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APA Publication Manual Crib Sheet

Psych Web has a separate guide for writing a laboratory report.

Note: The APA publication manual specifies underlining in cases where italics will be printed. However, the opposite is true in this document: italics are used to show underlined passages. This is because Netscape and other browsers may use underlining to indicate links.


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Introductory information

APA style is the style of writing specified in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (4th ed., 1994). The publication manual began as an article published in Psychological Bulletin in 1929. That article reported results of a 1928 meeting of representatives from anthropological and psychological journals, "to discuss the form of journal manuscripts and to write instructions for their preparation." By 1952 the guidelines were issued as a separate document called the Publication Manual. Today the manual is in its fourth edition, and the APA format described in it is a widely recognized standard for scientific writing.

Some of the more commonly used rules and reference formats from the manual are listed here. However, this web page is no substitute for the 368 page manual itself, which should be purchased by any serious psychology student in the U.S., or by students in other countries who are writing for a journal which uses APA format.

The fourth edition of the style manual, issued in 1994, contained these additions and changes to the pre-existing APA style:

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Following is a summary of rules and reference examples in the APA style manual. The manual itself contains all this information and more, organized and worded differently, indexed and illustrated. If in doubt about a specific rule or example, consult the manual itself.

RULES

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Abbreviations


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Avoiding Biased and Pejorative Language

In general, avoid anything that causes offense. The style manual makes the following suggestions:

DO NOT use...			when you can use... 

"men" (referring to all adults)		"men and women"
ethnic labels (for example, Hispanic)	geographical labels (Mexican Americans)
"homosexuals"                         		"gay men and lesbians" 
"depressives"				"people with depression" 

Currect use of the terms "gender" and "sex"

The term "gender" refers to culture and should be used when referring to men and women as social groups, as in this example from the publication manual: "sexual orientation rather than gender accounted for most of the variance in the results; most gay men and lesbians were for it, most heterosexual men and women were against it."

The term "sex" refers to biology and should be used when biological distinctions are emphasized, for example, "sex differences in hormone production."

Avoid gender stereotypes. For example, the manual suggests replacing "An American boy's infatuation with football" with "An American child's infatuation with football."

Sensitivity to labels

Be sensitive to labels. A person in a clinical study should be called a "patient," not a "case." Avoid equating people with their conditions, for example, do not say "schizophrenics," say "people diagnosed with schizophrenia." Use the term "sexual orientation," not "sexual preference." The phrase "gay men and lesbians" is currently preferred to the term "homosexuals." To refer to all people who are not heterosexual, the manual suggests "lesbians, gay men, and bisexual women and men."

In racial references, the manual simply recommends that we respect current usage. Currently both the terms "Black" and "African American" are widely accepted, while "Negro" and "Afro-American" are not. These things change, so use common sense.

Capitalize Black and White when the words are used as proper nouns to refer to social groups. Do not use color words for other ethnic groups. The manual specifies that hyphens should not be used in multiword names such as Asian American or African American.

Labels can be tricky, and the manual has a lot to say about them. For example, "American Indian" and "Native American" are both acceptable usages, but the manual notes that there are nearly 450 Native American groups, including Hawaiians and Samoans, so specific group names are far more informative.

The terms Hispanic, Latino, and Chicano are preferred by different groups. The safest procedure is use geographical references. Just say "Cuban American" if referring to people from Cuba.

The term Asian American is preferable to Oriental, and again the manual recommends being specific about country of origin, when this is known (for example, Chinese or Vietnamese). People from northern Canada, Alaska, eastern Siberia, and Greenland often (but not always!) prefer Inuk (singular) and Inuit (plural) to "Eskimo." But some Alaska natives are non-Inuit people who prefer to be called Eskimo. This type of difficulty is avoided by using geographical references. For example, in place of "Eskimo" or "Inuit" one could use "people from northern Canada, Alaska, eastern Siberia, and Greenland."

In general, call people what they want to be called, and do not contrast one group of people with another group called "normal" people. Write "we compared people with autism to people without autism" not "we contrasted autistics to normals." Do not use pejorative terms like "stroke victim" or "stroke sufferers." Use a more neutral terminology such as "people who have had a stroke." Avoid the terms "challenged" and "special" unless the population referred to prefers this terminology (for example, Special Olympics). As a rule, use the phrase "people with _______" (for example, "people with AIDS," not "AIDS sufferers").

In referring to age, be specific about age ranges; avoid open-ended definitions like "under 16" or "over 65." Avoid the term "elderly." "Older person" is preferred. "Boy" and "Girl" are acceptable referring to high school and and younger. For persons 18 and older use "men" and "women."


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Capitalization


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Commas


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Hyphenation


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Italics (Underlining)


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Miscellaneous: Colons, dashes, parentheses, numbering paragraphs,


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Numbers


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Quotation Marks

Extended quotations

When not to use quotes

Do NOT use quotes to...


REFERENCE FORMATS

References are citations of other works such as books, journal articles, or private communications. References in text are treated somewhat differently from references in the complete list at the end of a paper.

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Abbreviating within a reference

Here are approved abbreviations for use in a reference list:

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Alphabetizing within reference lists

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In-text references

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Reference list formats

NOTE: wherever you see italics below, you should actually underline when preparing your paper. Italics are used here because many browsers use underlines to indicate links. References should be indented 5 to 7 spaces on the first line, just like other paragraphs. In examples below, the 5 white spaces are represented by 5 underscores (_____) because most browsers ignore white space.

The APA publication manual contains 77 examples of different reference types (pp. 195-221). Here are a few examples of the most commonly used formats.

Anonymous or unknown author (common in newspapers):

_____Caffeine linked to mental illness. (1991, July 13). New York Times, pp. B13, B15.

Books:

_____Strunk, W., Jr., & White, E. B. (1979). The elements of style (3rd ed.). New York: Macmillan.

_____American Psychiatric Association. (1990). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

(note: "Author" is used as above when author and publisher are identical.)

_____Freud, S. (1961). The ego and the id. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 19, pp. 3-66). London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1923)

In text this would be cited as (Freud, 1923/1961).

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Electronic media

The manual specifies (for example) that an FTP retrievable file be referenced like this:

Bixley, T. S. (1995) Sentient microfilaments: A tempest in a tubule. [On-line]. Available FTP: 128.112.128.1 Directory: pub/harnad File: psyc.95.3.26.consciousness.11.bixley.

Increasingly, internet addresses are specified using a URL (uniform resource locator). The words "on-line" and "available" are redundant if you use a URL, because the whole purpose of a URL is to give "on-line availability" of a document. The URL indicates the type of resource (FTP, gopher, WWW) followed by two forward slashes followed by an exact location (machine, site, directory, and file). The URL permits anybody reading the document to copy the address into a WWW browser and retrieve the document.

APA format with a URL address would look something like this:

FTP:

_____Bixley, T. S. (1995) Sentient microfilaments: A tempest in a tubule. [On-line]. Available: ftp://blahblah.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/psyc.95.3.26/consciousness/11/bixley.

Gopher:

_____Bixley, T. S. (1995) Sentient microfilaments: A tempest in a tubule. [On-line]. Available: gopher://somecomputer.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/psyc.95.3.26/consciousness/11/bixley.

World Wide Web page:

_____Bixley, T. S. (1995) Sentient microfilaments Home Page.[On-line]. Available: http://something.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/psyc.95.3.26/consciousness/11.html.

The use of URLs is not specified in the APA style manual. However, the URL is increasingly recognized as the standard way of specifying addresses for retrievable documents on the internet.

Group or institutional authors

_____University of Pittsburgh. (1993) The title goes here. Journal of Something, 8, 5-9.

Journal article

_____Spitch, M. L., Verzy, H. N., & Wilkie, D. M. (1993). Subjective shortening: A model of pigeons' memory for event duration. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal BehaviorProcesses, 9, 14-30.

Letter to the editor

_____O'Neill, G. W. (1992, January). In support of DSM-III [Letter to the editor]. APA Monitor, p. 4-5.

Magazine article

_____Gardner, H. (1991, December). Do babies sing a universal song? Psychology Today, pp. 70-76.

Newsletter article

_____Brown, L.S. (1993, Spring). My research with orangs. The Psychology Department Newsletter, 3, 2.

The date is given as it appears on the publication. For anonymous newspaper articles, see the previous section titled "Anonymous or unknown authors."

Pamphlet

_____Just Say No Foundation. (1992). Saving our youth. (9th ed.) [Brochure]. Washington, DC: Author.

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