1. 67Kangaroos

    67Kangaroos New Member

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    APA Style Questions

    Discussion in 'Word Mechanics' started by 67Kangaroos, Feb 24, 2009.

    Sooooo, I've been offline for a while, got tons of papers to write. I was wondering if anyone is familiar with APA style - because I got tons of clarification questions to ask... thanks~

    1. Is it true that you don't need the page number(s) for paraphasing from a book? (i'm sure i used to do it my first time through college...)

    2. After citing once in paragragh, do you need to keep citing the year throughout if it's just the one author? Ex.
    Blah blah blah blah (Humes, 1996). Next paragraph blah blah (Humes). A later paragraph "with a direct quote" (Humes, p. 74)

    3. If it's a book report sort of thing (15-20 pages for a book report, srsly!) do I even need to constantly cite the book? Ex.
    Blah that I took and paraphased out of the book (Humes, 1996). Next paragraph I paraphrase from elsewhere in the book (Humes). And for the direct quote "blah" (Humes, p. 74).

    4. This is about author names. The name is Dude del Carmen. In the works cited, it'll look like "Del Carmen, D." but in the paragraph citing, do I capitalize del too? EX. Blah blah blah (Del Carmen, 2006). OR blah blah blah (del Carmen, 2006).

    Again, thanks in advance~
     
  2. Cogito

    Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

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    1. No. Regardless of whether a source is literally cited or paraphrased, you must indicate the source equally accurately.

    2. Whether or not you use the year in the inline citation depoends only on whether you need to disambiguate two or mnore references in the References list at the end of the paper.

    3. If the subject of an entire paper is another author's work, you usually can omit the author and title from the inline references; however, you still need the page numbers (or equivalent - section numbers, for instance) for quoted passages.

    4. The list of references would not capitalize del in that case, and neither would the inline citations.

    Pick up a good reference guide for APA. The edition of the Little, Brown Handbook used by my college had a section each for MLA and APA formats.
     
  3. 67Kangaroos

    67Kangaroos New Member

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    Thanks Cogito~ I used to have one, lost in the abyss of college books. been using the internet as my guide so far.... which is probably a bad idea.

    so, for number four, would it be "Carmen, D. del." in the citation? I thought it was for "von"s and the like, but didn't know about "del"s..
     
  4. Cogito

    Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

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    My understanding is that del, von, etc. are part of the surname, so they remain at the beginning of the citation. They don't get capitalized if they are not normally capitalized in the name.
     
  5. Daedalus

    Daedalus Active Member

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    No. When quoting or paraphrasing from a book, you need to state page number, author, title, and year of publication.

    If it's from the same book, no. Write, in brackets, "ibid". If the page number changes, write "ibid pg 33". It's from the latin ibidem, which means "in the same place" and it's used for all academic essays.

    Again, "ibid" if it's from the same book.

    Lower-case, I would imagine. It seems to be a Dutch or German name, like van Nistelrooy or van Barneveld. The "del" part would most likely be lower-case.
     
  6. 67Kangaroos

    67Kangaroos New Member

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    ok, so for clarifying, in text it's (del Carmen, 2002). right?
    as for works cited, it'll be Del Carmen, R. (2002). etc

    one more question that i can't find the answer to - what if the date is unknown? i found a publication online, even wrote to the site, but of course they haven't replied.... it's a pdf format article thing, but there's no date whatsoever. so, what do i do about it?
    ETA: So, by looking in the properties of a pdf, i can find a date created and date last edited. Using this is basically the date of publication, right?

    EATA: How many quotes when you're quoting a quote? For example, I'm quoting what someone said in a book. my words are James says, and their words are "Blah blah blah."
    Do I a) James says, "Blah blah blah" (del Carmen, p. 55).
    or b) James says, "'Blah blah blah" (del Carmen, p. 55).
    or something else entirely?
     
  7. Daedalus

    Daedalus Active Member

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    Did you read what I wrote? It would be: (del Carmen, R, Introspection into Psychology, 2002, pg 13). If you use another line from that book, write: (ibid, pg 13), (ibid, pg 34), etc.

    University external verifiers don't usually go by date of publication when looking for a book. They go by title or author. It wouldn't be wise to tell you to make the date up, but I can safely say, through experience of my own, that I've never been questioned about it and I've done it.

    A.
     
  8. Cogito

    Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

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    If the date is unavailable, you omit it. These are the kinds of details you really need a good APA guide like Little, Brown for. There reaqlly are too many contingencies to cover adequately here.
     
  9. flashgordon

    flashgordon New Member

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    I'm confused. If you are talking about American Psychological Association style guide, I would get the book and consult. The APA is very unique and specific, and does not follow the general guides of other formats. For example, as far as I know APA (psychological version) does not ever use ibid, they use periods in weird places, want only three author names listed in text, etc.

    I had to use it for my graduate degree, and it provides more frustration then any other style I've used. Get the official book (and no other version) and consult it directly.
     
  10. 67Kangaroos

    67Kangaroos New Member

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    tried to get the book last night, flashgordon and cogito. so unavailable :( all other style guides just touched lightly on APA, told me the stuff i already knew, but none went into any sort of depth

    Yes, I saw your post Daedalus. The works cited at the end was what i was talking about.

    anyway, thanks everyone.
     

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