Appendix A: Glossary

Abstract

An abstract is a summary of the content of an article or book. Article abstracts often appear at the beginning of an article, before the introduction.

Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is the expectation that all members of an academic community act with honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. This includes students, instructors, and researchers.

Academic Dishonesty

Academic dishonesty “includes a variety of actions including, but not limited to, plagiarism, conflict of interest, cheating, falsification, misrepresentation and fraudulent behaviour, and copyright breaches.” (AOP 216)

Adjective

An adjective is a word that describes a noun or pronoun, e.g.: In the sentence, ‘He is happy’, ‘happy’ is an adjective.

Advanced Search

“Advanced search” can mean one of two things:

• An advanced search screen. These search screens have more than one box, and filters like format and date often appear besides the search boxes. The advanced search screen might also allows the researcher to specify where they want a word to be located – in the title of the resource, the subject headings, etc. This combination of multiple search boxes and filters creates a more focused search.
• Advanced search techniques, such as Boolean operators, truncation, and the use of brackets and quotation marks.

Adverb

An adverb is a word that describes or gives more information about a verb, adjective, adverb, or phrase, e.g.: In the sentence, ‘He smiled cheerfully’, the word ‘cheerfully’ is an adverb.

Alliteration

Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or syllables, i.e.: “Rachel ran right home.” The repetition of the letter ‘r’ at the beginning of these words is alliteration.

APA Style

APA Style is set of guidelines created by the American Psychological Association (the APA). These guidelines help writers, including students, to format written work and citations in a consistent way.

Appendix/ Appendices

An appendix comes after the reference list of an essay or assignment, and it contains any additional information such as raw data or interview transcripts. The information in the appendices is relevant but is too long or too detailed to include in the main body of the essay or assignment.

Author

In an APA Style citation, the author is the person or people, or the group responsible for creating the work. An author can be a single person, multiple people, a group like an institution or a government agency, or a combination of individuals and groups.

Basic Search

A basic search is a search in a library that uses a small number of carefully selected words typed into one search box. A basic search is usually very general, and is often used at the beginning of the research process. A basic search looks for the specified words everywhere – in titles, descriptions, subject headings, etc.

Bibliography

A bibliography is list of books and other materials that are used to write an assignment. It can be easy to confuse a bibliography and references page, and sometimes the two terms are used to mean the same thing, but “references page” is the correct term in APA Style.

Bias

Bias is the tendency to believe that an idea, person or piece of information is better than others. Bias can be innate or learned. Bias usually results in ideas, information or people being treated unfairly, either in a positive or negative way.

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators are words that give search software a specific instruction about how to search and what kind of results to include or leave out. There are three Boolean operators – AND, OR, and NOT.

Cadence

Cadence can mean: the beat, time, or measure of rhythmical motion or activity; a rhythmic sequence or flow of sounds in language; or a regular and repeated pattern of activity.

Cite / Citing / Citation

Citing is the process of acknowledging the sources of information and ideas. This takes the form of a citation. Citations must include specific pieces of information and must follow a consistent format. There are two types of citations – in-text citations, and reference list entries.

Clause

A clause is a group of words that includes a subject and a verb to form a simple sentence or part of a sentence. For example, the sentence ‘I like folk music’ has one clause. The sentence ‘I like folk music but I don’t enjoy jazz’ has two clauses linked by the word ‘but’. There are independent clauses and dependent clauses. (These two terms are defined in this glossary.)

Cliché

A cliché is a word or phrase that is overused, causing it to become boring and unoriginal. Some examples of clichés in English are, “easy as pie,” or “don’t play with fire,” or “beauty is skin deep.”

Colloquialisms

Colloquialisms are information expressions used in everyday speech and writing, i.e.: to “write up” instead of “report”, “gonna” instead of “going to”.

Confirmation Bias

The tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports our existing ideas, beliefs or values.

Continuity

Continuity is the logical flow of ideas in written work.

Contractions

Contractions are shortened forms of words, where an apostrophe replaces part a word or part of a word – can’t instead of cannot, don’t instead of do not, won’t instead of will not, etc.

Coordinating Conjunction

A coordinating conjunction is a conjunction – e.g.: and, but, or – placed between words, phrases, clauses, or sentences of equal rank.

Database

A database is an organized collection of information that can be searched. Databases can hold different kinds of information, including journal articles, newspaper articles, eBooks, streaming videos, etc.

Date

In an APA Style citation, the date refers to the date of publication.

Dependent Clause

A dependent clause is a group of words that contains a subject and verb but does not express a complete thought. A dependent clause cannot be a sentence, i.e.: When Leesa studied for her art history exam . . . – This is an incomplete thought. Often a dependent clause is marked by a dependent marker word, like after, although, as, as if, because, before, even if, even though, if, in order to, since, though, unless, until, whatever, when, whenever, whether, and while.

Digital Citizenship

Digital citizenship is the ability to navigate our digital environments in a way that is safe and responsible, and to actively and respectfully engage in digital or online spaces.

DOI

DOI stands for Digital Object Identifier. A DOI is a string of numbers, letters and symbols used to permanently identify an article or document, and to link to it online. A DOI will help to easily locate a document from a reference list. The DOI will always refer to the same article, and only that article. DOIs can usually be found on the article itself, either on the first page, or in the header or footer of the article.

Endnotes

Endnotes are listed at the end of the paper on separate pages, before the references page. Endnotes provide additional information or context. Most student APA Style papers do not require endnotes.

Footnotes

A footnote appears on the bottom of the page that contains the sentence to which it refers. Footnotes provide additional information or context. Most student APA Style papers do not require footnotes.

Grey Literature

Grey literature refers to sources of information that are produced outside of traditional publishing and distribution channels, and can include reports, policy literature, working papers, newsletters, government documents, speeches, white papers, urban plans, infographics, and more. Grey literature is not typically peer-reviewed.

Independent Clause

An independent clause is a group of words that contains a subject and verb and expresses a complete thought. An independent clause is a sentence, i.e.: Leesa studied for her art history exam.

In-Text Citation

In-text citations appear in the body of a paper or other assignment. They briefly identify a work by author and date of publication. In-text citations also help the reader to find the full reference list entry in the reference list at the end of the paper. In-text citations must have corresponding reference list entries. In-text citations can be narrative or parenthetical.

Keywords

Keywords are the words used to search for information in a library or in a search engine like Google or Google Scholar.

Lateral Reading

Lateral reading is a technique for evaluating sources of information. It involves going beyond the source and performing further research on the source, its authors, and the information being presented. It works best when paired with vertical reading.

Metaphor

A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes an object or action in a way that isn’t literally true, but helps explain an idea or make a comparison.

Narrative Citation

A narrative citation is made up of the author’s last name and the date of publication, and the name of the author appears in the sentence itself, rather than in parentheses. The author’s name is part of the sentence, e.g.: Clarke (2022) states that . . .

Noun

A noun is a word that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance, or quality, e.g.: In the sentence, ‘A few years ago, Meaghan won an award.’, ‘Meaghan’ is the noun.

Object

In English grammar, an object is a word or phrase that receives the action of the verb, e.g.: “The students eat lunch – the object is “lunch”; the word “eat” is the verb, and lunch is what’s being eaten.

Paraphrase / Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing means putting information from the source material into your own words. Paraphrased material is usually shorter than the original passage. Remember that paraphrasing requires an in-text citation and reference list entry.

Parenthetical Citation

Parenthetical citations are made up of the author’s last name and the date of publication in parentheses, or brackets, following the information being cited, e.g.: (Clarke, 2022)

Peer Review

Peer review is the process of evaluating submissions to an academic journal. Before the article is accepted for publication, it’s evaluated by a group of people who are experts in the topic of the article, or in the same discipline as the author(s) of the article – in other words, the peers of the author(s).

Plagiarism

Plagiarism includes taking, using, and passing off someone else’s work or ideas as your own. Plagiarism can be intentional or accidental, and can include reusing your own work from previous courses.

Popular Sources

Popular sources of information that are readily available and can be consumed in quick doses. Popular sources are usually written by journalists and other writers who may not be specialists in the topic they’re writing about. Popular sources are usually written to inform, entertain or persuade the general public. They tend to use everyday language accessible to all types of readers and don’t usually include a list of references, even if they might refer to the resources they used indirectly..

Preposition

A preposition is a word which usually comes before a noun or pronoun that expresses a relationship between it and another word in the sentence, e.g.: after, at, by, for, from, in, on, to, and with are all common prepositions in English.

Primary Sources

Primary sources are resources that provide raw information, or first-hand evidence gathered by performing original research, such as an experiment. They make an original contribution to the knowledge about a topic.  Primary sources can include original scholarly research articles, datasets or survey data, such as census or economic statistics, photographs, video, or audio that capture an event, texts of laws and other original documents, and speeches, diaries, letters and interviews.

Pronoun

A pronoun is a word which functions like a noun and refers to something or someone mentioned elsewhere in the discourse, e.g.: I, he, him, they, them, she, and her are all pronouns.

Quote / Quoting / Quotation

To quote means to copy “word for word” from a resource, including original spelling and punctuation. Direct quotations appear in quotation marks and end with an in-text citation.

Reference / Referencing / References

A reference is a group of details about one specific resource, arranged in a consistent way. These are sometimes called citations.

Reference List

A reference list appears at the end of an assignment or essay, and it contains all of the reference list entries for information resources used for that assignment or essay.

Reference List Entry

A reference list entry is the information in a reference list at the end of an assignment or essay. Each source of information in an essay or assignment must have a reference list entry. An APA Style reference list entry includes author(s), a date, a title, and a source.

Research

Research is the process of finding and discovering knowledge to find answers to a question.

Resources

Resources, sometimes called sources, are sources of information; this is where information is found when conducting research. This can sometimes lead to confusion, because one of the pieces of information in a reference list entry is also called a source.

Scholarly Sources

Scholarly sources are written by an expert or experts in the field, intended for a specialized audience. Scholarly sources use discipline specific methods, terminology and theory to discuss and analyze original research. They often use technical language and specialized vocabulary. Scholarly sources are mostly accessible through libraries and online databases.

Search Strategy

A search strategy is an organized group of words that are used to look for information in a library catalog or database

Secondary Sources

Sources that interpret or analyze the information from primary sources, and they quote or use primary sources to gather information, but they don’t make their own original contribution to the knowledge about a topic. Secondary sources can include most books about a topic, and analysis or interpretation of data, including journal articles that interpret existing information and research.

Subject

The subject of a sentence or clause is the part which is what the sentence or clause is about. It identifies the person or thing that performs the action expressed by the verb. Subjects usually come before the verb and it agrees grammatically with the verb. The subject is usually a noun, noun phrase, or pronoun, e.g.: In the sentence, ‘A few years ago, Meaghan won an award.’, ‘Meaghan’ is the subject.

Subject Heading

A subject heading is a tag or label that provides more information about the content of a library resource.

Summary / Summarize

Summarizing means putting the main idea(s) of a resource into your own words, including only the main point(s). Summaries are significantly shorter than the original resource, and they provide a broad overview.

Synonym

A synonym is a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language, e.g.: work, career, vocation, employment and job are synonyms.

Title

In an APA Style citation, the title refers to the name of the work being cited.

Title Page

In APA Style, the title page is the first page of a paper or other assignment. It contains the title of the paper, the author’s name, and the institutional affiliation. A student title page also includes the course number and name, instructor name, and assignment due date.

Thesis

The thesis is a sentence that states the topic and purpose of an essay. The kind of thesis statement being written will depend on the type of essay being written.

Tone

In written work, tone refers to the writer’s attitude toward the reader and the subject. Just like tone of voice, tone in writing gives the reader additional context.

Truncation

Truncation is a technique that is used while looking for information using a library’s search. A word ending is replaced by a symbol, like an asterisk, to find words with that start with the same letters but have different endings, i.e.: nurs* would find the words nurse, nurses, and nursing.

URL

URLs are persistent links to information on the Internet. URLs can be found in the address bar of the web browser.

Verb

A verb is a word or phrase that describes an action, condition, or experience, e.g.: In the sentence, ‘A few years ago, Meaghan won an award.’, ‘won’ is the verb.

Vertical Reading

Vertical reading is a techniques for evaluating sources of information. It involves examining a source to figure out how credible it is. It is often used for evaluating news stories, but it can be used to evaluate other types of resources too. Vertical reading includes techniques like examining a website’s About Us page, looking for grammatical or spelling errors in the article, determining the author’s bias, and checking the sources the author(s) used. It works best when paired with lateral reading.

Wordiness

Wordiness means using more words than necessary in a sentence.