MMC NOTEBOOK - NOTE #19: Everything you ever wanted to know about APA
PUBLICATION FORMAT.
Scholarly writing, as writing for other purposes, has a set of conventions and guidelines. These are set down in style manuals published by various persons and organizations. Scholarly, research and professional journals have guidelines for authors who wish to publish in them. Newspapers and popular periodicals often do also. College and university instructors may require that term papers and other work conform to a specific style manual. The bibliographies accompanying papers and assignments must be formatted by these standards. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (BF 76.7 .P82 ...) is frequently recommended for papers. A copy is at the Reserve Desk. It is necessary to consult the manual for the fine points of writing a paper, including tables and graphs. The basic formats for citing works within a paper and several of the common items included in cited literature (bibliographies and/or reference lists) are illustrated here.
PAPER ORGANIZATION
Most college papers are reviews of literature or position papers based on
the literature. The paper, in effect, is meant to summarize and to teach
about a specific topic or viewpoint. Typically a paper: * states a problem
* summarizes past and current research * discusses relationships, compares
and contrasts or applies information to a problem. When references are
cited within the narrative, use the guidelines in sections 3.94 - 3.103 of
the Publication Manual. The most common styles include: Jones (1993)
stated that... Age was significant in a number of studies. (Smith and
Pears, 1963; White, 1982; Zayres, 1989) Many theories of language
development appear in the literature ( see discussion in Allen, 1992).
CONVENTIONS
Writing should conform to the conventions of the APA style. Grammar and
punctuation requirements are found in the Publication Manual. APA format
does not use first names of authors and editors. Use initials.
CITED LITERATURE
A reference list is a list of the items cited in the body of the paper.
Bibliographies may be items read in preparation but not cited
specifically, or, a list of suggested items for further study. The
Publication Manual, 4th ed. shows indentation of citations with the first
line indented when preparing a manuscript for publication.
On the APA website they are using italics to designate the parts of a citation which they show as underlined in the APA publication manual. Journals published by the APA use the italic style. This note uses italics because it is published on the WWW where underlining can be confusing. Use the style that your instructor requires.
As student papers are not being prepared for publication, the Manual states that instructor preference always takes precedence over the Manual and that instructions to use the Publication Manual should always be accompanied by specific teacher instructions. The following are preferences provided by faculty. Some Psychology Department faculty prefer the "hanging indent" and others the "paragraph." The Education Department prefers that each citation be single spaced with no indentation and a double space between citations. The Nursing Department is phasing in the style found in Amato, C.J. (1998.) The World's easiest guide to using the APA (2nd ed). Westminster, CA: Stargazer Publishing Co.
The first example below is shown three ways. Use the style preferred by your instructor.
Print BOOKS
NO AUTHOR (paragraph indent)
Publication manual of the
American Psychological Association. (1983). Washington, DC:American
Psychological Association.
NO AUTHOR (hanging indent)
Publication manual of the American Psychological Association.
(1983). Washington,
DC:American Psychological
Association.
NO AUTHOR (no indent)
Publication manual of the American Psychological Association.
(1983). Washington, DC:American Psychological Association.
ONE AUTHOR
Sargent, W. (1923). The enjoyment and use of color. New York: C.
Scribner's Sons.
TWO OR MORE AUTHORS
Reed, J.G. & Baxter, P.M. (1991). Library use; a handbook for
psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
CORPORATE AUTHOR
San Diego Museum of Art. (1980). Sculpture in California, 1975-1980:
an exhibition. San Diego: The Museum.
EDITOR OR COMPILER
Corsini, R.J. (Ed.). (1994). Encyclopedia of Psychology (2nd ed.,
Vols. 1-4). New York: John Wiley & Sons.
EDITION OTHER THAN 1ST
Saxton, D.F. (Ed.). (1990). Mosby's comprehensive review of nursing.
(13th ed.). St. Louis: C.V. Mosby.
CHAPTER IN BOOK
Dougherty, C.M. (1992).
Surveillance. In G. M. Bulechek & J.C. McCloskey (Eds.). Nursing
intervention. (pp.500-511). Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company.
UNSIGNED ARTICLE IN AN ENCYCLOPEDIA
Body image. (1970). InR.M.
Goldenson (Ed.). The Encyclopedia of Human Behavior (pp.168-170).
Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc.
Print ARTICLES
ANONYMOUS
Post-tenure review. (1998). Academe, 84(5), 61-67.
ONE AUTHOR
Inchausti, P. (1994). Reductionist approaches to community ecology. The
American Naturalist, 143 (2), 201-221.
TWO OR MORE AUTHORS
Newcombe, N. & Fox, N.A.
(1994). Infantile amnesia: through a glass darkly. Child Development,
65 (1), 31-40.
MAGAZINE
Moore, T. (1994, March/April). Soul mates. Psychology Today,
26-31.
NEWSPAPER
Fields, S. (1994, March 7). Motivation, not money, is message for young. The
Des Moines Register, p 5A.
NO AUTHOR
Centerpiece of reforms in doubt. (1994, March 7). The Des Moines
Register, p 3A.
INTERVIEWS
Interviews are considered personal communication and do not
provide recoverable information. Do not included any form of personal
communication in the reference list when using APA format. In the text,
cite the interview in the following ways: J. A. Jones (personal
communication, January 1, 1996) stated... ...was important news (J. A.
Jones, personal communication, January 1, 1996).
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW) is a way to find multimedia
information on computers called servers, on the Internet. Files found on
the WWW should be acknowledged and cited like any other information.
Sometimes information is available in paper (eg. magazine article) and
also on the WWW. Always cite the version you used as there is no guarantee
that they are exactly the same.
Included here are APA citation exemplars for the files found on the WWW. As electronic publishing is quickly growing and changing, the recommendations on citation format are also developing. These examples are based on the original APA format guides and articles published on this topic. The basic forms mirror the analogous print resources (articles, books) but should include the publication medium (WWW address), the date you found it.
One important difference in citing WWW sources is that page numbers are not used in the body of a paper. Electronic articles are one file and therefore one page. Links to additional files are also each just one page. If the article is also in print form and a starting page number or inclusive page numbersis are used in a periodical index or on a webpage, that page number(s) is part of the citation on your literature cited page but not used in the body of your paper.
Electronically stored information is mutable. It is also ephemeral and may be here today and gone tomorrow, or it may move to another server at a new location. Take care to get the complete information needed for your citation. It may be several different files such as the journal title page and the article itself which may have several files.
The basic style for web delivered citations
is:
Author. Title of ElectronicWork. Date of access. www
address
Individual Electronic Work without author
Latin Phrases and Words Used in English. Retrieved December 10,
1999 from the World Wide Web:
http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/classics/englatin.htm
Individual Electronic Work with author
Beard, Robert. A Web on On-line Dictionaries. Retrieved December
10, 1999 from the World Wide Web:
http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/diction.html
Part of a Work
Definition of mutable. In Hypertext Webster Interface. Retrieved
January 16, 1996 from the World Wide Web: http://c.gp.cs. cmu.edu: 5103/prog/webster?mutable
Journal Article
Steele, K.M., Bass, K.E. & Crook, M.D. (1999). The mystery of the
Mozart effect:failure to replicat. Psychological Science, 10 (4),
366(4). Retrieved September 8, 1999 from the World Wide Web:
web7.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark
Magazine Article
Grochow, J. M. (1999, August). Productivity and the IT personnel shortage.
PC Week.23: 75. Retrieved September 8, 1999 from the World Wide
Web:
http://web6.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/
Newspaper Article
Boshart, R. (1999, May 19). GOP resumes tax-cut push. The Gazette,
Retrieved from the World Wide Web September 8, 1999:
http://www.gazetteonline.com/ialegis/1999/tax/99tx039.htm
Image (art reproduction, photograph or
other graphic)
Kaufman, S. (ca 1993). Japanese Crane in Snow. Retrieved November
10, 1999 from the World Wide Web: http://search.corbis.com/default.asp?i=10898330&vID=1&rID=101
Every effort is made to keep the links to the Busse Library Webpage current and relevant to the library's mission. It is your responsibility to evaluate the quality of information found. Some may be outdated, inaccurate or personally offensive. Parents are advised to monitor their children's use of these resources. US Copyright Law applies to materials published and accessed. It is illegal in Iowa to download or purvey child pornography and to commit fraudulent acts over the Internet.
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