SOW 412: Senior Seminar: APA Style

Reference Desk 610.902.8537

APA Style comes from the American Psychological Association and is a commonly used format for the social sciences. The current version is the Sixth Edition, released in 2009. APA provides guidance for writing practices including formatting, language style and citations.

This guide is designed to assist with APA Style citations. For writing and formatting guidelines, consult the Publication Manual, on reserve at the circulation desk in the library.

Paraphrasing is similar to summarization except that instead of focusing on the big picture, paraphrasing highlights the ideas expressed in a specific passage.  Paraphrasing is used to incorporate or outline a concept or idea contained in your source material that  you wish to relate to the themes of your paper.   Paraphrasing must always be IN YOUR OWN WORDS AND STYLE OF WRITING. 

 Some pointers for paraphrasing effectively and ethically: 

• A good paraphrase must be ACCURATE. It should provide an honest representation of  the original passage. In other words, it is not ok to "tweak" a paraphrase so that it more closely aligns with your argument
• A good paraphrase must be COMPLETE. Again, you cannot include just the part of the passage that complements your idea. If the author says somethings that is in conflict with the point you are making you should address that in your paper. 
• A good paraphrase must be IN YOUR OWN VOICE. It is not enough to plug in a few synonyms and leave it at that. It is also not ok to mimic the orginal sentence structure. In other words you should completely rewrite the passage so that it does not ressemble the original passage. 
• A good paraphrase is a STEPPING STONE to your idea. At the end of the paraphrase make sure to draw a clear connection between the ideas contained in the paraphrase and the themes of your paper. 
• If possible, paraphrase instead of quoting. 

More about paraphrasing can be found on the below resources:

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