APA Guidelines in Paper Analysis

In the present paper, the article Beyond Reflection: Teacher Learning as Praxis by 

Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles and López-Torres (2003) will be analyzed in the light of the American Psychological Association’s (APA, 20O2) style. The American Psychological Association provides a set framework for academic writing in which in-text citations and reference lists are accounted for. This analysis will be focused on how the authors made use of in-text citations and compiled a reference list as stated in the APA style. 

Regarding in-text citations, the authors have applied both paraphrased and direct quotes in an accurate manner. In most direct quotations, inverted commas as well as page numbers are included along with the author's last name, for example, ‘”can come to constitute a relative autonomous world” (Cole, 1996, p. 121)’ (Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & López-Torres, 2003, p. 252). Punctuation is also well developed throughout the paper. 

Considering paraphrased citations, it has been observed that the majority of them are written following the APA style; that is, the author’s last name is included in a signal phrase and the date is placed in parentheses: ‘"Zeichner (1990) argued for a critical reflection (...)"’ (Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & López-Torres, 2003, p. 250.). The other format is also applied, in which the author's last name and the year are both listed between parentheses: “The notion of the activity system incorporates the productive and communicative aspects of people’s conduct” (Engestrom et al., 1999)” (Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & López-Torres, 2003, p. 250.). It can be noted in this citation that it also follows what APA style establishes about multiple authors in order to avoid names repetition. However, the following citation has been spotted to disagree with APA requirements since it posts a page number while it is not a direct quotation: "Case studies of teacher education programs based on reflection reveal that issues of social and political curriculum transformation are generally avoided, misinterpreted, or resisted. (Vavrus & Ozcan, 1996, p. 3)."(Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & López-Torres, 2003, p. 250.). 

APA style states that reference lists have to be detailed on a separate page at the end of the document. However, in this paper references are listed immediately after the notes on the same page. After analyzing the references, even though the standard formats for the entries has been complied with, it has been inferred that some of them do not fully attain the principles regarding the type of source, whether it is a book or an electronic reference. It can be identified in the following examples that there is no balance in the reference entries; in both cases, a book source is cited: "Zeichner, K.M. (1990, November). Educational and social commitments in reflective teacher education programs. In Proceedings of the national forum of the association of independent liberal arts colleges for teacher education, Milwaukee, WI." and "Wertsch, J.V. (1991). Voices of the mind: A sociocultural approach to mediated action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press." I(Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & López-Torres, 2003, p. 254.). In the former, it can be seen that the publisher is not stated while in the latter, it is. 

To conclude, articles in academic contexts must fulfil certain standards as part of a discourse community that follows the American Psychological Association’s guidelines, inter alia, which states the requirements to be met. After analyzing the article Beyond Reflection: Teacher Learning as Praxis , it has been determined that the authors have mostly taken into account the APA style all along the paper. However, while most of the in-text citations were accurate, the reference list might not look well-balanced since there are entries which follow the specifications whereas others do not. This may be due to the authors' choice of another system to account for style and documentation. 

References.

         Hoffman-Kipp, P., Artiles, A. J., & López-Torres, L. (2003). Beyond reflection: Teacher learning as      praxis. Theory Into Practice, 42(3), 248-254. doi:10.1207/s15430421tip4203_12

American Psychological Association. (2002). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. 6th Edition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.