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Reference Citations

30 November, 2015 - 16:43

When you refer to another researcher’s idea, you must include a reference citation(in the text) to the work in which that idea originally appeared and a full reference to that work in the reference list. What counts as an idea that must be cited? In general, this includes phenomena discovered by other researchers, theories they have developed, hypotheses they have derived, and specific methods they have used (e.g., specific questionnaires or stimulus materials). Citations should also appear for factual information that is not common knowledge so that other researchers can check that information for themselves. For example, in an article on the effect of cell phone usage on driving ability, the writer might cite official statistics on the number of cell phone–related accidents that occur each year. Among the ideas that do not need citations are widely shared methodological and statistical concepts (e.g., between- subjects design, ttest) and statements that are so broad that they would be difficult for anyone to argue with (e.g., “Working memory plays a role in many daily activities.”). Be careful, though, because “common knowledge” about human behavior is often incorrect. Therefore, when in doubt, find an appropriate reference to cite or remove the questionable assertion.

When you cite a work in the text of your manuscript, there are two ways to do it. Both include only the last names of the authors and the year of publication. The first method is to use the authors’ last names in the sentence (with no first names or initials) followed immediately by the year of publication in parentheses. Here are some examples:

Burger (2008) conducted a replication of Milgram’s (1963) original obedience study.

Although many people believe that women are more talkative than men, Mehl, Vazire, Ramirez-Esparza, Slatcher, and Pennebaker (2007) found essentially no difference in the number of words spoken by male and female college students.

Notice several things. First, the authors’ names are treated grammatically as names of people, not as things. It is better to write “a replication of Milgram’s (1963) study” than “a replication of Milgram (1963).” Second, when there are two authors the names are not separated by commas, but when there are three or more authors they are. Third, the word and(rather than an ampersand) is used to join the authors’ names. Fourth, the year follows immediately after the final author’s name. An additional point, which is not illustrated in these examples but is illustrated in the sample paper in Writing a Research Report in American Psychological Association (APA) Style, is that the year only needs to be included the first time a particular work is cited in the same paragraph.

The second way to cite an article or a book chapter is parenthetically—including the authors’ last names and the year of publication in parentheses following the idea that is being credited. Here are some examples:

People can be surprisingly obedient to authority figures (Burger, 2008; Milgram, 1963).

Recent evidence suggests that men and women are similarly talkative (Mehl, Vazire, Ramirez-Esparza, Slatcher, & Pennebaker, 2007).

One thing to notice about such parenthetical citations is that they are often placed at the end of the sentence, which minimizes their disruption to the flow of that sentence. In contrast to the first way of citing a work, this way always includes the year—even when the citation is given multiple times in the same paragraph. Notice also that when there are multiple citations in the same set of parentheses, they are organized alphabetically by the name of the first author and separated by semicolons.

There are no strict rules for deciding which of the two citation styles to use. Most articles and book chapters contain a mixture of the two. In general, however, the first approach works well when you want to emphasize the person who conducted the research—for example, if you were comparing the theories of two prominent researchers. It also works well when you are describing a particular study in detail. The second approach works well when you are discussing a general idea and especially when you want to include multiple citations for the same idea.

The third most common error in Table 11.2 has to do with the use of et al.This is an abbreviation for the Latin term etalia, which means “and others.” In APA style, if an article or a book chapter has more than two authors, you should include all their names when you first cite that work. After that, however, you should use the first author’s name followed by “et al.” Here are some examples:

Recall that Mehl et al. (2007) found that women and men spoke about the same number of words per day on average.

There is a strong positive correlation between the number of daily hassles and the number of symptoms people experience (Kanner et al., 1981).

Notice that there is no comma between the first author’s name and “et al.” Notice also that there is no period after “et” but there is one after “al.” This is because “et” is a complete word and “al.” is an abbreviation for the word alia.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • APA style is a set of guidelines for writing in psychology. It is the genre of writing that psychologists use to communicate about their research with other researchers and practitioners.
  • APA style can be seen as having three levels. There is the organization of a research article, the high- level style that includes writing in a formal and straightforward way, and the low-level style that consists of many specific rules of grammar, spelling, formatting of references, and so on.
  • References and reference citations are an important part of APA style. There are specific rules for formatting references and for citing them in the text of an article.

EXERCISES

  1. Practice: Find a description of a research study in a popular magazine, newspaper, blog, or website. Then identify five specific differences between how that description is written and how it would be written in APA style.
  2. Practice: Find and correct the errors in the following fictional APA-style references and citations.
    1. Walters, F. T., and DeLeon, M. (2010). Relationship Between Intrinsic Motivation and Accuracy of Academic Self-Evaluations Among High School Students. EducationalPsychologyQuarterly, 23, 234–256.
    2. Moore, Lilia S. (2007). Ethics in survey research. In M. Williams & P. L. Lee (eds.), Ethical Issues in Psychology (pp. 120–156), Boston, Psychological Research Press.
    3. Vang, C., Dumont, L. S., and Prescott, M. P. found that left-handed people have a stronger preference for abstract art than right-handed people (2006).
    4. This result has been replicated several times (Williamson, 1998; Pentecost & Garcia, 2006; Armbruster, 2011)