Adulthood

Evidence and APA

The third core writing skill of the Capella Writing Standards is related to evidence.

Capella Writing Standard

Integrate appropriate evidence

Integrate into text appropriate use of scholarly sources, evidence, and citation style.

Developing your skills as a scholar requires you to consider your research methods, source credibility, and synthesis of complex information. Ensuring you are able to integrate appropriate evidence in your texts will better situate you for success and support your development as a scholar.

APA Style and Format

Capella requires that learners use APA Style to provide attribution to the authors of external sources. APA promotes the abilities to paraphrase and summarize, create concise texts, and develop in-text citations and reference pages that will connect your readers to important sources of evidence.

APA has developed a virtual representation of the APA manual on Academic Writer, a tool that you can use to support you in following APA format. All Capella learners are provided with a subscription to Academic Writer.

Consistency in the order, structure, and format of a paper allows readers to focus on a paper’s content rather than its presentation.

To format a paper in APA Style, writers can typically use the default settings and automatic formatting tools of their word-processing program or make only minor adjustments.

The guidelines for paper format apply to both student assignments and manuscripts being submitted for publication to a journal. If you are using APA Style to create another kind of work (e.g., a website, conference poster, or PowerPoint presentation), you may need to format your work differently in order to optimize its presentation, for example, by using different line spacing and font sizes. Follow the guidelines of your institution or publisher to adapt APA Style formatting guidelines as needed.

Explore APA's virtual representation of the APA Manual.

ACADEMIC WRITER

What Does It Mean To "Use APA"?

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BASICS OF ETHICAL ACADEMIC WORK

APA has a foundation in academic honesty and integrity. To uphold these terms, writers must provide citation of external ideas or sources, eliminate bias from their texts, and aim for objectivity.

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BASICS OF DOCUMENT ORGANIZATION

APA provides writers with organizational tactics for sections of a text as well as standard formatting guidelines for academic texts, including formatting for the title page, table of contents, and tables and/or figures.

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BASICS OF CITATION

APA promotes the author/year writing process, wherein ideas from external sources are immediately cited in-text, using the year of publication.

APA Paper Formatting

Use this basic APA paper template for your course submissions. Note that most assignments do not require you to include an abstract, so you can simply omit that page.  View APA Formatting in a Sample Paper

Why Does Capella Use APA?

APA citation style is used "around the world in psychology and also in fields ranging from nursing to social work, communications to education, business to engineering, and other disciplines" (APA, p. xvii). This is why Capella uses APA; our academic programs are primarily in the social sciences. Additionally, the use of a single citation style ensures consistency across degrees, programs, and schools.