Inconsistencies in Citing Sources

APA format is a standard set of conventions for formatting academic texts. There is a recognized need for standardization of these formats in order to make it easier for readers to be able to understand texts with the greatest possible ease and efficiency. Moreover, citing appropriately gives credibility and prestige to the writers.

The article written by Dalvit et al., (2005) follows some of the requirements proposed by the American Psychological Association (APA), as regards citing sources. The APA style format sets the rules for in-text citations and reference pages (The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University, 2012).

Although Dalvit et al., (2005) combine different ways of referring to the wok of others, such as paraphrasing, summarizing, citing an organization, among others, they do not make use of direct quotes. This fact prevents the text to flow naturally.  Furthermore the authors make use of signal phrases. When summarizing the interviews made with lecturers, in their article Dalvit et al. (2005) use in text-citation such as:

“The tutor and the students indicated that besides lack of exposure to computers up to the university level, this might be due to two sets of factors: language problems and problems of communication and organization in the classroom” (Dalvit et al., 2005, p 73).

Paraphrasing is used to restate ideas and information using the writer’s words, for instance, “According to Heugh (2002), little has changed since the end of Apartheid.” (Dalvit et al., 2005, p 72). All the quotes written in the article follow the rules provided by the APA manual. Regarding summarizing all of them have the author’s last name and date of publication (The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University, 2012). When paraphrasing, each quote follows APA conventions, that is, the author’s last name and only the date of publication in parenthesis are used. (The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University, 2012)

The reference list does not follow all the requirements proposed by the APA manual. Firstly, the word “reference” is not in the centre of the first line and it is in bold font. Secondly, entries do not begin flush left and additional lines are not indented five spaces. (The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University, 2012). Thirdly, although the reference list is alphabetized, entries with two authors do not include the ampersand but the word “and”, as in the case of “Halliday, M.A.K. and Martin, J.R.” (Dalvit et al., p 75).

When citing books, online dictionaries and articles, the authors capitalize all words except short ones, for instance: “Heugh, K. (2002). The Case Against Bilingual and Multilingual Education in South Africa: Laying Bare the Myths. Perspectives in Education” (Dalvit et al., p 75). The APA manual suggests that only the first letter of the word of the book is capitalized. (The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University, 2012). The only issue that coincides with the rules set by the APA manual is that when citing online sources the authors include the retrieval entry, since the content of these resources might be updated. (The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University, 2012)

Overall, after analyzing the article it can be seen that the amount of knowledge on these standardized formats is not enough to write an academic paper. This might have a negative impression in the discourse communities who are acquainted with APA principles on how to write properly. Acknowledging sources would give not only reputation but also reliability to the authors.

References

Dalvit, L., Murray, S. and 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)

Halliday, M.A.K. & Martin, J.R. (1993). Writing science: Literacy and discursive power.

Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. In Dalvit, L., Murray, S. and 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)

Heugh, K. (2002). The case against bilingual and multilingual education in South Africa:

laying bare the myths. Perspectives in education, 20, 1-196. In Dalvit, L., Murray, S. and 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)

The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. (2012). In-Text Citations:

The Basics. Retrieved from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/02/2012-03-14

The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. (2012). Reference List: Basic Rules.  Retrieved from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/05/2012-07-27