Credible and Reliable Sources - Essay Example

At Purdue writing stylistic guide for APA, which is called O.W.L or 'online writing lab', one of the stylistic comments concerns avoiding gender bias. By 'bias', they are referring to markers in language usage that reflect bias in relation to diabilities, race and ethnicity and gender [Purdue OWL, 2011]. Bias in language usage is something that belongs to the past, and current values in Western Society do not reflect a lot of the language conventions established in the past. In history, women and visible minorities were really only accepted at universities in the early twentieth century, and the proliferation of women and visible minorities really only occurred in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Thus, those who have traditionally been university educated, were white males from privilaged backgrounds. This demographic has changed, and so to should the language conventions that reflect an era when only white males attended university – the very individuals or group that established past conventions. Thus, one important tip, is not to use 'gendered pronouns', rather, one ought to use 'gender neutral' pronouns like they, or their. One of the other elements that makes APA a desirable or optimal format, is the brevity of the style.

With regard to the notion of APA Abbreviations, one of the important goals stressed, is that the style or format should do as little as possible to distract the reader from the content of what is being read. It is maintained by the APA that the less style formatting that is used, the better. The less there is formatting, the less attention a reader is going to spend paying attention to anything other than the basic text. So, for example, wherever possible, information is abbreviated. One good example of doing this, is with author's names.

Author first names are not given either with 'in text' citations, which is normal for a lot of style conventions, or with bibliographical information. The agenda or the goal of the APA is to be as efficient as possible, and this entails providing essential information with regard to referencing, but the very minimal amount of information at the same time. There is a balance struck with APA between efficiency or brevity, and being scholarly enough so that there is no mistaking what is being referred to.

The final or third variable of the APA that is being emphasized, is the guidelines for 'summary' and 'paraphrasing', and specific to in-text citations. The format for the summary or paraphrasing, is precisely the same as it is with a citation format for a direct quote. That is, it follows the convention of the author's last name followed by the year of the publication and then page reference [Purdue OWL, 2011]. As a point of significance, this is arguably one of the most important style rules precisely because it is somewhat ambiguous.

In a sense, the entirety of a student essay can be said to be a paraphrasing, except in those areas where an argument is being made or some form of scientific experiment/research. So, it is difficult to know what can be said to be original in, for example, a second year university paper in sociology or history. However difficult it is to define with precise terms, the reason that this style element is being discussed is because it is so little understood or often over-looked. It is also a very thin line toward plagiarism when a summary is not properly referenced, and this makes this probably the most important style standard for university students, and especially, new ones.

Works Cited: American Psychological Association.Retrieved from http://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/index.aspx June 17, 2011. Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL). Retrieved from: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/ June 16, 2011. James Cook University APA Referencing and Plagiarism. Retrieved from: http://libguides.jcu.edu.au/content.php?pid=171735&sid=1448631 June 17, 2011. 3 Notable APA Guidelines and Standards.