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7_APAStyle.pptAPA Style
Overview
- Language
- Parts of research paper
- APA style
- In-text citations
- References
Avoiding Biased Language
- APA committed to fair treatment of individuals and groups
- “APA publications [have] to avoid perpetuating demeaning attitudes and biased assumptions about people in their writing” (pg. 61)
- Describe at appropriate level of specificity
- “Gay” vs. “gay men and lesbians”
- Only mention differences (e.g., marital status, sexual orientation) when they are relevant
APA = American Psychological Association
Guidelines
- Be sensitive to labels
- Call people what they prefer to be called (this may change over time)
- Avoid labels that cause people to lose their individuality
- E.g., “the elderly” vs. “elderly participants” or “people that are elderly”
- Acknowledge participation
- Use active voice
- “Our study included 60 people” vs. “Sixty people participated”
- Use the term “participants” instead of “subjects”
Best to be more specific (e.g., instead of asian american note their region of origin – chinese american)
Don’t use offensive labels (oriental vs. asian)
Revise the Following
- The participants were asked to think of their favorite teacher from elementary school and to rate her on the 20 evaluative dimensions.
- The participants were 20 male students and 20 coeds.
- A psychological test battery was given to gay men and women and to normal men and women to determine whether there would be a relation between childhood sexual abuse and sexual identity.
Answers:
1. Don’t assume all elementary school teachers are female. Use “him/her” instead of “her”
2. “Coeds” is an outdated term that refers to female college students. Use “female students” instead.
3. Use of the term “normal” suggests that being gay is non-normal. Use “heterosexual” instead of “normal.”
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Research Paper
- Cover page
- Abstract
- Introduction (Literature review)
- Method section
- Results
- Discussion section
- References
- Appendices
Sections of the paper go in this order.
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Paper Formatting
- Everything double-spaced
- No space between headings and paragraphs
- 1 inch margins
- Times New Roman font (12 point)
- Text should be left justified
- Except when noted (e.g., major headings)
- All pages should include a header
- Including cover page, reference page, appendices
- Short form of title (left)
- 50 characters or less, ALL IN CAPS
- Page number (right)
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Make sure the header is in the header portion of the page – not just the first line of the page.
Cover Page
- Special header on page 1
- Include the term “Running head:”
- This should not be included on any other header
- Title (centered)
- Author (centered)
- Affiliation (centered)
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Abstract
- Own page
- Heading of “Abstract”
- Centered
- Brief summary of study
- Info on participants, methods, results
- 150 - 250 words
- No statistics included
* Paragraph should not be indented
Introduction
- First line = Title of paper
- Centered
- Provides description of problem, relevant research, and current study (including hypotheses)
- May include sub-headings (e.g., Current Study)
- Aligned left
- Bolded
In-text Citations
- APA Style – use in-text citations
- No footnotes
- Indicate where the info came from
- Author(s), year
- 1 author vs. multiple authors
- Use of et al.
- All authors (up to 6) should be noted the first time a work is cited
- Include pg. number if using a direct quote
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And vs. &: Use “and” before the last author when it is in the body of the sentence. Use “&” before the last author when it is inside parentheses.
When to use “et al.” – “et al.” is a Latin phrase that means something like “and everyone else”. We use it when referring to a list of authors on a paper as a way to save space. The rule is you can use “et al.” when you have 3 or more authors on a paper, AND when you have already listed all authors at least once somewhere in the paper. After that you can say Johnson et al. (2010) instead of listing all of the authors.
Example Citations
- One study found … (Johnson, Shue, & Downey, 1999).
- Johnson et al. (1999) found that…
- … “correct citation is essential” (Reardon, 2007, p.4).
- Sampson, Brown and Levy (1990) found that… (as cited in Johnson et al., 1999).
** The citation goes INSIDE the punctuation of the sentence
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Notice that all citations include authors’ last name and the year of publication. No first or middle names or initials. No titles of articles or of journals. Also notice that the authors’ names and year are listed together, not separated in the sentence.
- Used “&” inside the parentheses
- 2. Used “et al.” because all three authors listed in the above reference already
- page number given because a direct quote used
- this is an example of a secondary source. I am making it clear to the reader that I did not actually have or read the Sampson, Brown and Levy article but instead I read about it in the Johnson et al. article. In this instance include Johnson et al. in the reference list, not Sampson, Brown and Levy since I did not actually have that source. Also notice I used “and” before the last author because the authors are listed in the body of the sentence itself, not inside parentheses.
Method Section
- Follows directly after Introduction
- Heading of “Method”
- Centered, bolded
- Detailed description of how study carried out
- Enough detail to allow replication
- Subheadings (aligned left, bolded)
- Participants, Design, Procedure, Materials
Results Section
- Follows directly after Methods
- Heading of “Results”
- Centered, bolded
- Description of statistics used, and what you found
- Descriptive results first (means, standard deviations)
- Followed by inferential results (report test statistic, degrees of freedom, p-value, effect size)
- Refer to tables, graphs, etc. when necessary
Discussion Section
- Follows directly after Results
- Heading of “Discussion”
- Centered, bolded
- Implications of findings
- How they relate to prior research
- Practical applications
- May use subheadings
- E.g., “Limitations”, “Future Research”
References
- Own separate page
- Heading of “References”
- Centered
- Alphabetical listing of all sources referred to in paper
- Only those actually in your possession
* Order of authors in each reference should not be changed
- Hanging indent used
- All lines but first indented
References cont.
- When there are 8 or more authors
- Include first 6 authors then use three ellipses (…) and add last author’s name
- Author, A. A., Author B. B., … Author J. J. (year).
- Include DOI (digital object identifiers) whenever possible (doi:10.2145/6857)
- Located on first page of electronic journal article
- Do not include retrieval dates
Example Journal Reference
Author, A. B., Author, C. D., & Author, E. F. (2007). Title of the article. Name of Journal, volume #, pgs #-#. doi: xxxxxxxx
Pennington, N., & Hastie, R. (1986). Evidence evaluation in complex decision making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 242-258.
This is EXACTLY how your references should look on your reference page. They use a hanging indent, where all lines are indented except the first line. There is a period after the year. The title of the article is not capitalized except for the first word and the first word following a colon or semi colon. The title of the journal is capitalized normally and is in italics. The volume number is also in italics (that is the #1 missed thing on references so don’t forget). The word “volume” does not actually appear in the reference. Neither does the word “pages” or “pgs”. Page numbers are NOT in italics. Don’t forget the period at the end of the reference.
References should be in alphabetical order by the first author’s last name. Do NOT change the order of the authors on a paper.
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Example Book Reference
- Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (year). Title of book. Location: Publisher.
- Wrightsman, L. S., Greene, E., Nietzel, M. T., & Fortune, W. H. (2002). Psychology and the legal system (5th ed.). United States: Wadsworth/Thompson Learning.
Need More Help?
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- APA Manual
- D2L
- Link to APA Guidelines
- Sample paper
