Talking in the Library

Citing Lexiles in APA style--help answer our stumper

I learned a new word yesterday: Lexiles.  Lexiles, I've learned, involve assessing a student's reading level and assigning it a numeric value and assessing a book's reading level and assigning it a value.  Then, like Garanimals*, teachers can match the student to a book.

I had to learn about Lexiles on the fast-track yesterday because I was answering a question about them over IM. The question was how to include a book's Lexile in the APA citation.  That stumped me, it stumped my APA style guide, it stumped our Education librarian, Marcia Stockham.  It's what we in the library biz call, yes, a stumper. 

Marcia wondered if perhaps it wasn't in the citation that the Lexile needed to be provided, but in an annotation to the citation.  But we're not sure.  If you know the answer to this, could you please share with one and all via our comments below?  Many thanks and good things showered down upon you.

A follow-up question wasn't a stumper, but I wasn't able to learn the answer before the person asking the question signed-off: how to find a book's Lexile.  Marcia directed me to the database: Children's Literature Comprehensive Database.  You can search by a variety of reading metrics, including Lexile, or search for a book and, in many cases, find its Lexile number.  You can also do this search from the Lexile web site. 

*Second thing I learned, how to spell Garanimals!  Grranimals is wrong.  I blame this prior ignorance on the fact that my parents did not love me enough to clothe me in Garanimals and instead forced me to match my own clothes.  It was a hard-knock life.

Recent changes to APA: doi

Did you know that the American Psychological Association (APA) recently updated their guidelines for citing electronic references?  That's OK, most people don't know.

With papers coming due, now is a good a time as any to spread the word.

The changes are intended to simplify the process, although there is still room for discussion about how much simpler it really is.  The key change that I see, especially in regards to journal articles found online, either through a database or a website, is the doi.  What's a doi?  It's a digital object identifier, like a social security number for an article.  When you use the doi, your readers have an easier time finding the exact source you are referencing.

Clear as mud?  OK.  Take a look below.  The first citation is to an article I found in ProQuest Research Library.  If you want to read it, you can go do that database, plug in the author and/or title and find the full text.  If you don't have access to ProQuest Research Library, you may have to hunt around to get to the full text (K-Staters use the Citation Linker and/or Interlibrary Loan.)

The second citation I found in PsychInfo.  But you don't need to know that.  All you need to do is paste the doi into Google and, voila!, you are taken to the journal article.  Now, whether you have access to the full text is going to depend on whether the journal is open source (free) or if your institution subscribes to the journal, either online or in print.  You may need to request it through interlibrary loan.

Marx, J. (2005). Huntington's research points to possible new therapies. Science, 310(5745), 43. Retrieved from ProQuest Research Library database.

Nance, M. A. (2007). Comprehensive care in huntington's disease: A physician's perspective. Brain Research Bulletin, 72(2-3), 175-178. doi:10.1016/j.brainresbull.2006.10.027

Please note that all journals are not using doi, so there may be occasions when you cannot find a doi.

Still have questions? Check out this video I made, Digital Object Identifiers, to explain it using real examples.

APA wants writers to include the doi when it is available.  It's usually found with the rest of the bibliographic info like journal title and volume. It may also be posted at the top or bottom of the first page of the article.  If you are an author or editor and cannot find the doi for an article, CrossRef.org offers a doi lookup.  I took my first citation and used the "Automatic Parsing of a normal reference" to locate its doi: doi:10.1126/science.310.5745.43 

When there is no doi, then you indicate where you found the article.  In the case of the first citation above, I found it in a database, so I give the database name. If you found it on the journal's website or on an author's website or elsewhere, you provide that URL.

For more information about changes to citing electronic sources, K-State Libraries purchased several copies of the 24-page guide, APA Style Guide to Electronic References.  The guide supplements the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th edition.  APA also has an FAQ that may answer some of your questions.

NIH Policy Mandates Open Access for Published Works

K-State researchers receiving grant funds from The National Institutes of Health must now comply with legislation requiring them to deposit their published work in  PubMed Central (PMC), the NIH digital archive of full-text, peer-reviewed journal articles. NIH recently published guidelines and an extensive FAQ explaining the new policy and how to comply. 

Starting April 7, 2008 researchers who receive NIH funding must submit their final peer-reviewed, revised manuscripts to PMC upon acceptance for publication.  The manuscript must be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication.  Some journals automatically submit articles to PMC and no further action is required by the author.

In addition, beginning May 25, 2008 all researchers submitting applications, proposals, or progress reports to NIH must include a PubMed Central reference number when citing articles that they have authored or co-authored with support from NIH funds.

According to the policy, researchers are responsible for ensuring that publishing or copyright agreements on submitted articles comply with the NIH policy.

Excellent resources are now available to university administrators and staff involved in funded research, campus compliance officers, and NIH investigators to assist them with compliance concerns. Librarians at K-State Libraries suggest the following:

Institutional Compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy: Ensuring Deposit Rights, a webcast sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC).    This event is scheduled Friday, March 7 from 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m. and can be viewed in Hale Library, Room 114.  Presenters include:
Kevin L. Smith, JD, Scholarly Communications Officer, Duke University
Jim Siedow, Vice Provost for Research, Duke University
Tony Waldrop, Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
This webcast will be archived and made available for later viewing at http://nih-webcast.easyurl.net .

Complying with the NIH Public Access Policy: Copyright Considerations and Options, a SPARC/Science Commons/ARL joint white paper by Michael W. Carroll, Feb. 2008. This white paper discusses compliance options for grantees and principal investigators especially with regards to copyright-related obligations. Michael Carroll is a Professor at the Villanova University School of Law and serves on the Board of Directors of Creative Commons.  His research and teaching interests are in the areas of intellectual property law and cyberlaw.

The NIH Public Access Policy: Guide for Research Universities, a web-based guide developed by the Association of Research Libraries.  It includes a policy overview and sections on institutional responses, retaining rights, how to deposit and resources. 

K-State faculty with questions on the NIH policies or procedures can contact Marty Courtois, Repository Services, courtois@ksu.edu