APA style and citations for dummies - Joe Giampalmi 2021

Closing cultural gaps: APA strategies for nonnative english students
Protecting scholarship: plagiarism
Conforming to standards: APA and the academic environment

Studying both the English language and APA documentation will frustrate you. It’s like learning to drive in the dark in a foreign country — with the car stuck in reverse. I know I can help you succeed because I know your determination from teaching students like you in the past. I taught one student who wrote A-level freshman essays by checking the spelling of almost every word in the dictionary. That’s determination. You’re on the right track. You’ve achieved high-level English literacy skills because you’re reading and comprehending this book. That’s also determination.

Beliefs and indifferences toward crediting sources and expert opinions vary among Eastern Hemisphere cultures and countries. Differences conflict with Western Hemisphere standards of academic integrity. The following sections take a closer look at the differences and provide some strategies you can use.

Grasping cultural differences in education

Your challenge of understanding APA begins with comprehending conflicting cultural differences between needing to credit what you take and simply being able to use what is free. Eastern cultural academic beliefs are like a smorgasbord where you can eat all you want and someone else is paying for it. You don’t need to credit anything. Conversely, in the Western culture, nothing is free. Payment is required for everything, cash or credit. With research writing, credit is required for everything you take from another source. APA calls credit a citation.

American and Western systems of higher education attract numerous nonnative English speakers and other international students who contribute to the diversity of classroom ideas. But some of those cultures also contribute to the academic divide between Western and Eastern education — crediting sources. What Western culture understands as a pillar of academic integrity, Eastern cultures see as a gift to be shared among society. Western cultures believe that identifying sources is a writer’s ethical responsibility and that the writer should provide a path for readers to explore that source. Some Eastern cultures believe in an openness of ideas, to the extent that authors’ names are frequently omitted from what they write.

In many Eastern cultures, memorization of sources represents the highest form of academic respect, and writing ideas is discouraged. Plagiarism and crediting sources are as foreign to many of these students as a college bonfire and pep rally.

Policies of academic integrity vary among cultures and present serious challenges for international students enrolled in American universities. Schools that recruit international students usually provide advocate programs to help with the transition. These students face the challenges of learning English as an add-on language, adjusting to policies of academic integrity, and learning APA as a writing style and guide for crediting and formatting sources.

Approach researching with the plan that you’ll give credit to everything you take from sources you read — words, phrases, sentences, and ideas. If you take exact words, enclose them in quotation marks and cite the quote at the end of the sentence (see Chapter 10 for details). Citing too much is better than citing too little, because it won’t result in plagiarism.

Utilizing additional APA strategies for nonnative english students

Here are some other APA strategies that are specific to the needs of students of English as an additional language:

· Begin researching with library databases, ensuring quality and credibility of sources and generally eliminating concern for inferior sources.

· Every time you read a research source, record notes that include reference elements (see Chapter 12). Record source information as paraphrase, summary, and direct quotation. Identify page numbers from which you take information. These strategies represent the foundation of crediting sources.

· Read sources for the purpose of understanding the source’s application to your writing. When you research, keep in front of you a copy of the sentence that identifies the purpose of your paper.

· Use past research papers for successful APA documentation. For example, if you correctly use an artifact as a source, identify that citation and reference as a successful template for future use.

· When papers are returned, collaborate with peers to review APA documentation and formatting, and share successful uses of APA.

Honor code controversies

University honor codes, credited with first being established at William and Mary College in the early 1700s, establish accountability among students for ethical behavior in the classroom and on some campuses outside the classroom. The earliest honor codes of conduct were established by the U.S. military academies, which developed a code not to lie, cheat, or steal — or to tolerate anyone who does. Honor code colleges encourage proctors to leave the classroom during tests.

The phrase, “or to tolerate anyone who does,” represents part of the controversy. Honor codes mandate that students who are aware of another student’s cheating must reveal the violation or also be accused of cheating. Students never know when they’ll be confronted by the plagiarism police, and on some campuses the accuser has the right to confidentiality.

Another controversy is that many honor codes prohibit collaboration because it conflicts with self-reliance, the belief that learning is an individual experience and ideas should be developed individually. Discouraging collaboration contradicts new learning theories and reduces collaboration practice required in many workplaces today.

Current research on colleges with honor codes reported that

· Students felt more pressure to report violations.

· Compliance with reporting violations was very low.

· A majority of students reported cheating at least once.

· Proctors would reduce cheating during tests.

· Many students witnessed cheating and didn’t report it.