Basics The of APA Style
What is APA Style?
The most commonly used format for manuscripts in
the social sciences.
APA regulates:
Report sections
In-text citations/ References
Stylistics
All assignments, projects, and your final
project must be written in APA style
Report Sections
Title Page
Abstract
Introduction
Method (Participants, Measures, Procedure)
Results
Discussion
References
Tables (if any)
1
Running Head: ABBREVIATED TITLE
Your Title Goes Here (Not more than 15 words)
Your Name
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2
ABBREVIATED TITLE
Abstract
This is where youll put your abstract. Abstracts should not be more
than 120-150 words. Abstracts are a BRIEF description of your
project, including your results. Abstracts are NOT indented. The title
of the page should be Abstract, centered, with the first letter
Capitalized.
ABBREVIATED TITLE
2
Your Title Goes Here (Just as it appears on the title page)
Youll put your introduction here. For this, you should introduce the
broad topic of interest. Youll likely do a mini literature review (for
you, just a few outside references). Youll also want to state your
hypotheses that stem from the general theory or model of interest
(make predictions!). Do NOT begin this section with the title
Introduction, begin it ONLY with the title of your paper, centered, in
upper- and lowercase letters
Method
Participants
Describe how many participants you had and how you recruited
them.
Measures
Explicitly state your variables of interest (IV, DV, and any
classification variables). Describe how you operationalized these
variables, exactly how you measured or manipulated them,
complete with a description of the actual materials used. If you used
a questionnaire, include an example question or two and specify
where it came from. Do not include all items. Do not include
anything that is not relevant to your analyses.
Procedure
Describe exactly how you did what you did to collect your data.
There should be enough detail so that someone else could replicate
your experiment step by step.
2
ABBREVIATED TITLE
Results
Put your results here. Round all numbers to two decimal places. DO
NOT discuss whether the results support your initial predictions (or
any other subjective thoughts about your results). Simply report the
results and whether or not any inferential tests (e.g. t-tests, ANOVA,
correlations) were significant, and brief statement about what the
numbers mean in terms of the variables.
If there is anything of interest in the descriptives (e.g. means,
standard deviations) you may report it here or include in a table at
the end.
Discussion
Now it is time to discuss what your results mean. Describe the
results in terms of how they relate to your initial hypotheses. Do they
confirm them or not? Why or why not? If the data do not fit your
theory, can you think of an alternative? For this section, you should
start locally (by relating to your specific hypotheses) and get more
global towards the end (relevance beyond this paper). Discuss
extraneous variables, reliability validity and or other measurement
issues, and suggest possible directions for future research.
2
ABBREVIATED TITLE
References
Put your references here (in APA format, of course.check
examples!)
ABBREVIATED TITLE
Table
Brief description of whats included in the table
Tables (if included) go AFTER the references on a separate page.
Each table goes on its own page! Tables should be clean print-outs
and should include only the relevant information. Do NOT simply
attach SPSS output.
2
More on references:
In-text citations
In-text citation examples:
o
o
o
o
o
o
Gardiner (1988) found that, compared to reading, generating words during
encoding enhances later recollection.
In a recent study, it was found that generating words led to greater amounts of
recollection (Gardiner, 1988).
Jacoby and Dallas (1981) found that priming was insensitive to levels of
processing manipulations.
Priming was found to be insensitive to levels of processing manipulations
(Jacoby & Dallas, 1981).
Craik, Govoni, Naveh-Benjamin, and Anderson (1996) found that dividing
attention during retrieval had little effect on memory performance.
Some studies have shown that dividing attention during retrieval has little effect
on memory performance (Craik, Govoni, Naveh-Benjamin, & Anderson, 1996)
In-text citation rules:
Do not include first names, titles of the article, or page numbers.
If 2-5 authors: In text, separate authors by and and put year in parentheses; in
parentheses, separate authors by & and put year after comma
o If 3-5 authors: Cite all authors first time; all subsequent times, cite as surname of
first author followed by et al. and the year
o If 6 or more authors: Cite all times (including first) as surname of first author
followed by et al. and the year
o
o
Authors Last name, First Initial
(and middle initial if provided)
Publication year
Title of article
Diamond, G., & Josephson, A. (2005). Family-based treatment research: A
10-year update. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry, 44(9), 872-887. doi: 10.1097/01.chi.0000169010.96783.4e
digital object identifier
Volume number
italicized
italicized
page numbers
Issue number, NOT italicized
Title of journal,
Stylistics: Things you need to know
1 margins
12 point font
Double-spaced
Times New Roman, preferably
This is expository writing; use formal language
Stylistics: Language
clear: be specific in descriptions and
explanations
concise: condense information when
you can
plain: use simple, descriptive
adjectives and minimize figurative
language
Websites with information on APA
Style:
-http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
Resource from Purdue University
-http://www.apastyle.org/
APAs website on APA Style
-http://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/index.aspx?imw=Y
FAQ, part of APA Style website
- http://www.apastyle.org/learn/tutorials/basicstutorial.aspx
APA Style tutorial
-http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/apa.html
-http://www.lib.unc.edu/instruct/citations/apa/
UNC has several websites with APA style tips