The Importance of Citation

When writing for academic purposes, acknowledging sources of inspiration for ideas or citing other authors’ words is of overriding concern. Failing to do so, can be considered plagiarism, which is a serious academic offence. In the following paragraphs, an analysis of in-text citations in an academic article will be conducted. The theory used in this analysis is the one in the American Psychological Association Manual, 6^th edition.

The article by Dolk and den Hertog (2008) uses in-text or parenthetical citations to refer to the sources they have consulted and read in order to conduct their research and produce their paper. The type of citations they use the most are paraphrased ideas in which they do not copy word for word material from another author’s work but they change the terms keeping the meaning the author wanted to express. For instance: “Similarly, we can characterize design research as the learning process of the research team, and we would argue that this learning process has to justify the outcome of the research project (Gravemeijer, 1994, 1998).” (Dolk and den Hertog, 2008, p. 220)  This quotation does not contain a page number because it is quoting an idea this author has expressed in general.

The other type of in-text citation they use is the block quotation. This is the type of citation that is called for when you cite word for word material from another author’s work which contains 40 or more words. The block citation is introduced by a colon and no quotation marks are used. The block quotation begins in the following line with an indentation of half an inch. For example: “Doyle and Carter (2003) saw narrative knowing as an important part of teacher education.

The key phrase here is that we, as human beings, live storied lives, that we story the experiences we have. Although several stories of any particular experience are possible, it is very difficult to story what we have not yet experienced. Moreover, although experience does not uniquely determine a story, all stories are constrained by the experiences upon which they are forged. However, experience is a troublesome, if not unruly, term in teacher education curriculum. Of course, calls for infusing field experience into teacher preparation are pervasive, and student teaching is often seen as the capstone of programmes, especially by students. Yet, teacher educators are often ambivalent about experience in the preparatory curriculum and even distrust it. There are, for example, prominent members of the teacher education community who have written of the miseducative consequences of field experience . . . . This distrust exists for several legitimate reasons, but for present purposes it can be said that this scepticism has led to an underestimation of the potency of direct experience in the stories our students create.

According to APA conventions, the page or paragraph number is missing in this quote.

The analysed article contains approximately eighteen paraphrased ideas quoted and one block quotation. Quotations are crucial since they document the literature and provide necessary and relevant information for the readers, who can afterwards, conduct their own research by consulting cited sources.

Reference

American Psychological Association (2010). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association Sixth Edition, Washington, D.C.

Dolk, M., & den Hertog, J. (2008). Narratives in teacher education. Interactive Learning Environments, 16(3), 215–229. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10494820802113970