Week 15 APA Citations

There are three styles for academic writing - MLA, APA and Chicago. We use the APA style because we are working in the social sciences (Most of your essays are about social relationships or human behavior). Here is detailed information about the APA formatting style. NOTE You don't need to follow all these rules. You DO have to cite your sources according to APA rules. 

*REMEMBER: 

If you plagiarize ANY part of your final draft, 

you will receive a 0/5 for the final draft.*

This week is all about avoiding plagiarism. You can avoid plagiarism by properly citing your sources. That means giving credit to the source of ideas and quotes.

1. Read this blog post.
2. Look at my example second draft with correct citations.
3. Fix your own citations using the APA Style Guide from Purdue's The OWL.

A citation is an attribution. An attribution is an acknowledgement of someone's work. Sam Landfried said, "Don't plagiarize!" Is citing Sam Landfried.

You need citations when you:

1. use a quotation.
2. paraphrase.
3. use statistics or data.
4. use any information from someone besides you.

When you use someone else's source, you must stay true to their intent. I mean, if I say, "Plagiarism is a terrible thing and I hope you never do it," do not edit that quote to: 

Sam Landfried says, "Plagiarism is a ... thing and I hope you ... do it." 

That would be very dishonest. For example, in my second draft, I wrote this paragraph:

Or, to look at an example of cutting edge technology trying more directly to mirror the power of the human brain, let's consider the Human Brain Project's effort to recreate the human brain's neural network by networking millions of computers. Their hope is that one day the network will be so sophisticated that it will have the same plasticity and power of a human brain. Even though there are real people with real plans to accomplish this, on their own website they acknowledge how unfeasible this project is in reality, and why even if it is created it will not really rival human brain power. First, the power consumption of their current model is more than an obstacle, it is a concrete barrier. The technology required would require hundreds of millions of times the power of the human brain. That means that to power one single hypothetical brain, it would require the entire power production of several small countries combined - for one "brain". 

I decided, though, that I was misrepresenting this source. I was dishonest about what the website said. So, I removed the paragraph and source from my final draft. Make sure your own essays reflect your sources accurately and honestly.

Here are detailed instructions for how to cite your sources in your text.

Let's look at some examples of acceptable citation. In each example the source is Sam Landfried:

1. Quotation:
   Sam Landfried says, "Don't plagiarize!"
2. Paraphrase:
   Sam Landfried says plagiarism is a serious academic crime. 
3. Statistics:
   According to Sam Landfried, 0% of people who plagiarize their final draft will receive credit.
4. Other times:
   Many popular opinions, including that of Sam Landfried, thinks plagiarism is easy to avoid, so those who plagiarize are just lazy. 

There is an alternative form of citation called "parenthetical" citations. They look like this:

Plagiarism is dishonest, unethical and will earn you a 0 on your final draft (Landfried, 2014). 

Both forms of citation are acceptable. At the end of your article, you need to include your list of references. Every source you cited in your text must be on the list of references. If a source is not cited in your text, do not put it on your references. Here are the detailed instructions for how to write your reference page (It will replace your bibliography). It will go at the end of your essay. List your sources in alphabetical order. It looks like this:

References

Landfried, Samuel. (2014, November 25). Week 15 APA Citations [Blog post]. Retrieved                     from http://samteachersperformancetest.blogspot.com/2014/11/week-15-apa-            
            citations.html