Photo: Colleen Hayes / NBC.
All your unit exams must have the following:
- A cover page consisting of a completed and signed Commitment to Academic Integrity Form (you “sign” it by typing your name). Unit exams without this form filled out correctly will automatically earn 0 points. See the templates containing a sample cover page.
- Double-spaced text.
- Text that is 12PT in “Cambria” (the default MS Word font), or a similar serif-type font.
- Side-margins of 1 inch.
- Fully justified horizontal text alignment.
- No extra space between paragraphs.
- Tab indentation starting each paragraph.
- A title page (see the section on title pages).
- APA-style (a) in-text citations and (b) list of references (see the section on citing your sources).
The point of these requirements is to allow me to focus on the contents of your writing without being distracted by your skills (or lack thereof) in design.
Don’t panic! I’ve posted templates satisfying all these requirements.
Photo: Lechatnoir / iStock by Getty Images.
Title Pages
Your title information should occur at the top of the second page of your assignment, after your completed Commitment to Academic Integrity Form. This information should consist of the following:
- The assignment’s name,
- Your name.
These two things should be centered and single-spaced in the same font, size, and style as the rest of your exam.
For example:
Unit Exam #1
By Troy McClure1.
The history of chocolate starts with the ancient Aztecs. In those days, instead of being wrapped in a hygienic package, chocolate was wrapped in a tobacco leaf…
Photo: Colleen Hayes / NBC.
Citing Your Sources
You are required to properly cite all your sources (see the course academic integrity policy). Do this whenever you find yourself quoting or otherwise using the ideas of another person. Please follow APA-style citation guidelines, keeping in mind that you must cite all sources, even if you are only putting their ideas into your own words.
Jessica Liu explains how to do APA-style in-text citations!
In-Text Citations
When you reference any source, you need to do an in-text citation with the following:
- Author, and
- Year of publication.
For example:
Ethics is different from the law (Weinstein, 2007).
If you are directly quoting the source, then please also include the page number(s) when available:
Because “the eyes may be confused in two ways” (Plato, ca. 380 B.C.E./1992, p. 190).
If no year of publication is available, use n.d. (for “no date”) instead, as in:
Construction regulations struggle to keep up (Kunji, n.d.).
If no author is credited, use the first few words of the source’s title, as in:
He “was an Athenian philosopher” (“Plato”, 2020).
Jessica is back—explaining how to create an APA-style list of references!
List of References
The end of the assignment must include a “References” section. For each reference, you need to include, as they are relevant/available, the following:
- Author;
- Date of publication;
- Chapter, article, or webpage title;
- Book, periodical, journal, or website title;
- Volume and issue of publication;
- Publisher; and
- URL.
Some examples:
Kunji, J. (n.d.). Building a culture of safety in Qatar. Qatar Under Construction. http://www.qatarunderconstruction.org/category/articles/building-culture-safety-qatar/
Plato. (1992). [The allegory of the cave]. In G. M. A. Grube & C. D. C. Reeve (Trans.), Republic (Revised ed., pp. 186–190). Hackett. (Original work from ca. 380 B.C.E.)
Plato. (2020, August 10). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plato&oldid=972146716
Weinstein, B. (2007, October 15). If it’s legal, it’s ethical… right? Bloomberg Businessweek. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2007-10-15/if-its-legal-its-ethical-right-businessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice
Each course module will contain a reference section that includes the full reference for each assigned text. That should make this process much easier for you, while providing you with lots of examples for any additional outside sources that you may use.
I also recommend visiting the APA’s website for further guidance and many examples illustrating how to format references from a variety of sources.
Citing Other People
You must also cite ideas coming from classmates, friends, family members, and anyone else. This includes help from course assistants, the Center for Excellence in Writing (CEW), and even me (if I helped you outside of my posted videos).
In-text citations must reference the following:
- The person whose idea it was, and
- When you got that idea from them.
For example:
Ayn Rand may be described as an egoist (Fontaine, 2022).
When listing these out in the “References” section at the end of the assignment, you need to include the following:
- The person’s name,
- When you got the idea from them, and
- How you got the idea from them.
For example:
Fontaine, J. (2022, September 3). [Class notes].
Gray, D. E. (2022, September 12). [Personal conversation].
Acknowledgments
If you do receive help from classmates, friends, family, or anyone else, you must thank them for their assistance in an “Acknowledgments” section at the end of the exam. When thanking them, be sure to also specify exactly how they helped you with the exam.
For instance:
Thanks to Sarah Sgro from the CEW who helped me with my spelling, organization, and grammar. Thanks also to Julie Fontaine for lending me her course notes. Finally, thanks to Professor Gray for clarifying this exam’s requirements.
Special Note on Referencing My Lecture Videos
As long as you are paraphrasing and putting my lecture videos into your own words, you do not need to cite, reference, or otherwise acknowledge them.
However, if you are directly quoting material from my lecture videos, then you must put an in-text citation (with my last name and the year 2022) along with a full reference at the end of your unit exam.
For instance, here is an example of an in-text citation to one of my videos:
After all. “a statement is not an argument” (Gray, 2022).
For that citation, the full reference to that video at the end of the exam would look like this:
Gray, D. E. (2022). Module 3, video 3: Statements & arguments [Online course lecture]. In D. E. Gray, Ethics! University at Buffalo. https://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~degray/E22/
If you are ever uncertain about citing sources, acknowledging assistance, or any other element of academic integrity, please ask; do not assume.