The Importance Of APA Style

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The task of learning and applying proper APA style is not an easy task. The difficulty students have when learning APA has been noted by numerous educators. According to Ault (1991), “Writing APA-style journal articles or research reports is a complicated task for undergraduates because they are creating and organizing the prose while trying to follow format conventions” (p. 45). Students are trying to apply the knowledge of how to write the text of a research paper in addition to following the citation format; many times this causes errors in both the text and citations of the paper. Franz and Spitzer (2006) note “students often express frustration with formatting a manuscript according to predetermined guidelines, which can become the focus …show more content…

Better understanding comes from better technique. Direct instruction in APA along with resource and practice seem to be most impactful. Luttrell, Bufkin, Eastman and Miller (2010) have proved it by implementing workshop in scientific writing helped students gain efficiency with APA Style. It will give significant effect in student writing. The ability to write is clearly one method by which students can demonstrate habits of mind and critical thinking skills (Lawrence, Serdikoff, Zinn, & Baker, 2008). Writing ability can serve as an index of other cognitive functions, so it should be no surprise that writing ability may serve as a proxy measure for thinking like a psychologist or measuring a psychological ‘habit of mind’. For example, Furnham (2010) concluded on the basis of a series of studies that proofreading for errors and omissions is positively correlated with verbal reasoning; specifically, the measures of general knowledge and vocabulary within the framework of crystallized intelligence.

Common APA Citation Errors.
As stated by the authors of APA (2010), “Incorrect grammar and careless construction of sentences distract the reader, introduce ambiguity and generally communication” (p. 77). From that, it is important for students to write with discipline by avoid APA errors. To deliver quality manuscript, grammatical errors, APA Style errors and citation errors are the most common error committed by authors. It can be seen from recent studied by Onwuegbuzie (2017) and Mandernach, Zafonte and Taylor (2016).

Student’s

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