One of the most popular pages on billso.com is my APA style and formatting page. All of the graduate programs at my university require APA formatting in written assignments. When I first started teaching at HPU in 2002, I had never used APA style, so I had to learn about the topic while I was teaching my courses. I wrote short handouts with examples of APA formatting. In 2004, I had posted an early version of my APA page to one of my web sites.
The APA will release the 6th edition of the Publication Manual on 1 July 2009. The major changes include a more comprehensive system for identifying electronic references.
The new manual also asks writers to include a DOI (digital object identifier) for each reference list entry. Each DOI is a permanent web link to an article or book. Students tend to list their university library’s document, which isn’t helpful when the reader doesn’t have access to that library. There are millions of articles and books that have DOIs, but because there are registration fees involved, it’s not a comprehensive system.
I’ve added a new page to billso.com about DOI, and I’m starting to update my APA page, too.
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