APA Style / Format:A Primer or Booster

Psychology Dept.Occidental College

I. What is it?

• A set of rules & guidelines for presenting information in academic and professional settings– Developed by the American

Psychological Association (APA)

• “Publication Manual” includes a complete account– Continually revised: 6th edition

II. Purpose

• To make the presentation of information* complete, clear, & efficient– Components to be included– Organization of components– General writing style tips

* Stricter rules for empirical (data-based) works

Guidelines for papers

• Student papers– Why learn an artificial

format of no general importance?

• Formal manuscripts intended for publication / dissemination among professionals– Learn a subset of guidelines

for this type of paper

III. Common Components

• General formatting– 1-inch margins, all around– Double-spaced– 12-pt. font (or equivalent)– “Times New Roman” (or

equally clear font)

III. Common Components

• Writing style– Succinctness

• “in order to” “to”• “four different categories”

“four categories”

– 3rd person– Active voice– Unbiased language– Quotations used sparingly

• No plagiarism

Plagiarism

• Paraphrase points from sources unless completely obvious and simple

• “2nd citing” (of another source cited within a reference source you have on hand) is not ideal, but permissible– You should know exactly what

the original source says regarding your specific point; look up the original source whenever possible!

III. Common Components: Title Page• Running head• Page numbers• Title• Author• Affiliation

• Make it look like it should!– See sample paper (APA)– See sample paper (OWL)

III. Common Components: Body

• Format the title properly

• Use references properly:… within the text

• In a 4-year study, Vrij and Secundo (1971) discovered…

… within parentheses– Order multiple references

• … demonstrated a statistically significant effect (Borth, 1992; Lee & Park, 2004; Miettinen et al., 1934).

III. Common Components: Body

• “et al.” for multiple authors– 3-5 authors: use et al. when

citing a source after the first mention

– 6 or more: use immediately• Miettinen et al. (1934) OR

(Miettinen et al., 1934)

III. Common Components: Body

• Quotations: use page #s2 ways to do this… before the

quote or after itPlace the page number close

to the quote– El-bahim (2007, p. 196)

claimed “all three factors…”– El-bahim (2007) surveyed

college students and concluded that the groups “must be equalized” (p. 41)

III. Common Components: “References” Page• Order alphabetically• Hanging indent

• For 8 or more authors, list the first 6, use an ellipsis (…) and include last author:– Castillo, A. R. N., Thompson,

C., Engler-Smith, F., Ricci, Q. H., … Ward, A. (2001).

“References” Page (cont.)

• Each type of source requires a uniquely formatted reference– Refer to publication manual

• At Oxy, you are expected to know just a few common ones– (see following slides)

IV. Empirical Work Components

• Abstract• Section Headings

– (Introduction)– Methods– Results– Discussion

• Statistics (PSYC 201)• Figures & Tables• Appendices (if needed)

– Ex) survey items; “extra” data

V. Expectations for Oxy Students

• Reference types– Journal article:Men, X. A. (1964). Reply to

critics: Bayesian may be best. Social Psychological Bulletin, 36, 45-49. doi: 15.453/4813743.24.7

– Book:Patel, P. (1997). Cultural

barriers. New York: Wiley.

V. Expectations for Oxy Students

• Reference Types– Book chapter (edited):

Lightfoot, T. G., & Widmer, E. (1987). Tall tales. In G. Suri & L. O’Kachai (Eds.), Folklore in South America (pp. 31-65). Omaha, NB: University Press.

– Internet Source:Nguyen, T. (2003, May 19). The p

value. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/afx23

V. Expectations for Oxy Students

• Note for journal articles:– Always include volume number – ONLY include issue number for

journals that start page numbers from 1 for each issue of a volume

Ex) …Journal of Personality Issues, 7(2), 14-29

[Here issues 1 and 2 both start at page 1; articles cannot be identified solely by volume & page numbers]

VI. Supplemental Resources

• Oxy Psychology Website

• APA’s website– Sample paper (APA)– Sample paper (OWL)

• Purdue’s “The OWL”

• Daryl Bem’s writing guide