA style too. In this article the reference list is not on a separate page and it has not been double-spaced. Besides, the word “References” has not been centered and it is in bold type. Secondly, according to the APA manual, in the reference list, only the first word of a title should be capitalized (Purdue OWL, 2013). In Dalvit et al. (2005) all major words in the titles have been capitalized. Furthermore, the APA style suggests that titles of books and journals should be italicized (Purdue OWL, 2013). But in this article the titles of journals and the titles of dictionaries have not been italicized. What’s more, the titles of journal articles have been italicized, when they should not have been.

 Concerning the documentation of online resources in the reference list, the APA manual illustrates that if they do not have a DOI assigned, they should be presented with the introductory phrase “Retrieved from” before the URL. (Purdue OWL, 2013).  Dalvit et al. (2005) have not used that introductory phrase before the URL when documenting online sources.

Finally, the graphic data included in the paper has not been properly documented in the reference list, as it does not include a description of what type of data is there and in what form it appears, nor does it include the project name and situational information, aspects which should have been included, according to the Purdue OWL (2013). Besides, the title of the table has not been italicized as it should have been.

To conclude, Dalvit et al. (2005) seem to have followed some of the requirements of APA style, but there are some divergences in the way the sources have been documented, mainly found in the reference list. So, it could be claimed that their article does not meet the requirements for appropriate formatting and citing in academic writing, according to the standards of APA.

  

References

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. (6^th ed.). Washington, DC:Author.

Dalvit, L., Murray, S. & Terzoli, A. (2005). Providing increased access

to English L2 students of computer science at a South African

University. US-China Education Review, Sep. 2005, Vol. 2 (9)

Purdue OWL. (2013). APA formatting and style guide. Retrieved September 2013, from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/1/