Handbook for Doctoral Students in Education/How important is APA or another reference format?

In undergraduate and Masters programs, much emphasis is given to reference formatting, and for a good reason. It is a part of professional socialization. However, in doctoral programs, these concerns should fade into background, and become what they are supposed to be - a tool fo scholarshipn, not a measure of its quality.

Most fields in Educational research use APA, although some publications will use Chicago or MLA. No publication have ever been rejected because it author used a comma instead of semi-colon. Therefore, it does not pay off to invest much time in investigating every little detail of APA reference style. Just use any brief reference guide, for example, the OWL at Purdue This should be just enough.

We are trying to investigate whether software such as EndNote are worth the effort. See the on-line version of EndNote.