Academic Writing, Referencing and Plagiarism

Question 1

Academic Writing

Answer 1

Formal written language used to communicate research information.

Question 2

Why is academic writing important?

Answer 2

• It is the only way for students to present written assignments and other written academic tasks.
• It helps people to make personal contributions to important topics and concepts.
• It improves research skills and critical thinking skills.
• It improves a person’s employability.

Question 3

Characteristics of academic writing

Answer 3

1. Logical reasoning as opposed to emotional thoughts or personal opinions.
2. Evidence based arguments/debate. Also, critical thinking.
3. Simple, easy to understand formal English. (Technical terms & abbreviations must be defined in parenthesis the first time they are used in the text).
4. Coherence: There must be logical connections between sentences, paragraphs and chapters.
5. Avoid verbatim quotes. Only use verbatim quote if absolutely necessary.
6. Paraphrase instead of verbatim quote.

Question 4

How to write an essay

Answer 4

1. Analyse the task. - Clarify the purpose of your essay in connection to your target audience.
2. Identify keywords / key phrases in your instructions.
3. Research the purpose of your essay to get evidence.
4. Present your evidence in a logical discussion.
5. Summarize and conclude with the important points in your essay.
6. Proof read and edit your essay.
7. Follow the instructions for presentation.

Question 5

Intellectual Property

Answer 5

Someone’s idea.

Must be cited, give credit to the author/owner of the intellectual property.

Question 6

APA Citation with 1 Author

Answer 6

Include the family name followed by a comma and year of publication.
Narrative format: Wakefield (2019, p.46) discovered…
Parenthetical format: In a recent discovery (Wakefield, 2019, p.46)

Question 7

APA Citation with 2 Authors

Answer 7

Include family names of both authors separated by ‘and’ in narrative and ‘&’ in parenthetical format.
Narrative: Meroni and Neto (2019, p.46) described…
Parenthetical: (Meroni & Neto, 2019, p. 46).

Question 8

APA Citation With More Than 2 Authors

Answer 8

Include the family name of the first author followed by et al. then comma and year.
Narrative: Alonge et al. (2020, p. 10) stated that…
Parenthetical: (Alonge et al., 2020, p. 10)

Question 9

APA Citation with an Organization

Answer 9

1st time: Include name of organization, abbreviation and year.
Narrative: The World Health Organization (WHO, 2019) states that…
Parenthetical: (The World Health Organization [WHO], 2019)

2nd+ time: Include the abbreviation and year.
Narrative: WHO (2019) states that…
Parenthetical: (WHO, 2019)

Question 10

APA Citation with a Verbatim quote of less than 40 words.

Answer 10

The quote is inside quotation marks, followed by the correct citation (Last name, year, page) (outside of the quotation marks).

Question 11

APA Citation with a Verbatim quote of 40 or more words.

Answer 11

Text is put in a separate block and indented. Followed by the last name, year and page nr in brackets.

 Blablabla...(Hannibalsdóttir, 2022, p. 1).

Blah blah.

Question 12

APA Bibliography for Journals

Answer 12

Last name, inital., & Last name, initial. (Year). Article

name. Journal name-italics-, Volume-italics-(issue 
nr. ), page nr. doi: digital object identifier.

Jarvis, H. L., Nester, C. J., Bowden, P. D., & Jones, R.
K. (2017). Challenging the foundations of the
clinical model of foot function: Further evidence
that the root model assessments fail to
appropriately classify foot function.Journal of Foot
Ankle Research-italics-,10-italics-(1), 7-14.
doi:10.1186/s13047-017-0189-2.

Question 13

APA Bibliography for Books

Answer 13

Last name, initial., & Last name, initial. (Year). Book
title-italics-. Publication.

Root, M., Orien, W., Weed, J. & Hughes, R. (1971).
Biomechanical examination of the foot-italics-.
Clinical Biomechanics Corporation.

Question 14

APA Bibliography for Organizations

Answer 14

Name of organization. (Year). Name of article. Link to
article

United Nations. (2019). Libya: $202 million needed to
bring life-saving aid to half a million people hit by
humanitarian crisis.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/02/1031981

Question 15

Plagiarism

Answer 15

1. Using the words, pictures, diagrams or other intellectual property of another person without giving them credit.
2. Incomplete citation or inappropriate citation.
3. Stealing other people’s ideas.
4. Academic misconduct which may lead to expulsion
   from the University.