Writing revision
Documentation
According to Bovee and Thill (2018) documentation is both an ethical responsibility and important for readers so they can verify the information. Any information that comes from another source should be documented. Plagiarism is the stealing and using the ideas or writings of another as your own (Webster’s II, 1984).Sources should be documented through footnotes, endnotes, and/or bibliography pages and with in-text citations. For academic writing, both documentations are required. The format and type directly depends on the documentation style the writer chooses to use.
For most writing documentation comes in two formats: in-text citations and a Works Cited, References, or Bibliography at the end of the document. The Works Cited/Reference/Bibliography page(s) details, in alphabetical order, all the sources that were used within the report/assignment. The format for this page(s) should follow the documentation style chosen for the paper.
Plagiarism, presenting the work of another person as your own, is unacceptable. You will receive a zero if you copy any information directly and do not use quotes and an-text citations. A long quote, 40 or more words, is indented ½ inch from the left side. In-text citations are a must for quotes, factual data, and paraphrased ideas from another person. The in-text citation is slightly different for a long quote.
Paraphrasing is putting information from another author into a paper using your own words. If you paraphrase information in your own words, but the idea comes from someone else, you must give the person credit (in-text citation) toward the beginning of the information/paragraph. Make certain that all in-text citations have full citation information listed on the Works Cited/References page at the end of the report.
In-text citations identify the source of information within the body of the paper and may follow one of two formats. The in-text citation may be located within parentheses after the information and before the sentence ending punctuation or may be included as part of the text. What is important is that the in-text citation is present. The reader of the document should be able to quickly go to the sources listed at the end of the document and find the full citation.
Example within the text (APA): Darwin and Sutherland (1984) first demonstrated that accompanying the leading portion of additional energy in the F1 region of a vowel with a captor tone partly reversed the effect of the onset asynchrony on perceived vowel quality.
Documentation will
1. Strengthen the argument.
2. Provide protection against plagiarism.
3. Provide information for the reader. (Guffey & Loewy, 2008)
On the following two pages are a checklist for formatting the reference list and examples.
APA Documentation (7th Edition)
APA (American Psychological Association) documentation is the most frequently used citation style. If you are submitting an article for publication, you should buy a manual for reference. Your References page should be listed alphabetically by author for any style. APA style uses the hanging indent format with second and subsequent lines indented.
Developing a Reference List according to APA style:
· Format entries as hanging indents
· List all references in alphabetical order by author
· List all author names in reverse order (last name first), and use only initials for the first and middle names.
· Arrange entries in the following general order: (1) author name, (2) date, (3) title information, (4) publication information, (5) periodical page range.
· Follow the author name with the date of publication in parentheses
· List titles of articles from magazines, newspapers, and journals without underlines or quotation marks. Capitalize only the first word of the title, any proper nouns, and the first word to follow an internal colon. Italicize titles of books, capitalizing only the first word, any proper nouns, and the first word to follow a colon.
· Italicize titles of magazines, newspapers, journals, and other complete publications. Capitalize all the important words in the title.
· For journal articles, include the volume number (in italics) and, if necessary, the issue number (in parentheses). Finally, include the page range of the article: Journal of Business Communication, 46(1), 57-79. (In this example, the volume is 46, the number is 1, and the page range is 57-79.)
· Include personal communications (such as letters, memos, emails, and conversations) only in text, not in reference lists.
· Electronic references include author, date of publication, title of article, name of publication (if one), volume, and the URL.
· For electronic references, indicate the actual year of publication.
· For webpages with extremely long URLs, use your best judgment to determine which URL from the site to use. For example, rather than giving the long URL of a specific news release, you can provide the URL of the “Media relations” webpage.
· APA citation guidelines for social media are still evolving. For the latest information, visit the APA Style Blog (blog.apastyle.org) or Purdue Owl APA.
· For online journals or periodicals that assign a digital object identifier (DOI), include that instead of a conventional URL. If no DOI is available, include the URL of the publication’s homepage.
APA Examples: