One thing all disciplines have in common is that they are written down. Writing preserves knowledge and passes it on to future generations. All disciplines have a history of development, research, and presentation of information. New knowledge in the humanities is not developed or presented the same way as it is in the sciences or in the social sciences. A commonly used documentation format or style manual used for the presentation of technical information is the APA format (American Psychological Association). Hundreds of academic journals require the use of this format. All style manuals have the same purpose--to allow others to see where and from whom information was gathered, and to allow others to replicate the results or experiments presented in a book, paper,or journal article. The APA format uses parenthetical citations in the text of a paper to allow readers to know where and from whom information came from. This parenthetical citation always includes the author's name and the year in which she/he published an article or book--(Mullins, 1999). If one quotes Mullins directly, the page/s on which the information was found is added--(Mullins, 1999, p. 12). APA format also requires an alphabetically arranged references page so others can see where all of the information was found. In addition to the research paper resources available in class, in textbooks, and in the library, there are many Online Writing Labs (OWLs) on the Internet. The following links are also helpful: Citation and Documentation in the Social Sciences: APA Format |