APA Style Professional Development: Consistency is Key!

Why a Style?

The American Psychology Association published the first set of guidelines for preparing journal manuscripts in 1929. Of course, the APA style guide has expanded a lot in the subsequent 80-year time span. The sixth edition of the APA Publication Manual sets forth clear standards for formatting documents in specific fields of research. Use of a particular document style makes it easy for the audience to find key information, whether through reading a clearly written abstract or through an easy-to-follow list of references. Use of a particular document style eases the transaction between writer and reader so that the reader clearly understands the material being presented. Readers of APA journals do not have to do any guess work in finding specific information quickly and reliably.

Why Should My Students Adhere to APA?

Education adheres to those guidelines, and students who are in Master of Education and doctoral programs need to have facility with following APA style. As future scholars, they will need to be able to present professionally acceptable work to journals, employers, and colleagues. Consider this, if a student presents a journal article that has solid research ideas to a journal that requires APA formatting, but does not adhere or only partially adheres to APA style guidelines, chances are good that the journal editor will not take the time to work with that student on APA style. Good research may go unpublished because of sloppy or inconsistent use of APA style. Similarly, students who are going on from a master’s program to a doctoral program will be expected to already know and apply APA style to their writing, and will be in for a rude surprise when their grade is impacted by poor usage or failure to adhere to the guidelines.

Consistency is the Key!

Key APA Areas

The Title PageAbstractIn-Text CitationsReferencesAppendicesFiguresHeadings

Title Page

Abstract

In-Text Citations

Example 1:Because much of the literature on recidivism suggests that education is one key to rehabilitation (Criminal Justice Center, 1994; Gerber & Fritsch, 1995; Steurer, Smith & Tracy, 2001; Donaldson & Bedell, 2002; Nuttall, Hollmen & Staley, 2003) there is also an increasing need for understanding women’s educational experiences before, during, and after incarceration.

In Text Citations

Example 2:

Luke (2002) states that ASFA “requires states to file for termination of parental rights (TPR) for children who have been in out-of-home care for 15 of the past 22 months” (p. 935).

References

Appendices

Headings

APA articles use between one and five levels of headings.

One or Two Levels:

Centered, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading

Flush Left, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading

Headings (cont.)

Three levels:Centered, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading

Flush Left, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase HeadingIndented, boldface, lowercase paragraph heading ending

with a period.Four levels:

Centered, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading

Flush Left, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading Indented, boldface, lowercase paragraph heading endingwith a period.

Indented, boldfaced, italicized, lowercase paragraph heading ending with a period.

Teaching APA style in your class

Model APA style in your own posts – if you use a reference, be sure to cite it correctly

Present sample papers that use APA correctly as models

Present a short sample paper in the first week that is not correctly formatted; have students format it, either assign points as an assignment or give extra credit for getting it right

Have students peer edit major assignments for APA “correctness”

Help students by making sample corrections on assignments; make corrections in one or two paragraphs and then send the assignment back to the student for revision, having the student use your corrections as models.

Provide a thread on the Forum for questions on APA formatting.

Assessing APA style in Student Writing

Forum DiscussionsForum discussion posts, especially the first post responding to the discussion prompt, should follow APA citation guidelines. Correct in-text references and a references list for anything cited within the post are essential for all posts.

Assessing APA style in Student Writing (cont.)

Course Project Components Course project components should also follow APA style guidelines when

citing courses. Correct in-text references should be required as well as a reference list for anything cited in the assignment.

Final Course Project Final course projects should include title page, table of contents,

abstract, the text of the project itself — formatted with appropriate headings dependent on the nature of the project and a references list, followed by appendices as necessary.

Students should be evaluated based on their usage of APA style. All components need to be present for the project to receive full credit. Projects that are not formatted using APA style are not professional portfolio-ready projects. However, with coaching throughout the process of writing their project, students should finish the course with a project that adheres to APA standards.

Additional resources for both professors and students

The OWL at Purdue http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/APA Stylehttp://apastyle.apa.org/Sample Paper 1http://www.apastyle.org/manual/related/sample-

experiment-paper-1.pdfSample Paper 2http://my.ilstu.edu/~jhkahn/APAsample.pdf