Analyzing the Citation of Sources in a Reference List

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. Concerning the References list in an academic paper, APA establishes a set of conventions that academic writers should follow for citing sources appropriately. However, some papers do not follow APA style conventions for citing sources, as they may follow a different manual, such as the Modern Language Association (MLA) manual, a system that according to Delaney (2007) is commonly used when authors work with manuscripts in various humanities disciplines such as English Studies, Language and Literature, Foreign Languages and Literatures, and Literary Criticism. It is important for student writers to learn to identify and recognize other academic styles applied to different fields following different manuals’ conventions, so as to be able to analyze what manual different articles follow. This paper aims to provide some insights on the citation of sources in a reference list, with the intention of evaluating whether the author has followed APA style when citing sources in the reference list or not.

The reference list under analysis, which has been presented as part of a sample list by Purdue OWL (2014) does not seem to follow the requirements established by APA (2010) as regards the title which should be used to label that list. The title “Works Cited” has been used to label the reference list, instead of “References”, the title that APA states should be used in the reference list. 

Reflecting on the way authors should be cited in the reference list according to APA (2010), it can be observed that in the reference list under analysis the conventions established by APA have not been respected, since APA states that the author’s last name should be written followed by the author’s name initials, and in this reference list the author’s surname is followed by the author’s first name in full form. An example of this can be observed in the following citation: “Dean, Cornelia. ’Executive on a Mission: Saving the Planet.’ New York Times. New York Times, 22 May 2007. Web. 25 May 2009.” (Purdue OWL, 2014).

Regarding the titles of journal articles in a References list, it can be observed that in the reference list under evaluation the titles of journal articles have been enclosed within quotation marks, not complying with the APA (2010) rules for citing journal articles, which state that quotation marks should not be used to enclose the titles of short works such as journal articles.

 Concerning the documentation of the date of publication in this reference list, it can also be noticed that it does not follow APA (2010) citing conventions, which state that only the year of publication should be included within parentheses, after the author’s last name. In this reference list the publishing dates include not only the year but also a day and a month of publication. Even more striking is the fact that two dates have been included, which is rather confusing for the reader. Furthermore, the date is not enclosed within parentheses and it does not follow the author’s last name.

All in all, after evaluating this reference list it can be concluded that most of the requirements of APA style related to citations in a reference list have not been followed, as it can be found that there are lots of divergences in the way the sources have been documented in the reference list. So, it could be claimed that this reference list does not meet the requirements established by the American Psychological Association. This reference list seems to follow the conventions established by another manual, such as the Modern Language Association (MLA), a system that is commonly used to cite sources in papers belonging to the liberal arts and humanities.

References

American Psychological Association (2010). APA formatting and style guide.

Retrieved from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

Delaney, R. (2007). Long Island University: MLA citation style. Retrieved February

23rd 2010 from http://www.liu.edu/CWIS/CWP/library/workshop/citmla.htm  

Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL). (2014). MLA Sample Works Cited Page. Retrieved

May 2014, from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/12/