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COMM C1000 (Anderson) FA25

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APA Citations Communications Guide
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Creating Keywords

Keep these tips in mind when creating your keywords.

  • "Quotation marks" keep words together when searching for phrases.
    • Example: "climate change"
  • AND narrows results (includes all terms)
    • Example: "climate change" AND "renewable energy"
  • OR expands results (includes synonyms)
    • Example: "global warming" OR "climate change"

Example Search: ("climate change" OR "global warming") AND ("solar power" OR "wind energy")

Database Search Tips

Step 1: Identify your main idea

Example Topic: The role of renewable energy in combating climate change

Step 2: Pull out the keywords

  • renewable energy (related terms: solar power, wind energy, clean energy)
  • climate change (related terms: global warming, greenhouse gases)
  • combating (related terms: fighting, reducing, mitigating)

Step 3: Create a search

  • Basic: "renewable energy" AND "climate change"
  • Advanced: ("renewable energy" OR "solar power" OR "wind energy") AND ("climate change" OR "global warming") AND (combating OR reducing)

Step 4: Adjust as you go

  • If too many results → add more specific terms (ex: solar panels, carbon reduction).
  • If too few results → remove a keyword or replace one with a related term.

Database searching is not an exact science and you'll need to experiment with different keywords to get the best results.

Gale Ebooks Video

Practice Lateral Reading

EBSCOhost Video

Use All Sides

OneSearch Video

Checking Media Bias

Getting to Know APA: Formatting Rules

APA Formatting Rules

  • Author Names: Last Name, First Initial. (e.g., Smith, J.).
  • Title Formatting: Use Sentence Case (Capitalize First Word & Proper Nouns).
  • Italics: Italicize book and journal titles
  • DOIs & URLs: Always include them. No "Retrieved from" needed.
  • In-Text Citations: (Author, Year) → (Smith, 2023). For quotes: (Smith, 2023, p. 45).
  • Reference Page: Double-space, indent second line of each entry.
  • DOI vs URLs? Check out the APA Style Blog website

More details: APA Style Guide & Citing AI in APA