CM 220 Unit 4 Seminar
Thesis statements, the writing process,
and APA Citations
 Unit
4 discussion and project
 Persuasive thesis statements
 APA in-text and reference page
citations
Unit 4 seminar
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For this discussion, you will be constructing and analyzing
a reference using the APA style. Please be sure to refer to
the readings for assistance, or consult an APA manual (if
you have one) or the Writing Center's section on APA
Formatting (Research, APA & Plagiarism).
STEP 1: Choose one of the references you will be using in
your paper and describe what type of source it is (for
example, a book, an article in a magazine, an online
periodical, etc.). Knowing what type of source you have is
an important part of properly citing that source!
Unit 4 discussion
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Step 2: Create a proper full citation for your References
page. Be sure to pay close attention to spacing and
punctuation and please note that, due to technical
limitations, you will not be able to indent or italicize
in the discussion board. Sorry 
Step 3: Write a sentence (or more) using that same
reference with an in-text citation. You may paraphrase or
use a direct quote, but again, be sure to pay close
attention to spacing and punctuation and do not plagiarize!
Step 4: Discuss why you used this particular format and
why you believe it is correct.
Unit 4 discussion
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Step 5: Review your classmates'
posts. Do they appear correct? Are there
any problems with the format they
used? What about punctuation? Provide
a thoughtful response for ONE classmate
that will help him or her more clearly
understand the APA Style of citation (100250 words).
Unit 4 Discussion Response
1: My source is from a book with one author.
2: Doe, J. (2005). How to write a great paper: the writer's
way of writing. New York: Makebelieve Publishers.
3. Many writers feel that writing a great paper begins with research,
but "using a prewriting technique like brainstorming can actually
jumpstart the process" (Doe, 2005, p. 10).
4. I looked up how to cite a book with one author in the Writing Center's
document (RESEARCH, CITATION, AND PLAGIARISM) and found the format I
needed. It specified to list the author's last name (followed by a comma),
first initial (with a period), then the year published (followed by a period).
Next comes the title (followed by a period), then the city or state in which it
was published (followed by a colon) and finally, the name of the publisher
(followed by a period). This wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be!
Unit 4 discussion post example
Due Tuesday, August 25
100 points (will have letter grade)
Include your revised persuasive thesis
statement
 Describe at least 3 main points that you will be
making
 Discuss at least one potential objection to your
argument and how you will address it
 Provide APA reference page citations for two
sources and a short description/discussion of
those two sources
 See the sample posted in unit 4 and Doc
Sharing
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Unit 4 project
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Selecting topic and conducting research
Prewriting (generating ideas for main points
of essay)
Creating a thesis
Organizing ideas (writing an outline,
annotated bibliography, sketching out main
ideas)
Drafting the essay
Cooling
Revising
Editing
The writing process
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Take on a subject upon which reasonable
people could disagree
Deal with a subject that can be adequately
treated given the nature of the assignment
Express one main idea
Assert your conclusion(s) about a subject—
take a position!
Use words like “because,” “since,” “therefore,”
etc. to show relationships between ideas.
Persuasive thesis statements—
what should they do?
Weak: Adoption is a very serious issue, so
people who decide to give up a child or
adopt a child need to think about it
carefully.
 Better: The United States needs to create
national laws for adoptions because this
will ensure that biological and adoptive
parents are clear about their rights and
those of the adopted child.
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Example
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Since states currently have different laws,
parents may be confused about what their
rights are and whether the law holds for the
state where the adoptive or biological parents
live.
National laws concerning the rights of
adopted children to find biological parents
would also be helpful.
International adoptions would have to abide
by specific, national American laws as well.
Three possible points
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Shouldn’t states have the right to set up their
own adoption laws, as they currently do?
Who would decide what the national laws
should be?
Would the laws favor biological or adoptive
parents? For example, states like Florida
have very short periods for biological parents
to change their minds about the adoption (48
hours), while other states have a period of
several months.
Opposition points and issues to
consider. . .
Arkansas adopts ban on adoption, foster care by unmarried couples. (2008,
November 12). Education Week, 5. Retrieved August 17, 2009, from
Academic Search Premier database.
This article demonstrates how different states have developed specific laws
concerning who can (and cannot) adopt. National guidelines outlining who
could adopt would help to reduce confusion. What if an unmarried couple
from California wanted to adopt a child from Arkansas? Would the
Arkansas law apply, or the California law? National laws would make
cross-state adoptions less complicated, and it would also ensure that
more conservative states did not adopt such stringent guidelines that
orphans could not get adopted.
Source
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American Psychological Association: Standard
for writing that is widely used by writers in
the social sciences, education, business and
psychology.
Format that is used throughout the world in
business and academia, and most Kaplan
courses require it.
APA style guides the layout of the document,
requires parenthetical citations in the body of
the essay, and uses a reference page with full
citations for each source cited in-text (except
for interviews or other personal
communications that cannot be retrieved).
What is APA?
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Title page: include title of project, author,
institution, course, instructor, and due date
Double-space and center information on title
page
Include header and page number in upper
right-hand corner
Document should be in 12 pt. font, doublespaced, header/page number on each page,
first line of each paragraph indented one tab
space. Use left justification. Put title on first
line of page 2.
Document formatting and title
page
Roll the credits
Running head: ROLL THE CREDITS
Roll the Credits:
Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism
Maggie Durham
Kaplan University
CM 107-03
Professor Smith
April 8, 2009
1
Title page
formatting
•Header:
Title and page
number in upper righthand corner of each
page
•Running head
(optional) on the left
•Center project, author,
and course information
in two sections of the
page. Double-space.
•See guidelines for
formatting document in
the APA folder of Doc
Sharing as well as ch.
12 of the handbook.
 Enhance
credibility
 Provide proper credit to your sources
 Give reader necessary information to
find sources and do further research
 Avoid plagiarism—more on how to
paraphrase and quote, the other
element of avoiding plagiarism, next
week!
Why do I need to cite my sources?
Require three pieces of information:
Author’s last name
Year
Page number (for direct quotes)
(Thompson, 2007, p. 345)
(Thompson, 2007)
According to Thompson (2007), “50 percent
of the population have computers” (p.
345).
In-text (parenthetical) citations
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Books
Journal articles
Magazine articles
Newspaper articles
Web sites
Interviews
Speeches
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Remember, each source has a specific
formatting style!
Common source types
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Start on a new page, titled Reference(s),
centered in upper- and lowercase letters.
Include a page header and page number
in the upper right-hand corner.
Alphabetize by author’s last name.
Double-space throughout.
Use a hanging indent (1st line of each
entry flush left, indent subsequent lines 57 spaces).
Match with in-text citations.
Italicize titles of books and periodicals.
Reference page formatting
Roll the credits
5
References
About APA style. (2006). Retrieved January 2, 2007, from APA Web
site: http://www.apastyle.org/aboutstyle.html.
Landau, J., Druen, P., & Arcuri, J. (2002). Methods for helping students
avoid plagiarism. Teaching of Psychology, 29(2), 112-115.
Retrieved January 2, 2007, from Academic Search Premier
database.
Segal, C. (2006). Copy this. Chronicle of Higher Education, 53(4), 5454. Retrieved December 22, 2006, from Professional Development
Collection database.
What you need to know about plagiarism. (2006). Retrieved December
22, 2006, from Kaplan University:
http://kucampus.kaplan.edu/DocumentStore/kupdocs/pdf/DocsFor
ms/ku_plagiarism.pdf.
Villano, M. (2006). Taking the work out of homework. T H E Journal,
33(15), 24-30. Retrieved January 2, 2007, from Professional
Development Collection database.
APA reference
page formatting
•Start on new page.
•Use hanging indents.
•Double-space
throughout.
•Alphabetize by author’s
last name (use
corporation name or
article title if no author
is available).
•End with retrieval date
and database or URL
for library sources and
web sites.
Maslow, A.H. (1974). Toward a psychology
of being. Princeton: Van Nostrand.
Book with one author
Miller, W. (1969). Violent crimes in city
gangs. Journal of Social Issues, 21(10),
1-28.
Journal article
McCurdy, H.G. (1983, June). Brain
mechanisms and intelligence. Psychology
Today, 46, 61-63.
Magazine article
James, W.R. (1993, November 16). The
uninsured and health care. Wall Street
Journal, pp. A1, A14.
Newspaper article
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End citation with retrieval information if
found on database (date, database used):
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Retrieved July 7, 2008, from
Academic Search Premier database.
Database retrieval information
Lynch, T. (1996). DS9 trials and tribble-ations
review. Retrieved October 8, 1997, from Psi
Phi: Bradley's Science Fiction Club Web site:
http://www.bradley.edu/campusorg/psiphi/
DS9/ep/503r.html.
Internet source (author known)
The Stratocaster appreciation page. (n.d.).
Retrieved July 27, 2002, from
http://members.tripod.com/~AFH/
Internet source (author unknown)