References are the bane of many, many, many, many students.
And I mean many.
I count myself among them.
It would be one thing if there were the same rules for everyone.
But no, there are many. If you are in English Literature, they have their own.
If you are in legal, they have their own.
If you are in health sciences, we have our own.
To name a brief few, there are Chicago, and MLA, and APA.
Health Sciences, including nursing, uses the APA. This stands for the American Psychological Association. There have been hundreds of books on the proper usage of the APA. This is including the OG publication manual from the American Psychological Association. There are websites dedicated to helping you figure out the correct citation. And how to use it.
I know the most about the APA and even then I have only scratched the surface. It didn’t help that the APA was updated just after I finished my MSN.
My suggestion find a book that is easy for you to use to find out the nuances of the particular reference style that is necessary for your schoolwork. Websites are also useful in whatever style you have to use.
Also make friends with the librarians. They are always good in a pinch. Some university libraries will offer to make the citation for you when looking up articles in databases.
Always, always, check the citations when you are given them. Often they are wrong. There is either a misspelling, or the wrong word is capitalized, or the wrong words are italicized.
The coolest thing I’ve learned about citations is that Google Scholar will do them for you. When you look up articles in Google Scholar, part of the results has cite built into it. This is end quotations cite, after the star save on the bottom line of a result. I could have used that information a LONG time ago.
This is APA style, though. Edit- I was just using Google Scholar to find a Discussion post answer and it also has MLA, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver as well as APA. So I was wrong and I was thankful that I was so I can update this blog post!
Yay for the health sciences!
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 