Frequently Asked Questions
How do I do the hanging indents required in the reference list?
Why is my annotated manuscript returned to me as a web page?
1 What is your relationship with the APA?
None. We only require that the citations and references in the papers sent to us for analysis follow the standards specified in the latest Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, currently the 5th Edition. We will conform to any future PMAPA standards. These provide an excellent standard which writers can follow, readers can assume, and we can use as the basis of our analysis tools. The existence of the standard is vital for us.
2. Why are dates that were not intended as citations marked red?
Every 4-digit year in your paper is treated as a possible citation, and you are asked to review those that cannot be matched with a reference. A certain percentage of them will be as simple as the case below. If the following sentence is encountered,
"1960 was an eventful year.",
it would be annotated as
"1960* was an eventful year."
All the computer knows is that there is a year with no author either to its left or right. There is a chance that you could have forgotten the author, or misspelled his/her name. However, our marking it red is not really a problem since you will realize instantly that the date is not a citation and will waste no time puzzling over it. Human beings do some things much better than a computer.
3. What is the difference 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References provide the information necessary to retrieve published, or in some cases, unpublished, sources of data, research, and other material used by the author.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 occur in the "reference list", the final section of a paper written in APA style.
In the body of a paper, the author indicates which references were used to support the statements being made. These indications are called citations.
4. What do I have to do to prepare my document for analysis?
Not much. Just use any commonly used word processor (and we usually can handle documents prepared with uncommon ones too) and write your paper following APA style, or at least have your citations and references follow APA style.
The main problem we have with documents is covered in FAQ 5, which follows.
5. How do I do 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. Some of these methods can trip up our software. Our software is dependent on each reference being one paragraph in the word processing sense - a continuous stream of text followed by a paragraph end (the <ENTER> key pressed). We will show how it is done in MS Word, the most likely word processor to be used.
Look at the left end of MS Word's ruler, and you will see the indent markers.
To do this, 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.
6. Does CiteRefs work on documents that are overall not in APA form, but whose citations and references do follow APA guidelines?
Yes. We only require that the citations and references be in APA form and follow APA guidelines.
7. Can my paper be e-mailed in an encrypted form?
No. Not at this time.
8. Why is my annotated manuscript returned to me as a web page?
Everyone can view a web page, and the process of doing so is familiar to all. We do not have to worry about what kind of word processor you used to write your paper. In addition, web pages provide an "active" dimension that allows us to do things that word processors simply cannot do. The most obvious example is the use of the "clickable asterisks."
9. How do I differentiate between two or more references with the same author, and which all have a publication date of 'n.d.'?
This situation is not directly addressed by the APA guidelines, but can be inferred from the PMAPA discussion. One handles multiple works by the same author published in the same year by following the year with 'a', 'b', 'c', etc. (PMAPA, p. 221). 'n.d.' and 'in press' are the special cases of publication years. Therefore, our reading of it is that you simply tack the suffix letter to the 'n.d.'. For example,
American Academy of Physician Assistants (n.d.a)
American Academy of Physician Assistants (n.d.b)
etc.