Technical writing is something that is pervasive in our society as students and professionals alike create paper upon paper expressing their views and/or research findings. When writing a paper, we all need to consult previous works by various individuals and groups to develop our own ideas and find others who can support them. And by studying their work, we inevitably include their ideas in our own papers to prove our own points. Because we use other people’s ideas and works, it is therefore imperative that we always give credit where it is due. This is done by citing your sources within your paper. An additional benefit to citing sources is that it lends credibility to your work and allows others to locate those sources to gain more information and/or ascertain its legitimacy or authority.
The APA format is one of the most accepted ways of citing sources, particularly in the social sciences, psychology, and education. Most academics and researchers probably have no trouble using the APA format as they’ve been using it for years. But for many of us, knowing how to properly cite sources using this format can be somewhat of a challenge. Should you include all the authors of the book? What if there was no mention of an author? Should the title be in italics or underlined? There are so many details to learn and remember when using the APA format. With the popularity of web research, more and more people tend to use electronic sources. And when citing these sources, there are special style concerns one should take note of which can sometimes be confusing to the average Joe. Instead of just concentrating on the content of your paper, you also have to worry about how you’ll write your references. Thankfully, we now have the APA Format tool where you simply need to search for your source in its database, choose the correct one from the results and presto! You get all the information correctly laid out in its proper form. Then, it’s all a matter of highlighting the text and copying it onto your word document.
The obvious benefit of the APA format generator is that you won’t have to worry about the correct positioning of details when citing your sources and getting penalized for incorrect input. It makes writing a bibliography easy and simple. Another benefit one gains from using this tool is time. Instead of having to keep looking at sample APA format references for books, authors, electronic sources, and the like while writing your own references, you just have to enter the details you currently have and the correct form is handed to you through a click of a button. The time you would have spent typing your references can now be better used refining the content of your work.
Citing your sources is an essential part of any paper because doing so supports your ideas, ensures your credibility, and you avoid being accused of plagiarism. And with the ease that you gain from using the APA format tool, there is no reason not to.