Academic Writer (APA 7): Creating References

 

This video will show you how to create references and add them to your paper in Academic Writer. 

 

Hi, it’s Rachel Walters from IWU Off Campus Library Services.

 

The easiest way to log into Academic Writer is through your Brightspace online classroom. Do not add Academic Writer to your bookmarks. You need to login through Brightspace every time.  

 

There are two ways to access Academic Writer. The first is from the Tools for Success! Widget. From your course home page, scroll down to the widget and select Academic Writer. 

 

The second way is through IWU Resources. From your course home page, select the green Course Menu icon. In the left-hand menu, select Course Dashboard, then select IWU Resources. Find the Academic Support & Resources area, under APA Resources select Academic Writer.

 

If you have logged into Academic Writer before, you should automatically be logged in. 

 

Find the blue ribbon at the top of the page. If it says Welcome and your name, you are logged in.

 

Remember that Academic Writer is not compatible with Internet Explorer or Edge browsers. You can use Firefox, Chrome, or Safari browsers. 

 

Also, remember that Academic Writer and the Grammarly Chrome extension do not communicate well and cause errors. Be sure to disable Grammarly on the Academic Writer website. You can use the Grammarly app or Grammarly in Microsoft Word to check your paper for grammar and spelling errors after you export it from Academic Writer. 

 

Let’s open the Reference Center by selecting the dark green REFERENCE tab.

 

Select Add References to create a new reference. 

 

The Reference Center has forms for different reference types arranged into main categories, periodicals, books, reports, dissertations, reviews, audiovisual media, tests and measures, websites and social media, and legal references. 

 

In this video, we will be creating two references, a journal article, and a magazine article. 

 

Here are some characteristics to help you understand the difference:

 

Journal articles are rather long with a lot of text and few pictures, tables, or graphs. They include a bibliography or references at the end of the article, and some have a digital object identifier or DOI. A DOI a unique number like a Social Security Number for the article. The DOI is a number starting with 10 and followed by random letters and numbers.

 

Magazine articles are short, usually less than 5 pages, and have more graphics than journals. They do not include a bibliography or references. Issues typically do not have volume and issue numbers. Instead, they have a date, like a month and a year.  Magazines also include advertisements.  

 

Remember, there are always exceptions!

 

To create a journal article reference, select Journal Article under the Periodicals category. The form is where you will fill in the information for the article you have chosen for your paper. 

 

First, you need to put in the author’s information. 

 

Enter the author’s last name. 

 

Enter the author’s initials. Notice that there is a space between the first and middle initial. 

 

Click Save and Format to save this information. A window appears with a note that says to pay attention to the author names. Select Okay to continue. 

The author has been added to the Author List. Repeat this process for each author. 

 

Enter the year of publication.

 

Enter the title of the article and check for typos.

 

You'll notice that I typed in the title with a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters; this is what APA Style calls title case. With APA Style, some parts of an APA reference are formatted in sentence case while others are formatted in title case. When you see a button that says Format in Sentence or Title case, get in the habit of clicking it. 

 

Click Format in Sentence Case to format your title. A window appears with an APA Style Formatting Note reminding you any proper nouns in your title need to be capitalized. If you aren’t sure what a proper noun is, click What is a proper noun?, and Academic Writer will give you an explanation. Select Okay to continue. 

 

A red disclaimer appears below the title box that says the title has been formatted and to pay attention to proper nouns and acronyms. 

 

Now you need to enter the source information. 

 

Enter the Journal Name and click Format in Title Case. 

Enter the volume number, issue number, the first page of the article, and the last page of the article.

 

Enter the DOI if your article has one. This is the article I am using is from OCLS QUICKsearch. You can see my DOI is at the top of the page. I’m going to copy that, go back to Academic Writer and paste that in.

 

All the required information is entered. 

 

There are optional sections to put the article abstract, notes, and quotations if that is something you want to include. Entering quotations here in the form saves them so you can add them to your paper at a later time. 

 

Select +Add to My References to save this reference. 

 

Double-check that everything is correct. 

 

To add another reference, select Add Another Reference. 

 

The second reference is a magazine article. 

 

To create a magazine article reference, select Magazine Article under the Periodicals category. 

 

Enter the author’s last name.  

 

Enter the author’s first and middle initials. Click Save and Format.  

 

Enter the year of publication.

 

Depending on your magazine it may be weekly, monthly, seasonal, quarterly, or have no date. Mine is monthly. Select the month from the list.

 

Enter the title of the article. Check for any typos and click Format in Sentence Case. 

 

Now you need to enter the source information. 

 

Enter the Magazine Title and click Format in Title Case. The time I am going to make a mistake so that we can see what Format in Title Case does. 

 

Enter the volume number, issue number, the first page of the article, and the last page of the article.  

 

Generally, magazines do not have DOIs. 

 

Now, depending on where you find this article will decide what information you will put in the URL field. 

 

If you found this article on an OCLS database, you will not include a URL. Just leave this field blank. 

 

If you found this article on the Firehouse magazine websites, you will include the direct URL for the article. 

 

In this case, the web edition was published before the magazine article and would include the month, day, and year. There would also be no page numbers.  

 

All the required information is entered. 

 

Select +Add to My References to save this reference. 

 

Double-check that everything is correct. 

 

When you are finished entering references, Go to My References.

The references you just created will be listed here on the My References page. 

 

Now we want to add these references to our paper. We are going to open the Writing Center by selecting the orange WRITE tab.  Select Go to My Papers and then click on the paper title. 

 

Scroll down to the Paper Reference List underneath the body of the paper. Here is where all your paper references are listed. The list is still empty. The references were added to My References, but not this paper’s references list. 

 

Click Add New Reference. In the search box type in the article title or author’s name, and hit enter or click search. 

 

Find the reference you want to add, check the box beside it and select Add to Paper. 

 

The author of the first article was Guerra. Check the box and click Add to Paper. 

 

The author of the second article was Carter. Check the box and click Add to Paper. 

 

I will point out the green notification box that pops up that says the reference has been added to the reference list. You will see the green notifications as you work in Academic Writer. The paper is constantly saving to the cloud approximately every minute. 

 

When you are finished adding references to the paper, you will need to go back to the paper editor, select Body in the left-hand menu. Scroll down, and you will see the references you have added. 

 

Go ahead and preview your paper by selecting the Preview tab. Here is your title page. Click the arrows to navigate through your paper. The second page is where the body of your paper will start, and page three is the References list.

 

When you are ready to export your paper, select Export in the left-hand menu. Select Download. Make sure you download the paper as a Word document, which is the required format. 

 

Before you submit your paper, check it for any spelling, grammar, or format errors.

 

The next video will show you how to start writing the body of your paper and add in-text citations to your paper. 

 

If you have any questions about Academic Writer, APA Style, or Grammarly contact Off Campus Library Services by phone at 1-800-521-1848 or by email at [email protected]. Check out the OCLS Tutorials Page for more videos like this!