Intl613wk3 | Law homework help

This article is going to focus on citations and references because I noticed that in my previous classes that most folks had some problems in this area and I want to try to help you a bit.

As a note, do not use those automated citation and reference generators, they are generally terrible and therefore I recommend that you take the time to read what I am writing and spend a bit of time on them yourselves, it will help you not only in this class, but in all of your other ones as well.

Ok, first off we will go over the APA citation style. This is rather simple and very basic. Every time that you use information from a source that you did not know, you need to include a citation. However, that is the easy part, now comes the more complicated aspect.

If the work you are using is by one author, you just need to use the author-date citation structure, which would be (Smith, 2022). If you have two authors, then you use both of their last names (Smith & Jones, 2022). If you have three or more authors, then you need to use et al. and the citation would be (Smith et al., 2022). On a very rare occasion you could have three or more authors who have similar names, when this occurs then you need to list them out a bit more so that a person can tell which group of authors you mean, such as (Smith, Jones, et al., 2022) or (Smith, Brown, et al., 2022).

If the author is not known, then you need to cite it by its title inside of quotation marks (normally just the first few words unless you have two or more that have the same first few words, then add in a few more words) such as (“9/11 Commission Report,” 2004). If there is no known source or author, then use “Anonymous”, such as (Anonymous, 2022). As a note, always capitalize all words that are four letters or longer within the title of a source – exceptions apply to short words that are verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs – these you capitalize as well.

If it is an organization or a government agency then you need to include the organization in the citation just as you would a single person such as (Department of Homeland Security, 2022). If you are going to use the source more than once, then include its abbreviation, so it would be (Department of Homeland Security [DHS], 2022) the first time and (DHS, 2022) the second and subsequent times. 

If there is no date, then use n.d. as the date, so it would be (Department of Transportation, n.d.) or (Smith, n.d.).

If you have the same source and the same year, then you add a letter behind the year, such as (Smith, 2022a) and (Smith, 2022b) for the different sources (and you will list them out this way in the references, which I will discuss next.

Oh yeah, if you are using a direct quotation, which I really recommend against doing, then you need to include the page number or paragraph number after the year, such as (Smith, 2022, p. 5) or (Smith, 2022, para. 32). 

Now that I am done with the basics of citations, I am going to delve very briefly into the much more complicated realm of references. APA has different rules for references based on author/authors, articles in periodicals, books, other print sources, electronic sources, legal references, and so forth, so I am only going to provide you with the basics for the most common ones. The references need to start on a new page in your papers and have, centered at the top and in bold, the word Reference. As a note, the entire Reference page is double-spaced, just like your paper.

Next start off the first line is flush with the left side of the paper and each additional line is indented one-half inch and double-spaced. List the various sources in alphabetical order and the authors’ names are always last name first followed by their first and middle initials. If you have the same author multiple times, then you list them by the year (or month) of their article/book with the oldest being the first one.

The year follows the authors’ name and it is the year, such as 2022, or if there is no year, then it is n.d. instead. In both cases, this is in parenthesis so it would be Smith, J. D. (2022) or Smith, J. D. (n.d.). 

If you cannot determine the name of the author, then you need to move the title of the work to the start of the reference and follow it with the date of publication. Do not use “Anonymous” unless the work is signed “Anonymous”. An example would be Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary. (2020). 

After the date, you need to place the title of the article/book. For this, you need to understand when to capitalize words and when not to since not every word is in capital letters. So, the basic rule is to just capitalize the first word of the title and the first word after a colon or a dash, as well as capitalize the proper nouns. An example would be Missed calls: Is the FBI doing its job?

Do not italicize or underline the title of an article and do not enclose the title in quotation marks. 

Now place the URL. Be sure to use the real URL with it being by http:// as the source. Therefore, an example would be https://xx.xxx/yyyy 

Therefore, a complete example would be Smith, J. D. (2022). Missed calls. Is the FBI doing its job? https://xx.xxx/yyyy 

Next, I am going to discuss a very common reference, one that you need to use when the source is an article in a journal. In this case you still have the author at the front, followed by the date (just the year) and then the title of the article, followed by the title of the periodical in title case (capital letters for first letters of most words), then, if known, the volume number and issue number, followed by the pages, then the URL. An example is as follows:

Jones, A. B. (2022). The Federal Bureau of Investigation: The domestic investigation of terrorism. Terrorism Monthly, 15(3), 48-61. https://xx.xxx/yyyy 

Now, if you recall from the start of my talking about references I said that this can be very confusing because of all of the various differences that exist between author/authors, articles in periodicals, books, other print sources, electronic sources, legal references, and so forth, but I hope that this little bit helps you out and I really recommend that you visit Purdue OWL APA Style Guide, which is located at
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_style_introduction.html.

I hope that this helps you all and I am looking forward to reading your paper!

Dr. Blodgett

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