Preparing an APA Tip Sheet

Part 1: Women of Color in Higher Education

Gender equality has been an issue of concern since the time immemorial. The society has been accused of denying women their rights based on their gender. For centuries, women have fought for their place in the community to do anything that men can do. Even though the journey has been very tough, women have made significant progress in fighting for their rights. Women of color has been a revolutionary term used to refer to women's movement, fighting against gender-based violence and discrimination. In recent decades, women of power have made recommendable steps in the fight for their place in society; their contribution to shaping the societal, political, and economic climate has been increasing significantly. According to Vedam et al. (2019), women of color in the United States are about 6.6 percent of their entire women population. Regardless of every dream that a woman of color may have, education is the only way through which women can be recognized in society. Women of color have been pushing for black women education, mostly higher education. Even though tremendous progress has been regarding women of color education, the study still shows that the number is still low compared to the number of men attending higher learning institutions. It is an indication that despite the challenges, it is worth noting that women of color have advanced significantly in the education sector; they have overcome all societal odds to attain higher education degrees. Based on ethnic and racial groups, women of color are believed to receive higher education degrees at a higher rate than men (Ong et al., 2018). Even though all fingers point at women's progress in attaining higher education, they still experience many challenges in breaking into other higher education fields such as science and math; these are among the most lucrative field in the global education system. The setbacks are associated with financial difficulties among the majority of women of color. Some of them could not complete their studies in higher learning institutions due to financial constraints. Past research indicates that a higher number of white women had attained college degrees or higher as compared to black women; about 30 percent white women have higher education degrees, and only 21.4 percent of black have degrees (Johnson, 2017).  With continued challenges among women of color pursuing post-secondary education, it has become essential to do more research on setbacks facing their bid to acquire higher education and how the obstacle can be encountered. There is also a need to initiate the reasons behind the women of color, not going for lucrative fields such as science and math.  

References

Johnson, H. L. (2017). Pipelines, pathways, and institutional leadership: An update on the status of women in higher education. Ong, M., Smith, J. M., & Ko, L. T. (2018). Counter space for women of color in STEM higher education: Marginal and central spaces for persistence and success. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 55(2), 206-245. Vedam, S., Stoll, K., Taiwo, T. K., Rubashkin, N., Cheyney, M., Strauss, N., ... & Schummers, L. (2019). The Giving Voice to Mothers study: inequity and mistreatment during pregnancy and childbirth in the United States. Reproductive health, 16(1), 77.

Part 2: A Tip Sheet

APA style refers to a standard format that was developed by the American Psychological Association. The structure was designed explicitly for research paper in social and behavioral sciences. The style has been developing over time, with a series of adjustments made to the current edition. Currently, APA style is in its 7th edition. Numerous were made to the APA 6th edition to develop the 7th edition. This paper describes an APA tip Sheet and a summary of what is learned from creating the sheet. The academic co-authorship has risen in the current edition. In APA 6th edition (APA6E), only seven authors names are allowed in reference, but in the APA 7th edition (APA7E), the number has been scaled up to sources containing twenty authors or more so long as the names of the first 19 authors and an ellipsis are listed  followed by the name of the last author of the source In APA6E, only URL is listed and not the website name highlighted in publication information, whereas in APA7E, the web site's name is included in the plain text, and a period is placed just before the URL. In APA6E, the source incitation involving three to five authors apply listing of all the authors for the first time and then et al. For the subsequence incitation, f sources with six authors or more, use et al. in all its in-citations. On the other hand, APA7E provides for the use of et al. for in-citation of sources with three or more authors. According to APA 6th edition, the use of the ampersand (&) is preferred over "and"; A comma should proceed with the ampersand (&) when the source has more than two authors, but when they are two, no comma is used. For the APA 7th edition, the word "and" is recommended between the incitation authors; ampersand can only be used in parentheses. In APA6E, the use of the abbreviation "et al. " should not have punctuation between worlds, and a period should follow the acronym. The author's name should precede the abbreviation. In APA7E, there is a comma between the abbreviation and the date of publication. In APA6E, one should only use parentage symbol when preceded by a number expressed as numerical. If a number is not given, use the word "percentage"—for example, a high rate of 100 %. In the APA7E, the use of the word "percent" is recommended for a number written in world form or any number that begins a text, sentence, or title heading. For a numerical, the percentage symbol is used.  In the cases of APA7E, the first level headings are boldface and centered for both lowercase titles and uppercase headings. The second level is boldface and flush left for both lowercase and uppercase headings. The third level is boldfaced indented and written in lowercase; the title ends with a period. The fourth heading boldface, italicized, indented lowercase paragraph heading, it ends with a period. The fifth level heading is italicized, indented, lowercased, and ends with a period. On the other hand, APA7E provides the following:  The first level heading is bold, centered, and title cased. The second-level heading is written in flush left, title case, and bold. The third level heading is written in flush left, title case, and bold italic. The fourth level is bold, indented, title case heading with a period in the end. The firth level heading is title cased, indented, bold italic, and ends in a period. In APA6E, DOI starts with either https://doi.org/  or with "doi:" in references. The URLs should not be underlined and should be written in plain black text. In APA7E, both URLs and DOIS are presented as a hyperlink, which begins with https:// or "http://."

Conclusion 

Based on the tip, I have learned numerous changes made to APA 6th edition to create the 7th edition. The current edition is broader and captures many things that were omitted in the previous edition. The 7th edition provides more room for the citation and references of technical subjects that may need to use numbers and percentages. More corrections have been made regarding the website citation, which is very common with the increasing use of online resource resources. The APA tip sheet has given me the platform to learn significant changes made in the previous APA style and why the changes were necessary. In my view, the APA 7th edition is more accommodative and more evident as compared to the previous edition. I am looking forward to using the APA 7th edition because it is more elaborative and crucial for my degree program.