Importance of APA Referencing in Academic Studies
As a college student, you are required to use references in your writing. This is because your teachers expect you to research your topics thoroughly. Some sources include online research, books, and the library. Your references should help you compose better texts. However, many students have trouble with referencing due to unfamiliar formatting requirements. In this body, you will learn the basics of referencing with APA format.
APA referencing involves fonts, margins, font size and capitalization. First, you must select a reference style. There are four major reference styles- American Psychological Association (APA), Harvard Harvard General Education (HEGE), Cambridge University Press (CUP) and Oxford University Press (OUP). Next, you must decide on the source of your information. A list or journal article is the best choice since it contains more information on which to base your draft. You must also choose whether you want a full reference or parenthetical reference. A reference is essentially a numbered list of all the sources that contributed to your research. Parenthetical referencing is a shorter version of the same idea: using synonyms for each source term.
You should also choose an outline for your reference list. Most APA referencing lists sources in reverse chronological order. This means that the most recent sources appear at the bottom of your draft and the oldest sources appear at the top of your draft. To format this list, you must indent every line two spaces from its starting position. You should also bold every section and subsection in your outline so that it stands out clearly from the rest of your references. Finally, you should cap all headings to make them stand out in the list and make it easier for readers to navigate it.
When composing a reference, start by selecting the correct book or journal title for your source. Next, locate the author's name on your source and find the author's address on Google Search or Wikipedia if it is not printed on your book cover or journal title page. Locate the author's name in your references as well- it should match what you wrote down earlier when choosing an author for your draft. Next, locate the journal title or book volume number where your source material appeared and find the page number where your source appears in that source. Finish off by locating the relevant section number in your source and finding the section heading where that source appears in that source. When you finish composing each reference draft, be sure to proofread through all these terms so that nothing falls between the lines!
APA referencing provides a format for academic writers to submit academic works for evaluation or feedback from academia or teachers. You can use this format when writing reports, dissertations or other academic works requiring high academic standards from students. As a student writer, knowing how to reference helps you cite your sources and stay within APA formatting guidelines when composing an academic work!
