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Review Lesson: APA Style for Research Papers How do you know what you know? You apply what you have learned. This lesson asks you to go through an article published in the American Psychologist and identify all the applications of APA style as featured in APA101. What makes a style complex and hard to use is not knowing that there is an underlying order and consistency to it. Can you find the rules applied (and misapplied) in this paper? What have you learned in APA101? |
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The article by Brewer et al. (2001), "The Elements of (APA) Style: A Survey of Psychology Journal Editors," is required reading for APA101. You may have noticed that the article displays a wide range of APA style features. The exercise in lesson 4 asked you to assign IMRAD headings to the article, and data from the article is used to illustrate the format of tables in lesson 5. Now the assignment is to go through this article and identify all the APA style rules that are being applied, or perhaps, misapplied. Start with the title. It is set in heading caps, but in a sans serif font. The former is consistent with APA rules, but the font is not. It should be a serif font. The authors names are in plain text, but their affiliation is in italics. Lesson 4 showed a title page, with the title in heading caps, in plain text along with the author's name, but with the abstract and author affiliation in italics. Did you notice? (Did you also happen to notice in passing that an abstract is not indented as a paragraph? This, too, is APA style.) The first sentence is: "For over seven decades, the American Psychological Association (APA) has offered guidelines for scholarly writing in psychology (VandenBos, 1995)." There are three style features that stand out in this one sentence: (a) the number seven is written as a word in accordance to the under 10 rule (lesson 7), (b) the acronym APA is defined at its first use (lesson 6), and the sentence ends with a standard citation (lessons 1 & 2). How many style features and rules can you find? Do not count repetitions. What rule or rules do each feature illustrate? Count the references as well. What is the source (e.g., book, journal article, etc.). What unique features are illustrated? The answers are given by paragraph and line number; it is helpful to number paragraphs. Can you find all 30? Answers to the Exercise |
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APA101 has focused on the general rules underlying APA style. But when it comes to presenting simple numbers in a text the rule becomes a bit vaporous. There are exceptions that simply must be memorized. For example, writing chapter 5, Table 6, seventh grade, and Grade 8. There are other nuances that merit attention, not so much as things to be memorized, but to alert you to double check with the APA Manual when you must get it right. These example illustrate the usefulness of getting to know the Manual by simply paging through and exploring the various topics. Pet Spelling (APA, 2001, p. 89) The APA Manual insists that data is plural, although common usage (and the dictionary) allow the word to be used in both a singular and plural sense. There are a few others.  appendix (appendixes not appendices) datum (data is plural only!) matrix (matrices not matrixes) phenomenon (phenomena is plural) schema (schemas is plural)Pet Usage (APA, 2001, pp. 54-56) That versus which. "APA prefers to reserve which for nonrestrictive clauses and use that in restrictive clauses" (APA, 2001, p. 55). That is more specific than which. Generally, use that instead of which unless which seems to fit particularly well (or study the APA Manual on the subject). "Consistent use of that for restrictive clauses and which for nonrestrictive clauses, which are set off with commas, will help make your writing clear and precise" (APA, 2001, p. 55). While versus since. Use these words only in their precise temporal sense. For example, "While Tom is a good fellow, he’s not all that bright" makes sense in everyday conversation. While in this context means "even though." But in the temporal sense, the example would read, "During the time (While) Tom is a good fellow, he’s not all that bright." This makes no sense. Write instead, "Whereas (or Although) Tom is a good fellow, he’s not all that bright." Although conveys no sense of time and so is preferred to while when introducing an exception. Since in the temporal sense is to be read "since 11:00 AM all air traffic was shut down." That is, the term introduces events after a specific point in time. APA style wants you to read since as meaning "after that" not "because." Because introduces a casual connection. Because since is to be used only in its temporal sense, because is preferred when indicating cause and effect. Inclusive Page Numbers (APA, 2001, pp. ?-???) The APA Manual does not remind you that digits are never dropped from inclusive page numbers, or any range of numbers, in APA publications. However, the practice is quite common. The Chicago Manual of Style (2003) has an elaborate system for doing this, dropping digits from large numbers: 1087-89, 11564-615 (p. 396). Unless you are aware that APA style does not permit this practice you may do it without realizing the mistake. This gives critical readers something to find fault with. It is one of the subtle nuances of the style, like placing the volume number in references to a journal articles in italics. It is easy to overlook---but glares ineptitude to those who know the style---if you do. The only way you would know this is by studying APA journals, so it is a great "gotcha." |
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American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author. New prices:
$33.95 spiral bound, and
$26.95 paperback (free shipping, no taxes).Fifth Edition. The APA Publication Manual is the commanding guide in psychology, and found in other fields ranging from education to literature. The new edition shows how to format papers (40 pp., 15 with diagrams), expands coverage of tables and figures (50 pp.), adds Web sources to the 95 references sources covered (75 pp.), and refines the best section on avoiding bias found anywhere (15 pp.). The spiral bound edition lies open to the page you select, not a trivial convenience! |
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