Analysis of the use of in-text citations, signal phrases and reference list in a specific article

Chaves M. J., Ovejero, K

CAECE University

            Academic writing in English will become an amazing enriching and powerful device whenever it is used precisely and accurately. It is believed that the write’s thought can be reflected in its use and his or her voice will be spread giving the possibility to other counterparts to learn about them. It certainly constitutes a major step towards advanced literacy; writing in academic settings can be an effective practice instrument to develop thinking skills and to find out new ideas.

           The aim of this paper is to deeply analyse the use of in-text citations, signal phrases, and the use of reference list in the article by Dalvit, Murray, and Terzoli, (2005) Providing increased access to English L2 students of computer science at a South African University, according to the documentation system known as American Psychological Association (APA) style.

          Many authors and institutions (Bailey, 2006; Flowerdew, 2000; Purdue OWL, 2006; Tardy, 2010) have produced different manuals and resources that set rules and academic conventions in order to help and guide writers to organize their productions according the established standards. These rules and conventions were studied and then applied to analyse the article.

            Considering the use of in-text citations, the authors mainly use paraphrases to acknowledge their sources. Many examples of indirect quotations with parenthetical citation can be found in the text, such are the following cases:  “(Council on Higher Education, 2001, p. 73)”, “(Rhodes University-Information Technology Division, 2004, p. 73)”, “(Barkhuizen, 2001, p. 74)”, “(Boughey, 2002, p. 73)”, "(Sweetnam- Evans, 2001, p. 74)", and "(Martindale, 2002, p. 75)". Nevertheless, no direct quotations have been used in this article.

           On the whole, the authors have not resorted to using several signal phrases throughout the article. Indeed, only two clear-cut examples are used to introduce cited material into the text: according to Halliday and Martin (1993) and according to Heugh (2002). This is a frequently used technique to introduce other author's words in different kinds of texts.

           As regards the reference list, different types of sources have been listed such as books, reports and electronic resources like websites and journals. The entries have been arranged in alphabetical order right after the end of the article, within the same page but they were not double-spaced. All the content words from the titles have been capitalized. The tenth source does not respect the left margin, altering tidiness in the list. In general, the structure of the reference list included: author's surname, author's initial, publication year, title of work, publisher, retrieved month (day), year, from http://Web address. However, the word "reference" is not correctly typed; it should not have been bold and it should have been centered in the page.

           All in all, the authors have avoided plagiarism and have resorted to follow certain conventions as regards their documentation style. Certainly, they are closely related to the APA documentation system; however, not all conventions have been fully and strictly used.

References

     American Physiological Association. (2010) Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.).Washington, DC: Author.

     Bailey, S. (2006). Academic Writing: A handbook for international students (2nd ed.). Taylor & Francis e-library .http://npu.edu.ua/!ebook/book/djvu/A/iif_kgpm_t27.pdf.

     Dalvit, L., Murray, S. and Terzoli, A. (2005). Providing increased access to English L2 students of computer science at a South African University. US-China Education Review, Sep. 2005, Vol. 2 (9).

     Flowerdew, J. (2000). “Discourse community, legitimate peripheral participation, and the nonnative-English-speaking scholar.” TESOL Quarterly, Vol 34, 1, pp. 127-150.

     Purdue OWL. (2006). In-Text Citations: The Basics. Retrieved September, 2014 from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/02/  

     Salmani-Nodoushan, M., and Alavi, S. (2004). APA style and Research Report Writing. Zabankadeh Publications. 

     Tardy, C. M. (2010). Writing for the world: Wikipedia as an introduction to Academic Writing. English Teaching Forum, 1, pp. 12-19, 27.