APA Style Review - Blog #2 (COM 601)

I will be perfectly honest: as much as I appreciate the need for citations, and the need for a coherent and organized paper structure, I never liked style guides. Even in high school, where every paper rubric was 40 percent formatting, I always seemed to miss the mark on how to cite correctly. I jumped from MLA, to AP style, then to APA, and I never felt like I actually learned how to correctly format a paper within one formatting guide. Luckily for me, the internet exists and Youtube tutorials now extend to style guides.

As with most styles, my biggest struggle is citations: when to use page numbers, when to just use the publisher or date of publishing, how to best incorporate a citation where there isn’t a direct quote. There have been times I thought I did everything right, or I’ll look at a paper that I’m referencing and see how they cite and I’ll have completely missed the mark. It’s definitely frustrating with so many “if-then” situations and constantly having to double check via Google whether something I’m recalling from memory is MLA or APA.

I would say that now that I’ve used APA more frequently, I actually find it quite a bit easier than other citations in the past (well, once I get past the psyching myself out). With basic formatting, it makes sense and with the citations, they provide the information you actually need when referring to the articles instead of just random information that wouldn’t help you. The biggest obstacle is ensuring that I understand the “why” behind the rules so I can ensure that I use them correctly and effectively.