Analysis on in-text citations, signal phrases, and references.

Analysis on in-text citations, signal phrases, and references.

The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) offers instruction and guidance on all aspects of the writing process for academic purposes. It also delimits the way in which sources should be documented by providing several sets of rules in the light of assessing academic writing. It is the purpose of this paper to explore documenting sources as in-text citations, signal phrases and reference list, in the article Providing increased access to English L2 students of computer science at a South African University by Dalvit, Murray and Terzoli. (2005).

First, in-text citations are used to give the reader enough information about the source used by the author when paraphrasing or quoting. This citation should provide at least the author's last name and the year of publication. In the above-mentioned article, the authors did not make use of direct quotation, they mainly paraphrased. It was accurately done on page 73 “According to Halliday and Martin (1993)”, but it was not, some lines above where the author wrote “(Boughey, 2002)” or when they wanted to make reference to an organization such as “(Department of Education and Department of Communication, 2001)” (p.72). In these cases only the date of publication should have been in brackets.  

Second, the writer may introduce quotations smoothly into a text by using signal phrases. These phrases contain the author’s name and publication date, together with the writer’s reason or justification for using them. “According to Halliday and Martin (1993), students of scientific subjects…” (p.73), is an example that can be found in the article. However, the authors in the article analyzed used signal phrases only twice, “According to Heugh (2002), little has changed …” (p.72).  To convey ideas in a more fluid way, the writer is required to use a wide variety of signal phrases, otherwise, it would denote poor writing skills.  

Third, academic writing requires the authors to mention all the bibliography used and analyzed when writing their papers. This information, known as the reference list, should be acknowledged at the end of the work. Bearing this in mind, it can be said that some aspects concerning reference lists, were considered by the authors. For example, placing the references in alphabetical order, and respecting the hanging indentation rule. However, other aspects were overlooked, the references page is not separated from the main text, and the word reference was not centered at the top of the page. Moreover, the authors’ initials were not followed by a comma, and the title of the paper or periodical was italicized, instead of the title of the source, as it should have been "Sweetnam-Evans, M. (2001) Academic Achievement, Underachievement and Bilingual/Multilingual Education: What the University Can Contribute. Aambeeld/Anvil, 29, 47-53". Also web pages were inaccurately italicized,"High-Tech Dictionary.(2004), 28 April". In addition, the date that they wrote in parenthesis, at the end of the web address, should not be present.

In conclusion, it can be said that apparently the authors focused their attention on the message intended to express, and not on the way they were expressing it. Their knowledge, use, or application of the APA style for their academic publication, was far from what should have been. There were  problems as regards the correct use of in-text citations, lack of variety in signal phrases, and innumerable mistakes in the reference list. All this carelessness might not only affect the message to be conveyed but it may also lead to serious problems regarding author's rights. All in all, academic writers should consider the APA Manual in their writing process for academic purposes to facilitate, not only the writers' work but also the readers' understanding of it. 

References

Dalvit, L., Murray, S., Terzoli, A., & Zhao, X. (2005). Providing Increased Access to English L2
            Students of Computer Science at a South African University. US-China Education           Review, 2(9), 72-75.