Suppose you are glancing at the guidelines of your dissertation and then you come across to the instruction which states, “Please use APA 6th edition where APA references are required.” Now, at this point, you ponder that what on earth the APA 6th edition referencing style mentions to and all you could feel that a thick and unwavering layer of ignorance is enveloping your mind shunning your potentials to commence the dissertation with the same zeal and passion which you had before!

Therefore, the question which instantly pops in your mind is that what basically APA 6th referencing style is and what essentials does it entail. Hence, to quench the thirst of your knowledge, here we are presenting you an article that circulates around the in-depth guidance of APA 6th edition referencing style along with shedding light over its aspects. Besides, should you need to clear your mix-ups regarding APA 6th edition referencing in your dissertation with thorough and perfect supervision by experts, feel free to trust the best dissertation writing service and buy dissertation online without giving a single thought to the reliability and quality of the service.

APA 6th Edition

There are over 100 styles that are used for referencing all over the world. However, the most celebrated among them is APA, which refers to the American Psychological Association. There have been various editions of APA as well, yet the current one which is contemporarily in usage is called APA 6th edition. In addition to this, this current edition is also adopted by different prestigious academic bodies such as UCOL programmes, The Business School at Edinburgh Napier University, etc. Consequently, the APA 6th edition is accepted globally.

What Refrains You from Using APA 6th Edition Referencing Format?

Most of the students find it pretty challenging to use the proper referencing style in their research projects or dissertation; nevertheless, if you adhere to a solitary rule of referencing perfectly, you would never feel any trouble during the process. The foremost principle that underpins the concept of referencing is that you have to cite every shred of information, in a consistent manner that does not belong to you. Therefore, should you try to understand the meaning of this statement, then you would get to know that although referencing makes you confused and quite drained yet it is the only way to validate your academic work professionally. It is an accredited fact that acknowledging someone else’s perceptions and ideas is morally and legally correct. Moreover, all the academic institutes emphasise citing or paraphrasing the data you have explored and implemented within the context. Consequently, steadily use the APA referencing style in your work to avoid getting accused of plagiarism.

Components of Referencing

Additionally, when you cite or paraphrase any authentic source in your dissertation, then the work becomes augmented in the eyes of readers and it gets easy for them to verify the information by researching further on the topic. Apart from this, there are two major components of referencing which are listed below:

• The first category encompasses the information which you have extracted from other’s work and employed in your own to back up your arguments, theories, ideas, and conceptions. The basic purpose of doing so is to present your understanding of the topic and then relate it to creditable sources. Furthermore, there are two ways of using that information in your study which is not a product of your comprehension yet belongs to someone else. The former term is called in-text citations and the latter is known as direct quotes.
• The second component is the proper formulation of the reference list which incorporates all the details of the citations and quotes which you have used within your study in an orderly pattern. Generally, the reference list comes at the end of the study in alphabetical order. Hence, the objective of the reference list allows readers to reach out to the sources without any complication in the study. For more details, please read how to cite a dissertation in APA style.

The Aspects of Referencing

The fundamental structure of APA 6th edition referencing style answers the following questions:

1. Who produced the work?
2. When was it published?
3. What is the title?
4. Where is it located?

Furthermore, following is the list of the various types of referencing, thus, delve below:

In-text citations

In-text citations could be done in 2 basic forms that are paraphrasing and summarising. Moreover, when you want to add professionalism and precision in your work, then you have to cite different sources to acknowledge your work. If we talk about paraphrasing, then this term refers to the rewritten piece of work in the student’s own words using his understanding and familiarity with the topic. In addition to this, when you paraphrase, you could not use more than two words of the source in your study. You could acknowledge the source at the start or end of the paragraph. The example of paraphrasing is stated below:

• The E-book is a type of book consisting of interactive pages having veridical information which has been transformed into a digital form and is readable through the computer, portable device, or compacted disc. Furthermore, it has been developed innovative and advanced with the addition of multiple new specific features such as hypertext links, cross-references function, and multimedia elements. (Anuradha & Usha, 2006)
• Khan (2018) exaggerated the idea in his article that, the English language has turned out to be an inexorable language in the era of modernization. It is playing an indispensable role in all over the universe. Additionally, in the field of education, it is becoming a medium of instruction (EMI) in schools, colleges, and universities respectively.

Similar is the case with summarising, you just have to grab the entire essence of the context and then summarise it by enhancing it more, using your innovative and critical thinking.

Direct quoting

Direct quoting involves the implementation of sources directly in the study with adherence to a proper structure. Now there are two ways of quoting the information that are:

• If your words are less than 40, then you are supposed to quote the statement within the context by encircling it with double quotation marks. Moreover, you also have to surround the quotation with the name of the author/s, the year of publication, page/paragraph number, and round brackets. For instance:
• Reid (2016, p. 15) states, “The International Reading Association emphasized the importance of integrating information and communicate technologies (ICTs) into current literacy programs.”
• When your words are more than 40, then you have to write it in the form of a ‘black quote’, which means that the quotation would be crafted in an indented form possessing double-spaced line spacing. Moreover, no quotation marks would be used. For instance:
• As Dickson (1996 quoted in Rahmadani, 2016, p.132) stated that, The use of the target language in the classroom greatly increases the students` exposure to the target language. Using the target language in the classroom, students are receiving more comprehensible input thus leading to more complex language structures. By using, the target language in the classroom can provide a source of modeling for the students both in regards to the production of the language and the attitude toward the language.

Citation in case of three, four or five authors

It happens sometimes that you have to cite or quote the work which has been crafted by more than two authors. Therefore, in this situation, the whole pattern would be the same yet a slight change would occur in this way that you have to use all the names of the authors at the first time and from the next time; you have to include only the last name of the first author followed by the words et al. The term et al. refers to the Latin translation of ‘and others.’ For instance:

• Rosmanira et al. (2010) discovered perceptions of Malaysian university students concerning learning science, mathematics and other technical fields through English medium instructions (EMI). Where in conclusion they found average inclinations of both faculty students towards studying science and mathematics from both Malay and English in their respective universities in order to maintain their academic performance and it is due to the fact that, they both have studied their subjects in English during their pre-university level.

Secondary citing

Suppose if you are going through any source and suddenly some idea or aspect grab your attention towards itself, however, the work is not the author’s own yet he also has cited or quoted someone else’s work. Therefore, in this case, if you want to use that particular information in your study then it is known as a secondary citation. Moreover, the structure of the citation would be like this:

• Name of the original author (as cited in name of the secondary source’s author, year of publication, page number)

Thus, you have to include only the secondary source in the reference list. For instance:

• In the same way, Munoz (as cited in Fernandez, 2017, p 25) stated that, previous researches have been conducted on the same issue that later exposed that students of tertiary level feel more inclination in receptive skills rather than productive with special determination of gaining self-confidence and motivation through English medium instructions (EMI).

What Is a Reference List?

Reference list encompasses the details of all the sources you have either cited, paraphrased or quoted in your dissertation. It would be listed in chronological order by the author following an alphabetical pattern by year of publication. In addition, it would be titled as reference having single line spacing with no indention. Following are the examples of the basic types of formats of the reference list:

In the nutshell, these were some basics aspects of APA 6th edition referencing which you could take benefit from!