Welcome to the tutorial on APA basics. This tutorial is designed to help a student understand the elements of writing style as defined by the Publication manual of the American psychological association. For questions regarding APA rules not covered in this tutorial, direct reference to the publication manual is recommended. A supplement to this program is available within this tutorial suite, and can be accessed by clicking on the APA icon at the lower-left of this slide.
Writing papers numbers among the most stressful experiences in university and graduate education. Typically a large percentage of your class grade relies on an ability to communicate effectively through writing.
“Paper anxiety” is frequently due to a difficulty in getting your mind around what’s involved in actually writing a good paper. The tutorials in this CD suite correspond to the “four layers” of good writing: style, mechanics, organization, and content.
Style refers to the format and presentation of the paper; mechanics include essential skills of spelling, grammar, and punctuation; organization is about the structure and flow of thought in the paper; and content is another name for the substance of your writing, as well as the methods used to gather your information.
In this tutorial on APA basics, we will discuss four subtopics most frequently queried by students: How to format a document according to APA rules, how to make headings within the text, how to include citations from other sources, and how to display sources on the reference page.
For standard formatting of an APA paper using Microsoft Word 2007 …
Select “margins” under Page Layout …
… and choose 1” margins on all sides.
To open the page header, where your title fragment and page number will be, select Insert and Page Number.
For this example, we will place our header on the right-hand margin.
After the page number is set, type a 1-3 word fragment of your paper’s title, followed by 5 taps on your space bar.
The title page of an APA style paper has some key components with which you should be familiar. In the header of the page will be the 1-3 word fragment of your paper’s title, with the page number. (pause 3 secs)
A second component of an APA title page is called the “running head,” which is the particular title fragment that a publisher would use to identify your paper, should it be accepted for publication by a professional journal. Notice the display: your title fragment in the running head is all upper-case letters.
Then there is center-aligned section including your paper’s full title, your name, and your university affiliation – as shown here. Finally, with regard to the more technical details: your text should be 12-point font (preferably Times New Roman) and double-spaced throughout.
Our second subtopic is “headings,” which are levels within your paper to help orient the reader. Headings also function as an outline to reveal your paper’s organization – a very useful insight that we will revisit in the composition tutorial, since a well-developed outline is essential for a well-written paper.
The title of your paper, technically not considered a heading in its own right, is centered on the first line of text in upper and lower-case letters. Beneath the title will be your introduction, which has no heading of its own. At the university and graduate level, the complexity of your writing may require as many as 4 headings (APA actually allows 5), with each lower level corresponding to a more refined breakdown of your key point. As the different levels are illustrated here, be sure to notice specific requirements regarding text style, justification, case, and punctuation.
This magnifier shows how level four should be displayed – this one is unique, so pay special attention: Indented, italicized, on the first line of its paragraph, and followed by a period.
The proper inclusion of references and direct quotations from other sources is something you don’t want to ignore. These references and quotations are called “citations” or “parenthetical reference citations,” and mastering the correct way of displaying them in your paper will not only give your writing a certain respectability, it will also protect you from the dangers of plagiarism.
According to the APA Publication manual, titles of other works are to be italicized, written in upper- and lower-case letters, and followed by the publication year in parentheses.
Direct citations are to be displayed between quotation marks, followed by the author’s last name, publication year and page reference in parentheses. A variation on this style puts the author’s last name and publication year in parentheses prior to the quoted material, with a second set of parentheses around the page reference following up, as shown in the magnifier.
Direct quotations of 40 or more words need to be justified to the paragraph tab, double-spaced, closed with the original punctuation, and followed by the year of publication and page reference in parentheses. Notice that there is no additional punctuation after the parentheses – your writing simply starts again on the next line.
BE CAREFUL! Observing publication rules regarding proper citation protects the integrity of your paper as well as the works you are using. The penalties for plagiarism are serious, ranging from admonition, probation, suspension, to expulsion, and going so far as to revoke or deny a degree. For more information on plagiarism, please see pages 10 and 11 of the APA supplement in this tutorial suite.
It’s also important to know how to list your sources on your paper’s reference page. References are arranged alphabetically according to the author’s last name. An exception to this rule are works such as the APA publication manual itself, which was written and published by an authorship committee; in this case, the title of the work will determine its place in your list of references.
You may want to take some time to become familiar with these more common types of sources and how they are displayed.
Increasingly, a large number of literary references are being acquired via the Internet. When your source is an Internet-only publication (formatted in HTML or HyperText Markup Language), a special notation needs to be added to the actual reference, indicating the date you retrieved it and the search-path where it was found.
Here are some other common sources and their proper APA presentation on your reference page.
Multiple works by the same author will be arranged in chronological order according to the publication year. More than one work by the same author in the same year will be displayed alphabetically according to the first word in each title.
Once again, a quick-reference supplement is contained in this CD tutorial suite and can be accessed by clicking on the icon in the lower-left of your screen. For the proper display style of source types not illustrated in this tutorial, consult the supplement or, better yet, the latest edition of the publication manual itself.
Now that you have completed this tutorial on APA Basics, you may be interested in the other tutorials contained in this CD suite. Simply close this presentation and open a new tutorial from the Resources page.
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