More than one source with same author(s) and date

It sometimes happens that you need to use more than one source that has the same authors and the same year.  What are you going to do about that?  Read on to get the 411 on how to handle that in APA 6th edition style like a boss. 

Here’s the example sources (by the way, these sources are completely fictitious):

Majik, K, A., & Sly, T. (2015). Growth of catnip in mountainous regions of Kentucky. American Journal of Common Plants, 10(2), 445-461.

Majik, K, A., & Sly, T. (2015). Napeta cateria potency and its negative influence on American house cats. American Journal of Cats, 8(14), 73-101.

Majik, K, A., & Sly, T. (2015). Saving our cats: Creating catnip addiction clinics in large American cities. American Journal of Amazing Stuff, 5(10), 13-26.

As a responsible researcher, you will want your readers to be able to distinguish among the sources that have the same authors.  If the works were published in different years, there would be no problem with the citations.  Therein lies the solution – make the dates distinguishable. 

Change the dates by adding a lower-case letter after each date.  Like this:

Majik, K, A., & Sly, T. (2015a). Growth of catnip in mountainous regions of Kentucky. American Journal of Common Plants, 10(2), 445-461.

Majik, K, A., & Sly, T. (2015b). Napeta cateria potency and its negative influence on American house cats. American Journal of Cats, 8(14), 73-101.

Majik, K, A., & Sly, T. (2015c). Saving our cats: Creating catnip addiction clinics in large American cities. International Journal of Amazing Stuff, 5(10), 13-26.

When writing citations for your sources, use the date with the lowercase letter.  That way, the reader can be certain of the source.   To give some examples (and again, this information is completely invented for convenience):

According to Majik and Sly (2015b), cats become more impulsive when they have indulged in catnip.

Eastern Kentucky is well known for large fields of potent catnip, and an unusually large population of feral cats (Majik & Sly, 2015a).

Majik and Sly (2015c) asserted that treating cats for catnip addiction is only effective when the cat realizes it has a problem with catnip. 

The next time you have the situation of multiple sources with the same date, it should be a nonevent.    

Direct quotations...or not

Some of my students struggle with using citations without using direct quotations. They ask me how to use a citation without using a direct quotation.  In a nutshell, it works like this...in APA 6th edition, by the way...

Here is a source I have selected somewhat at random from the World Wide Web after a quick Google search of cloud computing risks:

Grimes, R. A. (2013, March 19). The 5 cloud risks you have to stop ignoring. Retrieved from http://www.infoworld.com/article/2614369/security/the-5-cloud-risks-you-have-to-stop-ignoring.html

Here is a screenshot of the words that I could use in a direct quotation, or preferably, put into my own words. The arrow points to paragraph 6 in the article. 

Using a direct quotation, I could write and cite this:

According to Grimes (2013, para. 6), “One of the key tenets of public cloud computing is multitenancy.”

Another way to use a direct quotation is like this:

“One of the key tenets of public cloud computing is multitenancy” (Grimes, 2013, para. 6).

Without using a direct quotation, I could write this same idea like this:

According to Grimes (2013), with public cloud computing, customers share computer resources.

Or perhaps this:

Grimes (2013) explained that computer resources are shared with public cloud computing. 

Or even this:

Grimes (2013) explained that organizations that use public cloud computing will share computer resources with other organizations. 

Another way I could write it without a direct quotation is like this:

With public cloud computing, customers share computer resources (Grimes, 2013).  

I encourage my students to write in their own words and use direct quotations only when the author's words are unique or memorable.  

using references and citations in academic writing

In a graduate-level academic program, you will find that many of the assignments and discussion prompts require you to write your opinion on a topic or to write about your personal experiences with something.  You might find you can easily write a response that has no references or citations because you are already an expert in your field.  BUT…(there is always a but)…an important outcome of graduate-level academic programs is to improve critical thinking skills.

 

What does that mean?  In academic writing (which is what we do in an academic program), you want to give evidence that your personal experience or opinion is grounded in research or a body of knowledge.  You do this by giving examples or finding something in the literature that supports your perspective (which in essence, is your argument – your point of view with support from other expert perspectives).

To give a very simplistic, completely fictitious example, consider this…I live in Kentucky and love to take my kayak on the small rivers near my home. This is a very personal statement that expresses my personal experience and has no support.  In academic writing, my statement has little merit at all.  Now, if I write the same idea this way… Like approximately 17,500 other people living in Kentucky who enjoy kayaking on small rivers (Smith, 2014), I love to take my kayak on small rivers near my home.  Now you can put my statement in context with something that has been studied and is grounded in research.

To give another example, I could write I really like Facebook, but Twitter is less appealing.  Now you know that I am a person who prefers Facebook over Twitter, but that’s all you know.  Compare that to this:  I really like Facebook, but Twitter is less appealing.  Smith (2014) studied adults more than 30 years old and concluded that many preferred Facebook because it was more intuitive to use and more of their friends used it as compared to Twitter.  Now you know my preference and you see that I have considered whether or not my preference is typical.  You also know that preference of social media sites has been studied by at least one researcher, and you could even look up my reference to read more on the topic.   

Citing two authors, APA Style

Are you up for a writing tip?  I see many students make errors when trying to cite two (or more) authors.  They do not know when to use and or when to use ampersand between the authors’ names. 

Here is an example reference (note: this is a completely fictitious example).  Please notice that in the reference, we use an ampersand between the two names. 

Green, J. P., & Martin, S. (2012). A longitudinal study of the influence of Canadian crow migratory patterns on North American hog farms. International Journal of Unusual Studies, 18(5), 221-237.      

In these examples, notice where we use and versus where we use an ampersand.   

According to Green and Martin (2012), Canadian crows migrate primarily in October and November.

Canadian crows migrate primarily in October and November (Green & Martin, 2012). 

Jones (2010) argued that Canadian crows do not migrate; however Green and Martin (2012, p. 225) disagreed, asserting, “Anyone who does not believe Canadian crows migrate must have the IQ of a turnip.”  

Green and Martin (2012) studied migration patterns of Canadian crows from 1992 through 2010. 

The researchers studied migration patterns of Canadian crows from 1992 through 2010 (Green & Martin, 2012).

So now you get the idea...in the reference listing and in citations within parentheses, use an ampersand.  Otherwise, spell out and.  

correlation basics

We use linear regression to find relationships between two or more variables and to create a model that attempts to describe the relationship. 

A scatterplot is a 2-dimensional graph that displays pairs of data (i.e. observations). 

A correlation coefficient is a number that tells strength and direction of a relationship. 

·         0 means no linear relationship exists (could be there is a curved relationship)

·         +1 or -1 means the points fall on a perfect straight line   

·         The closer the number is to +1 or -1, the stronger the relationship. 

·         Rule of thumb is that +0.7  or -0.7  (or more) is a strong relationship; +0.5 or -0.5 indicates a moderate relationship.

Kinds of correlation coefficient – the one used depends on the kind of data:

·         Pearson r – used for data measured at least on an interval level (such my as data for TL, SL, and SV scales)

·         Spearman rho – used for linear relationships when data is measured on an ordinal scale (such as a ranking)

·         Phi – used for linear relationships for data measured dichotomously (e.g. yes/no, pass/fail)

·         also Point Biserial and Eta....don’t care about these for now

For a null hypothesis, the expected correlation is 0.  The key question is whether the variance from what we expect can be attributed to a relationship that really exists, or is the variance found only because of a sampling error.

A one-tailed hypothesis assumes the relationship is positive or negative.

A two-tailed hypothesis makes no assumption about the relationship.  

For a correlational study, degrees of freedom = N-2.  One degree of freedom is lost for every variable in the model.  Degrees of Freedom represents how many numbers are free to vary in a calculation sequence (Steinberg, 2008). 

References

Rumsey, D. (2009). Statistics II for Dummies.  Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Steinberg, W. J. (2008). Statistics Alive! Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

normal curve

A normal curve is a theoretical distribution.  The smaller the sample size, the greater we can expect deviation from percentages associated with the normal curve.  Even so, the theory holds true (statistically) when there are minor violations to the shape assumption.  This means it is useful for interpreting my data as long as it’s approximately normally distributed. 

When a distribution is normal, 99% of the sample points will fall within 3 standard deviations of the sample mean.  Standard Deviation is the average linear distance from the mean = square root of the variance.     

normal distribution curve

fundamental: alpha and beta

Fundamental stuff to know...

In research, statistical tests don’t prove an alternate hypothesis is true.  Instead, we use statistical analysis to provide evidence that supports rejecting or failing to reject the null hypothesis.       

P-value is a measure of the strength of evidence against the null hypothesis.  Alpha (α) is the cutoff for the p-value.  Alpha = .05 in my research, which is standard for most dissertations.    

 

• when p-value < α (in my case, α=.05), reject the null hypothesis
• when p-value > or =  α, we do not have evidence to reject the null hypothesis

When you draw conclusions about a population based on a sample, you have opportunity for error.  You hope your sample represents the population, but our world is not perfect...damnit.

• ·         Type I error = α = probability of rejecting a null hypothesis when you shouldn’t.  We reject a null hypothesis that is true.  You see effect when there really isn’t any effect.  It’s a false positive...we reject a true null hypothesis.    
• ·         Type II error =  β = the probability of not rejecting a null hypothesis, i.e. we accept a null hypothesis when we should not accept it (it is false)...we accept a false null hypothesis.  Effect is there, but we don’t find it.      

You can reduce the likelihood of committing a Type I error by making alpha smaller.  You can reduce the likelihood of committing a Type II error by increasing the sample size. 

The power of the hypothesis test = 1 – probability of committing a Type II error = probability of rejecting a null hypothesis when it should be rejected.  The power represents the likelihood of detecting effect that is real.