Question About APA Format and Citation

Nursing Students Student Assist

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I've been instructed to write a brief for one of my classes; using Healthy People 2010, I have to identify an objective and then conduct research on a subpopulation, identifying risk and protective factors related to the objective. I've chosen suicide and the elderly.

I've never written in APA format before. I had two questions and would so appreciate the feedback of the those more experienced that I.

1. Many of my articles are themselves patchworks of citations from other articles. What is the best way to cite a source that's citing another source?

2. For a 2-3 page brief like I'm writing, should I use headers ("Introduction," "Protective Factors," "Risk Factors," etc.) in the paper?

I really appreciate your help!

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Specializes in ICU, ER, HH, NICU, now FNP.

The first thing you need is the APA guide. If you will be in school for awhile, I would strongly recommend getting it.

You cite a secondary source the same way you cite a primary source. For example

A book that has sections written by different authors:

Friedman, L. S. (2005). Liver, biliary tract, & pancreas. In L. M. Tierney, S. J. McPhee & M. A. Papadakis (Eds.), 2005 current medical diagnosis & treatment (44th ed., pp. 629-678). New York: Lang Medical Books/McGraw-Hill.

A PDA software package:

Lacy, C. F., Armstrong, L. L., Goldman, M. P., & Lance, L. L. (2005). Lexi-drugs for pocket pc.

A journal article:

Amato, D., Maravilla, A., Montoya, C., Gaja, O., Revilla, C., Guerra, R., et al. (1998). Acute effects of soft drink intake on calcium and phosphate metabolism in immature and adult rats. Revista de investigacion clinica; organo del Hospital de Enfermedades de la Nutricion, 50(3), 185-189.

What is hard to show you here is the actual formatting of these because the text box doesn't really allow for tabs etc.

IF you are planning on writing papers in the future, the other thing I strongly recommend is a program called EndNote. You can get a student version at most college bookstores or you can order it from various places for about 80.00.

What is does is this: You type your paper in word - as you are typing you think of an article you want to reference in that section of the paper. You click on the article you have downloaded from the library straight into endnote (Endnote stores your articles - or at least the abstracts - and builds personal libraries) and it populates the reference into your paper, AND puts the reference into the bibliography for you - already formatted in perfect APA. When you are done writing your paper, you bibliography is completey done, formatted and ready to go with no additional effort on your part. If you take a reference out it takes it out of the bib. If you add another ref it puts it in alphabetical order in the bib.

I have tried other programs - there are several out there that are cheaper - but I was always having to make corrections and fix problems and that took me more time in the end than it did to do it all myself anyway. I have won arguments with profs on endnote - havn't lost a single point on APA in over 2 years now!

Even with EndNote, you still need the book - you need to be able to identify that you have the info entered correctly. Endnote will correct caps and such for you to make them APA - the other programs don't do that.

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I will get EndNote! That is fantastic, I didn't know they had something like that.

In terms of content...is using a lot of secondary resources looked down upon? That is, citing an article by way of another article. Most of the articles I got (and which have all the info I need) are quilts of references to other sources.

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Specializes in ICU, ER, HH, NICU, now FNP.

All articles should reference some articles. The difference between a secondary source and a primary source is this:

A primary source is based on a study done by the suthors.

A secondary source is a review of multiple studies done by other people.

All studies include (or should include) a lit review, but some articles are simply lit reviews and not studies. Make sense?

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It does...I guess I'm just paranoid about the majority of my citations being secondary and not primary. Didn't know if that was a bad thing.

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Specializes in ICU, ER, HH, NICU, now FNP.

For credibility's sake - try to use as many primary sources as possible and use secondary sources very little. Secondary sources are a GREAT place to start looking for primary cources - just check out the reference list.

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gauge14iv said:
For credibility's sake - try to use as many primary sources as possible and use secondary sources very little. Secondary sources are a GREAT place to start looking for primary cources - just check out the reference list.

Hello, All

I am learning APA all over again and I have the APA book. In addition, APA has a site as well...

https://www.apa.org/

I think the site is confusing. I wish there was one style of writing papers. I have learn to write in the AMA style as well. Each one of them have similarity and a few difference points.

I understand the writing style should be scholar material because it is a professional requirement. However, let's not over do it and kill the writer for a small mistake for example, the one inch margins off on the right side. I will be expert by the time I get through the program and all of the papers I have to produce for the classes. OK, I am done whinning and going to have some cheese now.

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I would suggest you get the Publication Manaul of the American of Psychological Manual to help with APA format. This is the proper way to document a secondary source. Say that Seindenberg and McClelland's study is cited in Coltheart et.al and you did not read the work cited.

In text citation:

Seindenberg and McClelland's study (as cited in Coltheart, Curtis, Atkins, & Haller, 1993).

Reference list:

Coltheart, M., Curtis, B., Atkins, P. & Haller, M. (1993). Models of reading

aloud. Psycological Review , 100 , 589-908.

It is very important to italicize the rights things. In the reference list, there should be no parentheses.

Also when using headers, the introduction does not have a header. The rest of the paper can.

Christine, RNC, BSN

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Specializes in OB, ortho/neuro, home care, office.

Here's a really cool citation machine ;)

https://www.citationmachine.net/

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nicumom75 said:
I would suggest you get the Publication Manaul of the American of Psychological Manual to help with APA format. This is the proper way to document a secondary source. Say that Seindenberg and McClelland's study is cited in Coltheart et.al and you did not read the work cited.

In text citation:

Seindenberg and McClelland's study (as cited in Coltheart, Curtis, Atkins, & Haller, 1993).

Reference list:

Coltheart, M., Curtis, B., Atkins, P. & Haller, M. (1993). Models of reading

aloud. Psycological Review , 100 , 589-908.

It is very important to italicize the rights things. In the reference list, there should be no parentheses.

Also when using headers, the introduction does not have a header. The rest of the paper can.

Christine, RNC, BSN

Actually, there are some instances for using parentheses in the reference list. But, what I think you meant was you wouldn't use parentheses to cite the secondary source in the reference list, right?

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