CiteRefs    Automated Detection of Citation & Reference Errors for APA Format  

A Sample Analyzed Document

The following is an example of what you will receive from us. In the interest of brevity, we have truncated some parts, but left enough for you to get the idea.
 

C iteRefs
Automated Citation & Reference Verification for APA Format

Samples from an Analyzed Document:

The CiteRefs analysis of this document appears below in three sections:

  1. ANALYSIS OF THE REFERENCE LIST
    CiteRefs builds an electronic version of your reference list. It notes errors found in the author and date portions of the references.

  2. ANALYSIS OF THE CITATIONS
    An annotated version of the full text of your paper in which citations that match references are colored blue, and those that don't are colored red.

  3. REFERENCES NEVER CITED (OR INCORRECTLY CITED) IN THE TEXT
    A list of the references that were not cited.

Throughout, PMAPA refers to the following documentation standard:

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Fifth Edition, American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, 2001.

CiteRefs - Cite4 v.1.0.0
Processed: Sat Oct 27 09:36:42 EDT 2007

1. ANALYSIS OF THE REFERENCE LIST

A reference marked with:

"NOTE" has a minor problem that does not affect our ability to form the electronic version of the reference. Citing the reference will succeed.

"INVALID" The attempted reference has a fatal problem that makes it impossible to form a electronic version. Attempted citations of the reference will fail.

Problems Found in Your Reference List

NOTE[0] You have headed your reference list with 'REFERENCES'. It should be 'References'.

INVALID: Could not find a correctly-formed publication date (i.e. a year, or 'in press' or 'n.d.' in parentheses following the author(s) - PMAPA 4.07, p. 223).

American Federation of Teachers. Educational Issues Department. [On-line]. Available: http://www.aft.org/edissues

NOTE[7] Finish the publication date with a closing parenthesis followed by a period. E.g. 'Smith, R. (1997). A Study of ...' . (PMAPA 4.09, p.226)

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. (n.d.) ASCD Signature Schools. [On-line]. Available: http://www.ascd.org/sschools/index.html [2000, June 9].

NOTE[25] The author clause must end with a period. E.g. University of Pittsburgh. (2003). or Smith, I. L., & Welch, W. T. (2005).

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (1999, December). Education Update, 41(8), 1, 3-4.

NOTE[15] A multi-year publication date is rare in APA style (see PMAPA 4.16.A.28, p. 250 and 3.100, p. 213). Decide if one is really needed here. If so, the date should be "1960/1977" or "1960-1977". We have formed a reference using "1960/1977", but please make changes here and in the citations.

Bruner, J. (1960/77). The process of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

NOTE[5] If 'and' is separating the last two authors, it should be changed to '&'. Use '&' rather than 'and' in the references. (PMAPA 4.07, p. 223)

Budd, R. W., Thorp, R. K., and Donohew, L. (1967). Content analysis of communications. New York: The Macmillan Company.

NOTE[26] This reference may have more than six authors. If so, list only the first six, and replace all authors after the sixth with 'et al.'. (PMAPA 4.08, p. 224)

Clark, C., Moss, P. A., Goering, S., Herter, R. J., Lamar, B., Leonard, D., Robbins, S., Russell, M., Templin, M., Wascha, K. (1996, Spring). Collaboration as dialogue: Teachers and researchers engaged in conversation and professional development. American Educational Research Journal, 33(1), 193-231.

NOTE[6] This reference appears to be empty beyond the publication date. It may not be an error, but check it.

Joyce, B., Weil, M., & Showers, B. (1992).

NOTE[24] There is an irregularity in the number or placement of commas in the author clause of this reference. It may not be an error, but examine it.
If you see no obvious problem, then CLICK HERE for a list of probable causes.

Ornstein, A. C., & Lasley II, T. J. (2000). Strategies for effective teaching (3rd ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

NOTE[1] The following two references may not be in proper alphabetical order. Check it. This could be due to a punctuation error, or due to rules for alphabetizing in a language other than English. See PMAPA 4.04, p. 219.

Sharp, P. A. (2000, December/January). 'Never evers' of workshop facilitation, Tools for schools, 1.

Scherer, M. M. (Ed.). (2001, February). Evaluating educators [Themed issue]. Educational Leadership, 58(5).

INVALID: Could not find a correctly-formed publication date (i.e. a year, or 'in press' or 'n.d.' in parentheses following the author(s) - PMAPA 4.07, p. 223).

Study of teacher evaluation and dismissal: Recommendations for 1998. Report to the Colorado General Assembly. (Research Publication No. 429) (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 421 770)

NOTE[34] 'U. S.' should be 'U.S.' (i.e. no space between) when used as an adjective (PMAPA 3.27, p. 110). Determine if that is the case here.

U. S. Office of Personnel Management. (1997, July 3). Legal authorities. [On-line]. Available: http://www.opm.gov/omsoe/mission/legal.htm

and so on ....

Reference List Analysis Summary

Number of valid references = 358
Number of warning notes = 43
Number of invalid references = 4

End Of Reference List Analysis

2. ANALYSIS OF THE CITATIONS

PLEASE READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE PROCEEDING !!

THE ANNOTATED TEXT

In this section you will find the text of your paper. Because we're concentrating only on citations, it is stripped of all formatting, tables, graphs, charts, illustrations, etc. (there may be some textual "debris" left over from the deletions), and annotated by CiteRefs as follows:

Citations in blue have exactly one matching entry in your reference list and are correct.
Dates or citations in red* could not be matched to a specific reference in your reference list.

In most red cases, the trouble is immediately obvious when you consult your reference list - e.g. missing reference, bad date, misspelled author, etc.

THE HELP ASTERISK *

If the problem isn't obvious, click the trailing asterisk for extra help. For example, click the * in this failed cite:

(CHPA, 2003*)

The help window that appears tells you what difficulty we ran into, suggests probable causes, and refers to a PMAPA section. One proviso: you need to be connected to the Internet for them to work properly.

Blue (correct) cites can also have clickable *s indicating minor problems; e.g. '&' was used, but 'and' should have been, etc.

HOVERING OVER THE PUBLICATION YEAR

If you hover the mouse (point without clicking) over a correct (blue) publication date, the full text of the associated reference should appear in a blue box. Hovering over a red (questionable) date causes a yellow box with the reason for the difficulty to appear.

To test it, hover the mouse over the following publication dates: (Cross, 2002) or (Sacks, 2002*). If the colored boxes pop up, great. If not, click here for instructions on changing your browser setting to allow this feature to work.

FINALLY,

Blue citations, usually the overwhelming majority, are virtually guaranteed to be correct, thereby eliminating the work of you checking them. This is the real time saver.

Red citations(?) are probably, but not necessarily, errors. We scan for possible publication dates. When we find one, we attempt to find authors in the vicinity and form a citation.

  • Sometimes the 'date' is a year or four-digit number not intended to be part of a citation.
  • Most often there is, in fact, an error.
  • Occasionally a citation is correct but our program, due to a technical factors, couldn't match it to a reference.
  • Legal references conform to a far more complex standard - The Bluebook: ... (PMAPA Appendix D). PMAPA recommends authors use this standard when citing legal sources. Occasionally, CiteRefs will mark a legal citation red, even though it is correct.

You should examine each red-colored item and and its intended reference. In most cases, the problem will be immediately obvious. If not, use the clickable asterisks (*) for extra help as needed.

If you still can't find the problem, carefully compare the attempted citation and reference list entry for differences in

  • upper case/lower case in authors' names,
  • spelling of authors' names, and
  • punctuation in the reference.

These are small, easily overlooked sources of error.

END OF INSTRUCTIONS

The Text of Your Document, with Citations Annotated

Note: The comments in { ... } and colored red are not part of what you would receive. Since you don't have the reference list to view, we have told you what the difficulties were.

Dissertation

C. G. Author

Chapter 1: The Problem

Introduction

Teachers and administrators today function in an environment of change, mounting challenges, reform and renewal (Fullan, 1993; Owens, 1995; Pierce, 2000). In an ever-increasingly complex world, stakeholders worldwide clamor for education to solve social problems, produce workforce-ready graduates, and function effectively as surrogate parents. Amidst cries for accountability from parents, communities, employers, and legislators, professional educators seek answers to the complex and perplexing problems of educating all the nation's children, juggling the challenges of their daily tasks with the search to redefine educational effectiveness and improve their practice in pursuit of quality teaching (Glatthorn and* Fox, 1995*; Haycock, 2000; Murphy & Shipman, 1999; Zemelman, Daniels, and* Hyde, 1998).

{The actual reference is  Glatthorn & Fox, 1994 - date was wrong.}

As the tasks, duties, and responsibilities of administrators, teachers and instructional leaders continue to evolve, so does the practice of performance evaluation of administrators, teachers, and other certificated educational personnel in the exercise of those tasks, duties, and responsibilities (Zemelman, Daniels, and* Hyde, 1998*). Among the responsibilities generally ascribed to a building administrator is that of instructional leader and evaluator of the teaching staff who implement the instruction (Drake & Roe, 1994; Hughes , et al., 1999*; McEwan, 1994; Shinkfield & Stufflebeam, 1995). For central office administrators, the duties generally reflect evaluation of building administrators, or, if supervisors or coordinators, possibly direct evaluation of teachers, and for many in various central office positions, oversight of the evaluation process for building personnel (Castetter, 1992; Fletcher & McInerney, 1995; Haertel, 1994*).

{It should be Hughes, 1999; it should be Haertal, 1994a, or Haertal, 1994b.}

This study will examine and analyze the data gathered in a national survey of state education agencies regarding the policies and guidelines for evaluating administrators, teachers, and other certificated educators and for training personnel evaluators to fulfill their evaluation responsibilities. If education plays a pivotal role in providing communities with a venue for coping with the accelerating changes that face all societies, then the need for effective delivery of instruction becomes evermore urgent. Within the instructional domain, it thus follows that the need for effective instructional leadership, at all levels within school systems, also becomes evermore urgent.

Millman (1981, p. 12), mimicking Shakespeare, averred, "To evaluate, or not to evaluate, that is NOT the question." Pointing out the inescapability of evaluation in all aspects of life and the particular relevance given evaluation of teaching and teachers, Millman proposed that the question becomes three-fold: Who should evaluate? For what purpose? Using what means?

Evaluation Triad: Purposes, Procedures, and Practitioners

The bottom line for why we evaluate educators has emerged from the role education fulfills; from the research on effective schools has emerged a basic assumption of purpose: Teach students and identify success in teaching by measuring student progress in knowledge, skills, and attitudes (Owens, 1995). The Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation (1988*) held as its fundamental purpose for personnel evaluation the provision of effective services to students and society.

{Joint Committee ... had two references in 1988. Author failed to put 1988a and 1988b on the references.}

and so on through the remainder of the text.

Citation Analysis Summary

Number of citations that match a reference = 97

Number of citations (or isolated years) we could not match with a reference = 26

End of the Annotated Text

3. REFERENCES NEVER CITED (OR INCORRECTLY CITED) IN THE TEXT

PMAPA 4.01 states that

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

CAUTION: You may have attempted to cite some of the references in this list, but if all the citations of a reference are marked red, that reference will be listed as uncited.

Uncited References in Your Reference List

  1. Abbott, L. C. (1992). Prior learning assessment: Faculty evaluator training and development. [Master of Science thesis: National-Louis University]. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 385 757)

  2. Abdal-Haqq, I. (1998). Professional development schools: Weighing the evidence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

  3. Acheson, K. A., & Gall, M. D. (1997). Techniques in the clinical supervision of teachers (4th ed.). New York: Longman.

  4. Airasian, P., & Gullickson, A. (1994, July). Examination of teacher self-evaluation. Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education, 8(2), 195-203.

  5. Altrichter, H., Posch, P., & Somekh, B. (1993). Teachers investigate their work: An introduction to the methods of action research. New York: Routledge.

and so on.

Uncited Reference Summary

Number of uncited references = 29

End of the Document Analysis

 


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