How to cite Wikipedia in APA style

You can cite Wikipedia in APA style just like any other web page for which there is no author. For an article with no author, use the title of the article as the reference. In your reference section, give the full details of the citation beginning with the title. (The word used in the in-text reference must match the first word of the reference, which is in alphabetical order, so the reader can easily find the reference if desired).

Often teachers don't want you to use Wikipedia because it is publicly edited. That means right now I could go on it and add Bozo the Clown to the list of Presidents of the United States. But, Wikipedia has tools to deal with such malicious changes. First, authorized editors are notified automatically about changes, so they will quickly remove any deliberate damage. Second, they will ban me from further editing. So things are quickly returned to normal. Chances are that any citation from Wikipedia is correct.

However, for a research essay, you should be using peer-reviewed journal articles. This means that the information has been written and reviewed by experts in the field. Wikipedia is not a peer-reviewed source. So you probably shouldn't use it for a university-level paper. The point of a research paper is to do research. That means trying to find the original source of the information. Wikipedia is, at best, a secondary source. But it has its uses.

I often use Wikipedia to review the basic facts for some essay I am editing. When someone writes about the politics of Argentina and their grammar is so full of errors that I have difficulty understanding what they are saying, or even that there are two possible meanings, I might consult Wikipedia to get a basic understanding of the situation. In addition, Wikipedia can be useful for general definitions, just like you would use an encyclopedia or dictionary.

The APA style blog also warns against using Wikipedia. However, if you do use Wikipedia, they have a format. A recent client was writing about disaster planning and needed a basic definition of "social issues" to help her discuss the definition of "disaster." For the in-text citation, she put the title of the article and the date ("Social issue," n.d.). The title of the article is in quotation marks, and there is no specific date cited for the article. Notice that she uses the title of the article for both the in-text citation and for the reference list. This is because these two must be identical in all citations so the reader can easily find the reference in the reference list if they want to follow up on the citation.

Finally, here is her reference list citation:

Social issue. (n.d.) In Wikipedia. Retrieved (insert date here), from http://Wikipedia.com/wiki/Social_issue

5 Great Essay Introduction Ideas

1. Use a quote. This can be from any famous person or maybe even an infamous person. You can often find something related to your topic on various sites on the internet. This is effective for an introduction to a persuasive essay because you can quote an authoritative source who believes the same thing you are arguing for. There are plenty of internet sources for quotes. Use Google to search for “quote” and a keyword from your essay and you’ll find some of the sources. The quote gives you something to talk about for a sentence or two before you conclude your introduction with your thesis statement. You can even quote the internet itself! Start an essay about on-line dating with: "Find the love of your life" claim some on-line dating sites.

2. Start with a general statement in your essay introduction and move toward your thesis statement. This is a tried and true method; it can be a little dull, but it’s effective. You might write an introduction to a persuasive essay about charter schools with a general statement like “Most parents want their children to get a good education.” Then you could make some statement defining what a good education is and conclude with a thesis statement: “Charter schools provide a great option for improving educational outcomes” or “Charter schools rob the public system of needed funds for education.”

Also see How to write a great thesis statement.

3. Use a statistic. “Two out of three people believe essay writing is a waste of time.” This may or may not be true, but next you could start by defining whether or not it is a waste of time and if so, suggest another way of teaching writing skills. It’s helpful if you can find a source for statistics. So an essay that begins “According to the United Nations” and a statistic will have a good impact on the reader.

4. Say the opposite of what you intend to prove. In a persuasive essay, this is a rhetorical trap to lure readers into doubting the opposite argument. When you begin a persuasive essay with an introduction that suggests the opposite of your thesis statement you can expose logical fallacies that other people might believe. This is called “framing the argument.” You challenge the way of thinking that people have whose minds you want to change. If you are arguing for the benefits of playing video games, you might begin by stating “Playing video games dulls the mind.” This is going to get people who are against video games to be sympathetic to you. Next you might start showing that video games enhance hand-eye coordination. You might talk about the importance of logic in role playing games. You might talk about cooperation in multiplayer games. You can even talk about physical activity in games using Wii or Kinnect. And the future is potentially even more physically active for video game players.

5. Quote from the best source you can find on the topic. This has to be directly related to your topic, unlike the first suggestion. This is really putting you best foot forward which can be persuasive, but also means that everything to follow will be weaker. Sometimes, if you have found a great source, you can quote it at the beginning of your essay and use the whole essay to show that they were exactly right. This can be effective in a literary essay because once you have an expert’s opinion on a literary work, you can then use the literary work and your own skills to prove your point. Of course the point of writing about a literary work is to impress your teacher and get a good mark. It shows your teacher that you have done some research and that you also have a good grasp of the literary work itself.

By Peter J. Francis, HGPublishing Editor

Check out How to Write a Great Conclusion

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How to Write a Great Essay Conclusion

Having presented your evidence, you use your conclusion to sum it all up. Superficially, the conclusion looks a lot like the introduction; there are no detailed arguments. There may be general statements, quotes, or brief explanations. What makes a conclusion great, like what makes an essay great overall, is to clearly link it to the thesis statement.

In fact, each part of the essay should relate to the thesis statement, but let’s not discuss the thesis statement here. A great conclusion needs a great essay, but an essay can’t be great without a great conclusion. As the arguments are presented, references should be made to the thesis statement. If the essay is written in this way, then you can make the summing arguments in the conclusion very smoothly.

Let’s see how this works. Let’s say you are writing a literary essay on “To Kill A Mockingbird.” Your thesis is that a unifying theme of the novel is “coming of age.” You might present evidence documenting Scout’s emerging maturity: she begins to see the town in a different light after the trial; she learns about life from her father; she learns the truth about Boo Radley. In each paragraph, as you present and reference this evidence, you will make reference to the thesis. You might write: “Another way Scout’s growing maturity is shown is when…” In the next paragraph you present other evidence and again make reference to the thesis, but use somewhat different words. “Scout’s outlook changes when she realizes…” This way you keep presenting evidence and also tie it back to the thesis statement.

When you have presented all your evidence you are ready for your conclusion. Making reference to the thesis topic all the way through the essay prepares the reader for your conclusion. Now you want to sum up that evidence. Do not present new evidence in your conclusion. Anything you cite in your conclusion was previously presented and explained. Therefore you will not need page references for text evidence. If you are citing outside sources or paraphrasing outside sources, they will need to be attributed. Using the “To Kill A Mockingbird” example, your great conclusion might read like this:

Changes that Scout goes through indicate a growing maturity. Not only does she age three years in the course of the novel, but her point of view changes. She sees how Calpurnia and the other black people have real lives separate from her own. She sees how the town’s prejudice against black people corrupts the trial of Tom Robinson. She learns that innocent people can be wrongfully harmed through no fault of their own. All of these changes are ones that indicate a maturing point of view as Scout comes of age in the novel “To Kill A Mockingbird.”

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How to Write a Compare and Contrast Essay

By Peter J. Francis, HGPublishing Editor
The key to writing a compare and contrast essay is that you must do two things. You must find similarities and you must find differences. Now, obviously there are going to be differences, but you must contrast differences that are significant. It's not going to fly if you say that one poem has different words than another poem. If you find that both poems have a similar theme, then you must say how the themes are handled differently.

Compare and contrast essays are standard fare for state and provincial exams at the high school level, so it's important to know how to handle them. Typically, we ask students to compare themes between two literary works--sometimes two poems, sometimes two novels or short stories, or even between two genres. It doesn't really matter. Compare and contrast essays are also given in social studies courses. I recently answered a question for a reader about comparing and contrasting the reasons the US got involved in WW1 and WW2.

 Click here to ask a question about any type of essay.

In that case, I suggested that in both cases the US only joined in the war after it had been attacked. However, it was clear before that point that the US was supporting one side with materials.
When you compare, you want to find similarities. For a literary essay, the similarities might be thematic, they might be symbolic or they might be historic. Perhaps both works were written as a response to some event, either public or privately within the life of the writer. In any case, an outline is a useful starting point. I'd make two lists, for brainstorming purposes. Obviously, one list would be similarities and the other list would be differences. It's not helpful to say one work is a poem and the other is a short story, nor is it helpful to say WW1 started in 1914 and WW2 started in 1939.

You could compare and contrast two characters in the same novel. You might compare and contrast Napoleon and Snowball in Animal Farm. They both begin by promoting the benefits of the revolution; however, Napoleon becomes corrupted and forces Snowball to flee. Snowball was an idealist and Napoleon was a cynic.

You might compare and contrast how the theme of racism was dealt with in To Kill A Mockingbird--exposed through the eyes of a young white girl--and how it was depicted through the eyes of a black girl in The Color Purple. You might look at greed and lust for power in Macbeth and compare/contrast it with how power is depicted in Lord of the Flies.

The thesis of your essay includes the statement that generalizes how the two works are both similar and different. What you want to do for the reader is show an interpretation that creates a relationship between the two works and leads to a greater understanding of both.


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How to write a great thesis statement

By Peter J. Francis, HGPublishing Editor

The thesis is the point that you are trying to make with your paper. It says to the reader "Here's the conclusion of the paper, now get ready for a bunch of facts to support it." This means you need to know what you want to say. To see how a thesis statement is linked to the arguments, see the article on persuasive essay topics.

A good thesis statement should be specific. You want to say something is good or bad; that should or shouldn't be done; that it is or isn't a cause of something else. In a literary essay, it's a statement of interpretation. In a history essay, it's a statement about cause and effect. A weak thesis statement is one that is too general or doesn't take a stand.

Examples:

Good Thesis statements	Bad Thesis statements
Gun control laws are needed.	Gun control is controversial.
Abortion should be banned.	Abortion happens often.
School uniforms are beneficial.	School uniforms are expensive.
To Kill A Mockingbird is about America recognizing its own racism.	To Kill A Mockingbird is a story of racism.
World War 2 was necessary to fight fascism.	World War 2 was bad.

Although you want to be specific in your thesis statement, don't be too specific. You want to leave yourself room for some logic to support your position. For example, if you were writing about school uniforms and you used the thesis statement that "School uniforms are beneficial because they make all students equal" then you would have to restrict your essay to ways that uniforms make students equal. You wouldn't be able to address the effect of uniforms on modesty, or behavior.

A good thesis statement in a persuasive essay is very clear about the stand you are taking. In a research essay, the thesis statement is important in directing the research you will do to write the essay. If your topic is the Civil War, then your thesis statement would include the specific point you want to make. If you were to Google "the Civil War" you would get a result with millions of pages. But if your thesis statement was "The US Civil War was more about states' rights than freedom for blacks" then you would be able to research the controversy over states' rights before the civil war; you could show the Emancipation Proclamation came after the war was well underway; you could look at other issues related to states' rights to show what the priorities were of the country at that time.

A good thesis statement addresses an issue for which there is a reasonable point of view for each side. Arguing that the earth is round is specific and leaves you lots of room for evidence to support your thesis, but what are the serious arguments against your thesis?

Remember a good thesis statement is a statement of judgment. It is a statement that says what you believe. It is a statement of what you want me to believe when I finish reading your persuasive essay.

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Persuasive Essay on Nuclear Power

I know nuclear power is much in the news right now because of the recent accident in Japan, so many teachers are assigning persuasive essays on the topic of nuclear power. I've had two inquiries recently through my form for asking questions about essays. Here are some ideas for other persuasive essay topics. One student, in Illinois, asked "im writing a paper on why nuclear power plants are bad but im having trouble stating my points can you help me."

 I'd have to start by teaching him/her to write "I'm" instead of "im." Next, use a question mark.

So I decided to write a little sample persuasive essay. I thought this might be useful for those who are looking to find out how to structure a persuasive essay. The structure is pretty basic. You put in some of the arguments for your thesis; you put in some of the arguments against your thesis; and then you explain why the for arguments are better than the against arguments. Read through the sample persuasive essay to see how I do this.

First this sample persuasive essay needs an introduction. Visit my Five Great Ways to Write an Introduction page for some ideas on how to begin this essay. What follows is the body of this sample persuasive essay. By "sample" I mean: Don't copy this and hand it in as your work. These are some ideas for you to research and document. I could be full of s**t when it comes to reasoning about nuclear power. Get some quotes from experts to back up these statements.

But seriously, I can give many reasons to be opposed to nuclear power. But in a persuasive essay, you have to consider both sides. So let's look at the reasons why some people believe nuclear power is a good solution to the growing need for energy.

Reasons for nuclear power

Nuclear power creates no greenhouse gasses. The amount of CO2 has almost doubled in the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Most scientists today believe that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is trapping heat and slowly causing the average global temperature to rise. Since heat is really a form of energy, the increased energy in the atmosphere is experienced by us not only in the form of higher temperatures, but also as more severe storms and extreme weather events. These are generally bad things. Burning coal and oil adds to greenhouse gasses. Nuclear power is a means of using the energy of radioactive decay, and thus does not burn coal or oil.

The sources of oil that we are using today are often either in difficult to reach places, such as undersea, or in the high Arctic. The oil extracted from these places is expensive. Oil from the middle east, or other places around the world may be a source of money for governments that are anti-democratic or corrupt. Oil from Canada's tar sands may have other environmental costs. Increasing the development of nuclear power may reduce the use of oil from all these sources. Unlike oil, uranium can be sourced in North America, bypassing the possibility of sending money to potentially unfriendly or unpleasant governments.

Reasons against nuclear power

Now that's about all the good stuff I can think of for nuclear power. In my opinion, there are many more reasons to be against nuclear power than to be for it. Before I specifically look at why I don't think the two arguments supporting nuclear power are valid, I will look at other arguments against nuclear power.

Nuclear power is not safe. In just over 30 years three major accidents have caught the world's attention. The most recent, Japan's Fukushima's reactor, is still ongoing. We do not yet know how many have or will die as a result of this disaster. But at Chernobyl, in 1986, hundreds died, and thousands were affected by radiation. The thing about radiation is that there is no safe level.

That doesn't mean we can be absolutely safe. We are exposed to radiation every day. Every place on the planet has natural background radiation. Radioactivity produces energy waves not unlike light waves from the sun. However, some forms of energy waves produced by radioactivity can pass through our bodies. Most of the time, this is harmless, but occasionally, an energy wave passing through a body can hit a strand of DNA, damaging the DNA. In some cases, this can cause the cell to become cancerous. Even sunlight can do this.

But obviously, the more someone is exposed to radiation, the more likely they are to suffer some bad consequences, like cancer. Therefore increasing the radioactivity in the air or water as a result of even tiny leaks from a nuclear power plant will increase the risk of people getting cancer. Often we can't even identify which people were harmed by a radioactive leak; all we can say is that statistically, the cancer rates went up.

Nuclear power is not economical either. Since the costs of a nuclear accident could be so high, insurance companies will not insure a nuclear power plant. Therefore the only organization that can insure a nuclear power plant is the government -- us. We are the insurers of all the nuclear power plants in our country. (Doesn't matter which country you live in.) The government of Japan will have to pay for all the cleanup and damages from the Fukushima accident. They are already raising taxes. The nuclear power industry is already subsidized; government grants, loan guarantees, and other incentives make nuclear power cheaper than it would be if the real costs were calculated. The costs of storing or disposing of wastes are not calculated either. Nuclear waste can be toxic for up to 240,000 years. It must be kept from leaking into the environment for that long. This is an unimaginable time scale from a human perspective.

Greenhouse gasses

Now, let's look at the greenhouse gas issue. Yes, it is true that nuclear plants do not use fossil fuels to generate electricity, as do coal plants, natural gas plants, or oil burning plants. But why not measure the CO2 produced during the many years it takes to build a nuclear power plant? Why not calculate the greenhouse gasses produced by mining, refining, and transporting uranium? These are substantial, as well.

A final thing that should be pointed out when writing about nuclear energy is about who is promoting it. Nuclear power is promoted by very big corporations. It is a very centralized form of energy production. Alternative energy sources are naturally more widely distributed. No one alternative source can answer all of the energy needs the way that oil or nuclear have tried to. Whether you are talking about solar power, wind power, geothermal power, tide power, or small hydroelectric projects, decentralized energy systems are more democratic because they don't require such vast concentrations of capital to come into play. It should be clear that if democracy is really our highest value (and aren't we constantly asking our young people to give up their lives to defend it?) then democracy in energy production should be our model.

What does this need to be a proper essay? For one, it needs some original research. Don't quote me, I'm just a grumpy old anti-nuclear activist. Get some solid statistics from actual organizations that have done research on nuclear power. A persuasive essay must be ... well, persuasive. And it needs an introduction and a conclusion. Here are some suggestions on ways to write a conclusion.

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