I’ve gotten differing views about including the copyright symbol when mentioning Survey Monkey, SPSS, etc. APA style guide 6th edition says not to include but others indicate it is an Antioch preference. Can you please clarify?
Answer: For your assignments at Antioch, do what your instructor or program asks, so in this case, include the copyright symbol. But be sure to check the guidelines for your department–most academic styles omit copyright symbols, so this preference strikes me as unusual. If you’re publishing in a journal, follow the journal’s guidelines.
The details: The publisher of a work is the one who decides what specific style preferences are followed. Consider your instructor or academic program to be the publisher when writing coursework. It’s helpful to remember that, while style guides are useful defaults for elements of style such as whether to include a copyright symbol, they are simply guidelines for publication. Most publishers have their own style preferences, which are often modified from one of the popular style guides. Similarly, academic programs and instructors often request students to follow a style guide such as APA or MLA, but they often use guides of their own as well. This is true of most universities when it comes to theses and dissertations, including Antioch.
For any such style question, if you’ve reviewed the guidelines for your course or program and still are not sure, you can always ask your instructor or WEX for further guidance.
How do you cite a small document that seems to be self-contained?
Example:
Answer: Citing a small document that seems to be self-contained can throw people off since it doesn’t neatly fit in as an article or book. On first look, my instinct was to put the large-font, boldface heading at the top of the page as the title for this piece, but seeing the footer made me think that this is an excerpt from a book or some other larger reference material. So I did a little searching and indeed found another version of this document (https://fetzer.org/sites/default/files/images/stories/pdf/selfmeasures/Self_Measures_for_Love_and_Compassion_Research_OPTIMISM.pdf) in which “ATTRIBUTIONAL STYLE QUESTIONNAIRE (ASQ)” is one of several matching section headings. With this bit of context, I think it would be wise to treat it as an entry in an online reference book. Because I found this slightly larger version and used that for context, and because the content in the Attributional Style Questionnaire section appears to be identical, I used the URL that I found, but I believe you could use either one without trouble.
APA 7th edition (p. 328, example 47)
Fetzer Institute. (n.d.). Attributional style questionnaire (ASQ). In Self report measures for love and compassion research: Optimism. Retrieved November 23, 2019, from https://fetzer.org/sites/default/files/images/stories/pdf/selfmeasures/Self_Measures_for_Love_and_Compassion_Research_OPTIMISM.pdf
Remember the main concern is that the reader of your work will be able to find the reference.
How do you write an in-text percent range as 43 to 50% or 43%–50%? I believe this is what Chicago style advises, but I can’t find a clear answer on this for APA, unless I’m not looking in the correct place in the manual.
Answer: Sometimes the answer is posted elsewhere in the APA Manual. When discussing en dashes, for example, they give a hint in their examples. In seeing the example below, I’d say go with 43–53%.
The Publication Manual shows en dashes for items of equal weight (e.g., test–retest, male–female, the Chicago–London flight), page ranges (e.g., in references, “… Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 718–729.”), and other types of ranges (e.g., 16–30 kHz).
Should DOIs (including the new format) be live hyperlinks in the references? I get mixed signals even from APA- the blog seems to indicate they can be live, but the book is unclear…
Answer: DOIs don’t have to be live links.
I made reference to Emma Lazarus’ 1883 poem entitled The New Colossus. When I checked the index of Concise Rules of APA Style, I could not find an entry on poetry. How should I reference this seminal work that is engraved on the iconic Statue of Liberty?
Answer: First, it all depends on how you are referring to the work. As this is a “public” poem (on the Statue of Liberty, you might reference the date in a general sense but that’s all that’s needed. Here are a few recommendations:
- if you are only citing “huddled masses,” then you could write Emma Lazarus’s poem, “The New Colossus,” carved on the Statue of Liberty in 1903, quotes the “huddled masses.”…
- or …. “huddled masses” carved on the base of the Statue of Liberty, means … The poem was written by Emma Lazarus in 1883.
- Neither of these would require a reference
However, if you are citing the full poem &/or deconstructing it as part of an argument, then you should have the citation and the reference:
Lazarus, E. (1883/newer publication date). The new colossus. Title of Work.
DOIs & URLs in Dissertations
DOIs & URLs in Dissertations From time to time we field questions about how to properly style URLs within the References section of a dissertation. In this post I will outline our expectations and some [...]