Analysing APA(American Psychological
Association, 2010) Sixth Edition Academic Writing Style
Academic writing leads
writers to explore and perfect their writing skills for academic purposes by
establishing a set of language conventions and writing requirements to be met. In
this paper, APA (American Psychological Association, 2010) Academic writing system in its sixth edition is analysed as
it appears in an article by Dalvit, Murray, Terzoli, Zhao, & Mini (2005). Issues
such as citations, signal phrases and the reference list are examined to finally
decide whether they are correctly applied or not. The authors' possible purpose
of using these techniques is also examined along the paper.
One of the techniques mostly used by the authors is paraphrased in-text
citations through which other writers' work or study are cited. Observing the
following example clarifies the use if this mechanism: “As far as language
problems are concerned, the current approach to foundation programmes in South
Africa is mainly informed by studies in the Humanities (Boughey, 2002 as cited
in Dalvit, et al., 2005, p.73)”. It
could be assumed that the authors intend to provide support to the information
being presented and to make it more credible in consequence (Purdue Owl, 2006),
without textually transcribing words.
In addition, in-text citations alluding
to institutions or groups are much used in this article as well, since the
authors appear to be purposefully making reference, for example, to government institutions
and programmes. Considering the importance of the topic they are developing, including
these references might serve to show its relevance and these institutions'
actions in the field. The following sentence provides an example: “In trying to
solve this problem, the South African Government has recently encouraged
traditionally ‛White’ institutions to increase the possibilities of access to
tertiary education for African students” (Council on Higher Education, 2001 as
cited in Dalvit, et al., 2005, p.73).
A third type of paraphrased in- text
citation involves the use of signal phrases, which operate as “signals or
alerts” to introduce other writers' ideas. Sentences such as the next one prove
a clear example: “According to Heugh (2000)…” (as cited in Dalvit, et al.,
2005, p.72). On some other occasions, the authors introduce works and research
studies, assumingly to provide factual information such as statistics or
averages. This could be seen in the next sentence “Preliminary investigation
shows that speakers…” (as cited in
Dalvit, et al., 2005, p.73).
As regards the reference list, the
authors have organized the references in alphabetical order. They have not
failed to present references to book sources as well as online sources,
including the relevant information in the order and case established by APA (2010)
system. However, the authors do not seem to have respected the capitalization of
only the initial letter of titles of works since all content words appear
capitalized.
Having examined the writing style in this article, it is possible to
conclude that the authors have, in general terms, respected the requirements
established by the APA(2010) system. Additionally, the quotations have not been
overused as they do not seem to represent more than 10% of the complete work. As
a result of that, the authors appear to have succeeded in limiting the amount
of exact transcription of source materials (Lester, 1976, p.46-47 as cited in
Purdue OWL, 2010) and used the quotations as supporting, contributive material instead.
References
Dalvit, L., Murray, S., Terzoli, A., Zhao X., Mini B. (2005). Providing increased access to English
L2 students of computer science at a South African University. US-China
Education Review, Sep.
Purdue
OWL (2006). Quotating,
paraphrasing, and summarizing. Retrieved November 2007, from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/563/01/
Purdue OWL. (2010). Paraphrase: Write it in your own words. Retrieved from
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/2005, Vol. 2 (9).
