Writing & Referencing Tips for New Researchers b APA Web site access b Writing Tips b In Essay Referencing b Reference List b Presentation Issues

APA Referencing System Site 1.Use the book is the best suggestion BUT if you haven’t got access to one, then 2.For a summary of key points: b Go to b Click on Study Resources b Click on APA Referencing System

Writing Tips b use the past tense b 1 sentence is not a paragraph b reference all factual statements b do not begin sentences with ‘and’ or ‘because’ b ‘However’ and ‘therefor’e require commas before and after them and should be used to join 2 parts of a sentence

Writing Tips continued b on occasion, ‘however’ and ‘therefore’ can be used to begin a sentence b do not use I, my, our.... (unless supervisor advises otherwise) b When giving a list either use a continuation of your sentence with commas ORa continuation of your sentence with commas OR a colon : followed by semi-colons ;a colon : followed by semi-colons ; check heading levels (p. 91 of manual)check heading levels (p. 91 of manual)

In Essay Referencing b Obtain primary references where possible b use ‘&’ in brackets, ‘and’ out of brackets b list all authors first time cited (unless more than 6, then use 1st author and et al.,) b for 3 -5 authors on the 2nd citation, use et al.

Reference List b List ALL works cited in your paper/thesis Arrange according to the following order: b alphabetically by first author’s name b same author, put earliest work first b same author, same year distinguish with a lowercase letter after the year b no author, list title first, then year

Reference List b Use a hanging indent b Use italics rather than underline the title

Presentation Issues b double space (except in tables and figures), b 12 font, Times b indent or leave a line for each paragraph - DON’T DO BOTH b do not copy computer printout of statistics - draw up your own table/s b use figures for numbers 10 and above (p. 99 of manual for other examples)