Appendix A: Research

 
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MLA and APA

In this course, you will be asked to research and then present your research in technical documents.  When doing this, give credit to others’ ideas that you use. We do this by documenting sources.

There are different ways to format when documenting research.  Many students have completed research papers using MLA (Modern Language Association) since this is what is most often used by English teachers. However, APA (American Psychological Association) is also an acceptable option and it often applies to more students and their majors. This being said, MLA and APA are simply ways to format research.  Don’t let the task of research be daunting.  When documenting source for this class, you don’t have to memorize how to cite a book vs. an online article; you simply have to know how to use our class textbook or an online resource to cite your information.

What to Document

Researchers document anything that is quoted. This is a phrase, sentence, paragraph, or longer section taken from a source. Make sure to place quotation marks around the borrowed material to show that it is the exact phrasing used from a source.

Paraphrased or summarized information also needs to be documented. These are ideas taken from someone else that you put into your own words.  The language used needs to be original and fresh. The writer cannot simply switch a sentence around and switch out a few words. The writer must completely put the source’s ideas into the writer’s own words. Quotation marks are not used but the writer does use a textual citation to give credit to the original source.

Any visuals, graphics, and pictures taken from anywhere need to be cited. Often, individuals think they can snag an image from Google and copy and paste it into a paper or presentation without citing it; this is plagiarism. Anything that was not created in whole by the writer needs to be cited.

In short, always give credit to another person’s ideas or work; never pass them off as your own.

How it Works

When taking information  from another source, give credit by doing two things:

1. Use textual citations. Cite the source within the text of the document to show which section of your document was taken from the source. This is called a “textual citation.” It goes after the information the writer borrowed and consists of a few pieces of information in parenthesis that gets the reader to the list of references at the end of the document which has all of the information for the source.

Textual citations in APA usually consist of the author’s last name, a comma, the year it was published, another comma, and a page number (if there is one). These are put within parentheses.

Examples of Textual Citations:

• This issue was identified and revealed more than 50 years ago (Abramson, 2000).
  or
• Abramson (2000) identified and revealed this issue more than 50 years ago.
  or
• The greenhouse effect is a controversial one that some people are not taking serious (Smith, 2014, p. 56).

2. Link every textual citations used to the list of references at the end of the document. Create a “references” page at the end of your paper. Textual citations are a way to get the reader to the list of references where all of the information to find each source used within the paper is located. The textual citations must match the list of references. You never have a textual citation that isn’t covered in the list of references or a source cited in the list of reference that doesn’t have a textual citation. They go together. Consider them a couple.