APA Cheat Sheet te.edu



A Helpful Guide for Learning APA Style: Tips, Tricks and Most Common Mistakes

Avery G. Student

Higher Education Administration Department, Buffalo State College

HEA618: Student Affairs Administration

Dr. Hermen Diaz

February 15, 2020

A Helpful Guide for Learning APA Style: Tips, Tricks and Most Common Mistakes

The following information is taken from the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition). This resource guide is designed to help you develop your APA formatting skills and to develop your academic style of writing. You’ll see above the proper formatting for a title page and here begins what a typical second page of a paper should look like in APA format. You should include your title at the top, but you do not need to write “Introduction” before the first paragraph of introductory text.

Headings

Headings can be a useful tool in academic writing. They can be used as an organizational tool for the writer, which will also provide clarity for the reader. There are several “levels” of headings; however, the first and second levels are most commonly used by students in this program. First level headings, such as the one above, are centered and bold.

Second Level Headings

You might use a second level heading in a larger paper in which a topic has multiple subtopics.

Third Level Headings are Rare

Most students will not have a need for a third level heading; however, examples are provided in order to see the contrast between a level 1 heading, level 2 heading, and a level 3 heading. For papers that might require additional levels of headings, please see the additional APA online resources below.

In Text Citations

One of the most important reasons we utilize APA formatting is to ensure we are properly attributing sources of information to the author, or in other words, to ensure we are not plagiarizing someone else’s work. APA style uses the author and date when citing sources in the narrative or text of your paper. If you include the author’s name in a signal phrase, as in example 1 below, you only need to include the year in parentheses immediately following the author’s name. If you do not include the author’s name in a signal phrase or in narrative, then you put the author’s name and the year in parentheses at the end of the text as noted in Example 2.

Example 1: Walker (2000) compared reaction times…

Example 2: In a recent study of reaction times…. (Walker, 2000).

One work by multiple authors:

If your article, book, or web site has 1 or 2 authors, you must use both authors’ name in your in-text citations.

…as has been shown (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1989).

If your work has 3 or more authors, you may cite the first author and then use et al, to indicate additional authors, even if it is the first time you have cited the authors’ work. You will list all of the authors in your Reference page.

Davis et al. (1999) found that…

According to the study (Davis et al., 1999),…

Work by a Group:

Spell out the full name of the group with the initial citation and then subsequent citations can simply use the abbreviated name provided in the first citation.

1st Citation: Engaging students in active learning is a critical factor in successful student affairs

practice (ACPA-College Student Educators International [ACPA], 1996).

2nd Citation: ACPA (1996) identified seven principles of good practice for Student Affairs.

Indirect or Secondary Source:

If you use a source that was cited in something you are reading, name the original source in your signal phrase. List the secondary source (the source that you are reading) in your reference list and include it in the parenthetical citation, preceded by the words “as cited in.”

In the example below, you have been reading the article written by Cotheart & Haller (1996), who cites McClelland’s work.

Example: McClelland’s study (as cited in Cotheart & Haller, 1996) examined…

In your References, cite the source you are reading, as you only put original sources you read in your References.

Coltheart, M., & Haller, M. (1996). Reading comprehension: Dual-route and distributed-processing techniques. Psychological Quarterly, 9, 589-608.

Lecture Notes:

Course lecture notes taken by a student are considered 'personal communication' as they are unpublished and 'non-recoverable'. For this reason, they are only cited within the text and not included in your References. For example, for a lecture given by N. M. Blampied:

Most institutions do not use a traditional budgeting process (N. M. Blampied, personal communication, May 5, 2011).

There would be no need to note Blampied in your references as no one could find the source, as it is unpublished

Direct Quotations

If you are paraphrasing someone else’s work, you simply do an in-text citation as noted above with no quotation marks or page numbers.

Research by Dugan (2012) suggests students who participate in service-learning experiences have greater gains in leadership outcomes.

If you are directly copying text, you must properly cite with quotation marks and indicate what page (if an article or book) or paragraph (if a web site) where the quotation came from.

Wilson and Kline (2012) noted that despite growing numbers of students in the program, “there remains an empty seat in every classroom” (p. 5).

“Large numbers of students are flocking to online course because they think they are easier than traditional seated courses” (Myers, 2000, ( 5).

Quotes More than 40 Words

You are encouraged to paraphrase more frequently than you use direct quotations. However, quotations of more than 40 words should be presented in block format with a five-space indentation on the left-hand side only (use the tab key). Start the quote on a new line and place the page reference after the terminal punctuation mark. Note that block quotes should retain the double-spaced formatting required by APA style.

Newcomb (1962) suggested that:

In so far as we are interested in what college experience does to students' attitudes we must,

because of the nature of attitude formation and change, be interested in the groups to which

students (wittingly or not) yield power over their own attitudes. (p. 479)

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is the art of rewriting another’s idea in your own words. This is a very

important skill and an effective writing strategy in academic writing. It will allow you to summarize and synthesize information from multiple sources and help you clarify your own understanding of the idea. You should strive to paraphrase more often than you directly quote.

You may cite a work that you paraphrase using the narrative or parenthetical formats as in the examples from above:

Walker (2000) compared reaction times…

In a recent study of reaction times (Walker, 2000)…

It is not required to provide page or paragraph numbers within the citation when you are paraphrasing a work. The exception to this rule may be if your source is a lengthy book in which a page number may help the reader locate the relevant content more easily. However, most of your citations will likely come from articles or independent chapters from a book in which a page number is not necessary when simply paraphrased.

References

You will not be creating a works cited page; it is simply your “References.” Please follow the tips below and the various examples as you prepare your references. This is not a comprehensive list of examples, as there are many resource types. The examples below are simply the most used sources in your coursework. If you are citing a source that you do not see an example of below, please reference one of the two websites listed at the end of this document for further assistance.

• Always double-space your reference list.

• Always indent the second and subsequent lines of a citation.

• Always arrange your reference list by the author’s last name.

• Only use the first and middle initials of the author’s name, do not type out the full name.

• Use the “&” symbol before the last author’s name, do not type out the word “and.”

• Always italicize the journal or magazine title and the volume number.

• Always italicize the book title.

• Only capitalize the first word, first word of a subtitle, or proper nouns in an article or book title.

Book with and without a DOI:

Author, A.A. (year). Title of book. Publisher.

Brown, L.S. (2018). Feminist therapy (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association.



Robinson, D.N. (1992). Social discourse and moral judgment. Academic Press.

Edited Book:

Hacker Hughes, J. (Ed.). (2017). Military veteran psychological health and social care:

Contemporary approaches. Routledge.

Book Chapter in an Edited Book without DOI:

Author, A.A. (year). Chapter title. In Editors (Eds), Book title (pp. xx-xx). Publisher. DOI.

O’Neil, J.M., & Egan, J. (1992). Men’s and women’s gender role journeys: Metaphor for

healing, transition, and transformation. In B.R. Wainrib (Ed.), Gender issues across the

life cycle (pp.107-123). Springer Publishing.

Journal Article with a DOI

Author, A.A. (year). Title of article. Title of Journal, Vol #(Issue #), pp-pp.

Kernis, M.H. (1993). There’s more to self-esteem than whether it is high or low: The

importance of stability of self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,

65(6), 1190-1204.

*If an article does not have a DOI, end the citation after the page range.

Journal Article without a DOI, with a non-database URL

If the journal article does not have a DOI but does have a URL that will resolve for readers (e.g., it is from an online journal that is not part of a database), include the URL of the article at the end of the reference.

Ahmann, E., Tuttle, L. J., Saviet, M., & Wright, S. D. (2018). A descriptive review of ADHD

coaching research: Implications for college students. Journal of Postsecondary

Education and Disability, 31(1), 17-39.

General Internet Sources:

Author, A.A. (date of last update). Site title. URL

*Provide as specific a date as is available on the webpage. This might be a year only; a year and month; or a year, month, and day. If no date is available, use (n.d.).

*Italicize the title of a webpage.

*When the author of the webpage and the publisher of the website are the same, omit the publisher name to avoid repetition (as in the World Health Organization example).

*When contents of a page are meant to be updated over time but are not archived, include a retrieval date in the reference (as in the Brockport example below).

Examples:

Archer, D. (1997, February). Exploring nonverbal communication.

The College at Bockport. (n.d.). Building a better Brockport: A strategic plan for the future

2017-2022. Retrieved February 9, 2020 from



American College Personnel Association. (2010, July 26). ACPA and NASPA

professional competency areas for student affairs practitioners.



Do not create a reference or in-text citation for a whole website. To mention a website in general, and not specific information on that site, provide the name of the website in the text and include the URL in parentheses. For example, you might mention that you used a website to create a survey.

Example: We created our survey using Qualtrics ().

Social Media References

While citations from social media may be rare in academic writing, the 7th edition of the APA manual does have proper considerations for citing Tweets, Blogs, and other posts. Please see the resources below for more information on how to cite social media and other resources.

General Grammar and Style Guides

Flexible Font Types

Arial 11

Calibri 11

Lucida Sans Unicode 10

Georgia 11

Times New Roman 12

New Usage of Singular “They”

• Use the singular “they”, instead of he/she, when the gender of the person is unknown or irrelevant.

• Use the singular “they” for people who use this pronoun.

• Promotes inclusivity and respect.

Punctuation

• Singular space after punctuation.

• Use quotation marks more broadly than italics for accessibility and inclusivity (electronic readers).

• Do not capitalize theories or concepts, i.e. psychosocial theory, cognitive theory. Do capitalize proper pronouns associated with the theory, i.e. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Astin’s involvement theory.

Active and Passive Voice

Strive for active voice as much as possible to create direct, clear, and concise statements.

• Active: “the patients took the medication orally”

• Passive: “the medication was taken orally by the patients”

Avoid Contractions and Colloquialisms

• Contractions (i.e. don’t, isn’t) – convey informal tone and detract from professional tone in academic writing

• Colloquialisms (i.e. gonna, practically all)– diffuse meaning and are interpreted differently by reader

Helpful Sources

If all else fails and you still cannot find what you need in this resource guide, please visit the following website and click on Style & Grammar Guidelines at the top to find a quick reference guide for most questions.

APA Style Guide:

Further examples can be found here within the sample student papers.

Sample Student Papers provided by APA Style Guide:

•

References

American Psychological Association. (2020). The publication manual of the American

Psychological Association (7th ed.). American Psychological Association.

-----------------------

Notice that the punctuation comes after the parenthesis, not within the quotes or after the quotes.

Notice here that the punctuation comes before the citation in parenthesis.

Note the period goes within the quotes in this sentence.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download