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Education Research Tutorial

Step-by-step guide to conducting research in education

Evaluating Resources

In the process of gathering research materials, you will probably locate resources in various formats, including books, articles, and websites. Not everything you find, however, will be suitable or trustworthy. It's natural to experience information overload.  Today we're bombarded with so much information, it's easy to feel overwhelmed.

Remember that it's important to evaluate your sources by considering the following factors:  

  • Accuracy of information
  • Authorship - who wrote it?
  • Publisher or sponsor
  • Objectivity or bias
  • Currency (date)
  • Verifiability
  • Referral to other sources
  • Depth of coverage (in-depth or superficial)

Citing Your Sources

Writing a research paper involves building your argument by using existing literature that pertains to your topic. In order to avoid plagiarism, you must cite your sources and acknowledge other authors’ ideas that you are using in your paper. There are several style manuals and guides that describe how to cite books, articles, and other resources.  The most commonly used style manual in the social sciences is from the American Psychological Association.  The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association and other style manuals and citation resources are listed below.   

About APA 7th Edition

This is a quick introduction to the American Psychological Association (APA) Style for references and citations. For more comprehensive information, consult the library's APA 7th Edition Guide, Publication Manual of the APA, APA Style website, or Purdue OWL APA website.

 

Note: The APA Citation Style is generally used for psychology, social sciences, and health disciplines. Please check with your instructors which style to use in your assignments.  

 

How to Read an APA 7th Edition Citation

AUTHOR

Who created this resource? a single Author? More than one author? An organization?

DATE

When was this resource created? Date: details included depend on the resource e.g. (year), (year, month, date).

TITLE

What is this resource called? Title!

SOURCE

Where does this resource come from (or, where can my reader find this resource)? This can include the title of a larger work that your resource is part of (like one story from an anthology or one article from a journal) Publisher, and DOI or URL.

APA Citation Style

Author(s)

Date

Title (book, article or webpage)

Source (publisher, journal title, site name, DOI or URL) 


Book:

Valfre, M.M.  (2009). Foundations of mental health care. Mosby Elsevier. 


Journal article from a library database:

Smith, J. A., Johnson, M. B., & Davis, C. R. (2020). Exploring the impact of technology on workplace productivity. Journal of Organizational Psychology, 25(3), 45-62. https://doi.org/xxxxxxx


Webpage within a website:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022). COVID-19: Vaccines for you and your family. CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/index.html

Citing ERIC Documents in APA 7th Edition

ERIC (Education Resource Information Center) is one of the most useful comprehensive databases for education research and provides unique identifiers for published documents that should be included when citing. The ERIC document number can be found in the ERIC database record and in the article itself, beginning with the letters 'ED.' 

Here is an example of the proper format for citing an ERIC document in APA 7th Edition:

Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial. (Year). Title of document: Subtitle if given  (ERIC document number). Database Name.


Reference List Example:

Nelson, J., & Herber, H. L. (1981). A Positive Approach to Assessment and Correction of Reading Difficulties in Middle and Secondary Schools.(ED217377). ERIC.https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED217377.pdf

In-Text Paraphrase:

(Author, Year)

Example: (Nelson & Herber, 1981)

In-Text Quote:

(Author, Year, p. Page Number)

Example: (Nelson & Herber, 1981, p. 5)

Can you plagiarize yourself?

Surprisingly, the answer is YES.

When a paper you submit to satisfy a class assignment was originally written for a different assignment in a different class, that is considered self-plagiarism and is a violation of the Academic Honesty Policy.

"The Ethics of Self Plagiarism" is an article from iThenticate which explains self-plagiarism and the issues that surround it.