CiteRefs    Automated Detection of Citation & Reference Errors for APA Format  

 

Common Errors

Authors tend to make certain errors in citations and references with some regularity:  

  1. Confusion between a citation and a reference.

  2. Using '&' and 'and' in place of each other in author lists.

  3. Establishing a citation abbreviation - e.g. [USDOE].

  4. Using the shortest unambiguous 'et al.' form in citing multi-authored references.

  5. Including too much information to the date part of a citation.

  6. Positioning the publication year in a reference's publication date.

  7. Failing to remove the un-cited references from the reference list.

  8. The ordinary errors: citing a reference not in the list, misspelling an author's name, getting the publication year wrong, ...

  9. Punctuation and minor format errors.

  10. Using overly complex methods to produce the "hanging indents" required in the reference list.

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1. Confusion between a citation and a reference?

Briefly;

  • References occur in the reference list
  • Citations of those references occur in the body of the text.

References provide the information necessary to retrieve published (or in some cases, unpublished) sources of data, research, and other material used by the author. References are listed in the "reference list", the final section of a paper written in APA style.

From time to time in the body of a paper, the author indicates which references provide the basis of the statements being made. These indications are called citations.

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2. Using '&' and 'and' in place of each other in author lists.

The symbol '&' and the word 'and' precede the last author of a multi-author list of authors. The rule is simple:

  1. Use 'and' in citations that are not inside the parentheses holding the date.
  2. Use '&' in references of the reference list.
  3. Use '&' in citations where the authors are inside the parentheses holding the date, or in tables and captions.

Sample:

Reference list

Summers, B. K., & Turner, M. J. (1998). ...

Citation outside parentheses

Summers and Turner (1998) showed that ...

Citation within parentheses

... and that such research was well-founded (Summers & Turner,1998).

See PMAPA 3.95, last paragraph.

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3. Establishing a citation abbreviation.

Briefly:

  1. Abbreviations for group authors (institutions, organizations, etc.) should not appear in the references.

  2. Abbreviations are to be established the first time the reference is cited.

  3. Use brackets [...] rather than parentheses (...) to hold the citation abbreviation when creating it. 

  4. Conversely, general text abbreviations are formed by using parentheses (...), not brackets [...].

The names of group authors can be long and unwieldy for use in text and citations. It is often advisable to establish an abbreviation or acronym for further use in the text and citations. For instance,

U.S. Department of Education

is often abbreviated USDOE. The PMAPA method of establishing a citation abbreviation is to establish it in brackets in the first citation of the reference:

Reference list

U.S. Department of Education. (1993) ...

First text citation

... U.S. Department of Education [USDOE] (1993) ...

Subsequent citations

USDOE (1993)

Note especially the use of brackets [...], not parentheses (...). (See PMAPA, section 3.96)

However, general text abbreviations unrelated to a citation are formed by the use of parentheses (...), not brackets [...].

"It is often a question of the relevance of short-term memory (STM) and elapsed time."

A complete discussion is too long to include here. Please see PMAPA 3.20-3.29.

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4. Use the shortest unambiguous 'et al.' form in citing multi-authored references.

If a reference has more than two and less than six authors, use the last names of all authors in the first text citation of the reference, and then the shortest unambiguous 'et al.' form in subsequent citations. For references with six or more authors, use the shortest unambiguous 'et al.' form in all citations. Read PMAPA 3.95 for a full discussion.

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5. Including too much information in the date part of a citation.

Some writers tend to put too much into the date part of citations, material that properly belongs in the reference. Examples of incorrect citation forms include

NIMH (1993, Spring)

NIMH (Revised 1993)

NIMH (1993, March 5)

The material other than the year belongs in the reference, not in the citation.

However, it is also correct to cite the specific part of a reference: e.g.

NIMH (1993, chap. 4)

As a general rule, with few exceptions, only the publication year, and in some cases, the specific part of the reference such as the page, section or chapter, are to be included in the date part of citations. Even if the the reference date had a month and possibly a day, they are included in the reference, not in the citation. In the case of two references with the same author and year, but different months, the month is not included in the citation. Rather the year of publication is modified by a trailing a, b, c, ... .

Example:

Sampson, S. V. (1997, March 5). ...

is cited as

Sampson (1997)

If Sampson had another publication in the reference list in the same year,

Sampson, S. V. (1997, December 20). ...

the citation would be ambiguous. However, since the rule for citations precludes months and days, the only recourse is to list the references as

Sampson, S. V. (1997a, March 5). ...

Sampson, S. V. (1997b, December 20). ...

and then cite

Sampson (1997a) or Sampson (1997b)

Read PMAPA 3.94 and 3.101. There are, however, some unusual cases in which other material is included with the date - see PMAPA 3.102 and 3.103.

See also #6 below.

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6. Positioning the publication year in a reference's publication date.

In almost all cases, the year should appear first within the parenthetical publication date of references. Examples:

Jones, A. (1994, December). ...

Jones, A. (1994, August/December). ...

Sampson, S. V. (1997, December 20). ...

Geer, M. P. (1983, Spring)

The big exception is in certain legal references. Legal references do not conform to the PMAPA standards. They are allowed, but they follow The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, the standard for legal references in the United States. See PMAPA, Appendix D.

See also #5 above.

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7. Failing to remove the un-cited references from the reference list.

This is apparently easy to overlook. The PMAPA says

"References cited in text must appear in the reference list; conversely, each entry in the reference list must be cited in text ..."

Authors gather references when doing their research and then build their reference list. The references are then cited when writing the body of the paper. However, authors often forget to remove those references that they didn't use.

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8. The ordinary errors: citing a reference not in the list, misspelling an author's name, getting the publication year wrong, ...

These are the "normal" errors one tends to make.

  • You cite a reference intending to add it to the reference list, but never quite get around to it.
  • You misspell an author's name, often only slightly. This is one that humans tend to overlook when editing - we see what we expect to see, not what is actually there.
  • Having a different publication year in the citation and in the reference.
  • Forgetting to include one author in citing a multi-author reference.
  • Not following the recommended form in the reference and citing of a six-or-more author reference (see PMAPA 3.95, p. 209).

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9. Punctuation and minor format errors.

There is a tendency to make certain minor errors in punctuation or form:

  • In references, the initials of authors with two or more initials should be followed by periods and separated by spaces: "Smith, N. L." (correct) instead of "Smith, N.L."
  • In the references of authors who have hyphenated first names, the correct form is as given in the example: Smith, N.-L. (2003). ...
  • U.S., the abbreviation for "United States", should not include a space when it is used as an adjective: "U.S." is correct, not "U. S.".
  • Citing multiple works by the same author - the years should be separated by commas, not semi-colons: (Smith, 1987, 1993), not (Smith, 1987; 1993).
  • Citing multiple works by different authors - cites should be separated by semi-colons, not commas): (Smith, 1987, 1993; Jones, 2001), not (Smith, 1987, 1993, Jones, 2001).
  • If  you cite the same reference more than once in a paragraph, you have the option of leaving off the date in all but the first citation in the paragraph. For instance, if you cite (Smith, 2000), you can then cite (Smith) in later citations in the paragraph. PMAPA seems to leave the decision to you. Note: if you cited (Smith, 2000), and then later (Smith, 2002), (Smith) would be ambiguous and you'd have to include the date each time.

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10. Using overly complex methods to produce the "hanging indents" required in the reference list.

You are not expected to be an expert in the use of word processors. Some authors go to great lengths to achieve hanging indents for their references. We are often amazed at the ingenious methods used, especially because the correct way is so simple. We will show how it is done in MS Word, the most likely word processor to be used.

First, click here to see how your references should and should not be formatted.

Look at the left end of MS Word's ruler, and you will see the indent markers.

 

To set the markers, point at the lower "triangle" - the one pointing up - with the mouse. Drag it right to the 1/2 inch mark. DO NOT point at the little rectangle under the lower triangle. Dragging it will drag both top and bottom pointers together. You only want to drag the bottom triangle.

After setting the markers, then just type each reference. The first line of each will not indent, while second and subsequent lines will automatically indent 1/2 inch. Press the <ENTER> key only when you have reached the end of each reference. Do not press it while within the reference.

If you've already typed your reference incorrectly, look at item 4 on our How To ... page to see how to undo the damage without having to retype everything.

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