APA101 - Answers to Exercises in Lesson 4

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Lesson 4 Exercise: Summary & Objectives

Page formatting is conventional in APA style, almost intuitive. The order of the headings---a centered heading, a heading justified to the left margin, and a run-in paragraph heading---follow a form found in other styles. Rules on fonts and what to capitalize in a title or heading are easy to remember. Block paragraph spacing is easier to show than describe, and familiar. What is more subtle is how research articles are organized. The paper by Brewer et al. (2001) follows the IMRAD form. It appears something like this with sections headings added:

The Elements of (APA) Style:
A Survey of Psychology
Journal Editors

Britton W. Brewer, Carrie B. Scherzer
Judy L. Van Raalte, and Albert J. Petitpas
Springfield College

Mark B. Andersen
Victoria University

Introduction
(This heading is not used in APA papers!)
[What we were up to and why.]
For over seven decades, the American Psychological Association has offered guidelines for scholarly writing in psychology (VandenBos, 1992). . . .

Although learning about and implementing APA style is customary practice in the education of psychologists (Austin & Calderon, 1996; Madigan et al., 1995), relatively little is known about the extent to which editors of psychological articles follow APA style. . . .

Method
[How we went about exploring the question.]
To identify the most common deviations from APA style in manuscripts submitted for publication and to examine the impact of straying from APA style on editorial decisions, we mailed surveys . . . .

Items on the survey requested information on the characteristics of the editors (i.e., number of years of editorial experience, gender) and the journals they edited (i.e., whether their journals were APA journals and whether the journals required authors to adhere to APA style). . . .

Additional items requested editors whose journals followed APA style to (a) rate the frequency (on a scale of 1 [never] to 5 [always] and influence on editorial decisions (on a scale of 1 [none] to 5 [a lot] of deviations from APA style. . . .

Results
[What we got for our efforts.]
We received 210 returned surveys with usable data, resulting in an overall return rate of 69%. Because of missing data, the number of respondents varied across survey items. . . .

Respondents cited references (M = 3.23, SD = 1.07), tables and figures (M = 3.00, SD = 0.98), and mathematics and statistics (M = 2.81, SD = 0.99) as the categories in which they most frequently observed deviations from APA style. . . .

Analysis
(Part of the Results section in APA style)
[These findings were especially interesting.]
In response to the item about how much influence adherence to APA style has on editorial decisions, the editors exhibited a general tendency to downplay the importance of adhering to APA style in the disposition of manuscripts (M = 2.31, SD = 1.17).

Respondents' qualitative comments further emphasized that deviating from APA style typically does not have an adverse effect on the outcome of the manuscript review process. . . .

Discussion
[What we think it means.]
On the basis of the results of this survey of psychology journal editors, it appears that deviating from APA style has only a modest impact on the disposition of manuscripts submitted for publication. . . .

In contrast with the preponderance of their peers, a subset of journal editors (approximately one fifth of the sample) ascribe high importance to preparing manuscripts in a manner consistent with APA style. . . .

Although many aspects of the manuscript review process are beyond the control of authors, adherence to APA style is well within the power of authors. . . .

References

This short paper focused on the use APA style in major publications. It is not too surprising that it is impeccably formatted in APA style. The introduction provides context, background, and the significance of the subject ("APA style . . . preforms an epistemological function" [in the full text, first paragraph]). It also observes that little is know about the question (Does style influence the likelihood of publication?). The other parts of the paper are obvious. "To identify the most common deviations . . . we mailed a survey." Thus began the section on method, how we investigated the issue.

"We received 210 returned surveys. . ." is a pretty emphatic indication that the results are now being reported. An analysis section is not part of APA style, but the selection of specific part of the survey for presentation (influence on editorial decisions) is part of a process of analysis, as distinct from the tabulation of results of the preceeding paragraph. The discussion observes "it appears that deviating from APA style has only a modest impact." The keyword is appears. Here the authors are talking about what they think it means, their interpretation of the results.

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