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APA review for writers in the Doctor of Nursing Practice program Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6 th ed. Follow APA writing and formatting guidelines for preparing papers or articles to be published. Your instructor or department may change this slightly by having you tailor the format to that required by a specific journal. You also may have formatting exceptions as required by your instructor or department for selected pages of the article.
As you follow APA formatting instructions, remember that presentation of information is as important as the information itself. The rules governing how you present your written words allow readers to comprehend your arguments without ambiguity. Ambiguity and confusion in understanding are often caused by disordered or unorganized sentence and paragraph structure, and incorrectly formatted citations and reference entries.
Basic Organization Headings: Headings directly reveal the structure of your argument, the process of your thinking. Page numbers: Font and location on page. Running head: You need on all pages. Line spacing, paragraph indents, and block quote indents. Extra spaces after punctuation: Just use one tap of the space bar, not two. Most keyboarding instruction still says to tap twice. But you need not worry. Your rough drafts can be typed how you like, and to create the presentation copy, you will find-and-replace to eliminate all double spaces. Double line space throughout.
Headings 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Centered, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading: APA Requires Double Line Spacing Throughout, Including in Headings Left-aligned, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading Indented, boldface, lowercase heading with a period. Begin body text after the period. Indented, boldface, italicized, lowercase heading with a period. Begin body text after the period. Indented, italicized, lowercase heading with a period. Begin body text after the period.
Headings Note that heading levels 3, 4, & 5 are paragraph headings. When instructions say indented, this means the heading begins the paragraph and the remainder of the paragraph text follows the period at the end of the heading. The heading is formatted exactly according to the examples shown, and the text following the title is formatted as regular text.
Numbers The simple rule: Numbers 10 and above are figures, while numbers nine and lower are spelled out. Exception: Any number beginning a sentence is spelled out. This applies to cardinal numbers (1, 2, 3, etc., ) and to ordinals (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.). Exception to the exception: Numbers in abstracts of papers are always presented as figures. Format Note: Ordinal numbers do not use superscript (1st, not 1 st ). Exception: All quoted material is presented as is, and reference entry titles.
Numbers expressed as figures Statistics, mathematical functions, fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, percentiles and quartiles. Note also that numbers expressing percentage always use the % sign; e.g. 1%, 100%, 98.6%. Time, dates, ages, scores and points on a scale, exact sums of money, and numerals as numerals. Exception: Use words for approximations of days, months, and years. Numbers that denote a specific place in a numbered series, parts of books & tables, each number in a list of four or more numbers.
Numbers Continued The number formatting guidelines beginning on p. 111 cover many specialized uses of numbers and include exceptions to the rules on numbers. Subjects include commas in numbers, metric unit style, and presenting statistics and math copy.
Numbers Continued Remember slide #3? The presentation of information is important because it tells us clearly what you mean. Many of you will be presenting statistical data, so follow exactly the formatting as described in the APA manual. Look carefully, for example, at this equation, d = 0.65, and note the spacing. Similarly, probability is represented as, for example, p <.001. See sections 4.46 through 4.49 on pp. 118-124.
Numbers Continued And in all cases throughout, ensure you correctly format all symbols and abbreviations. See APA s Table 4.4 on p. 109 and Table 4.5 beginning on p. 119. Note that some abbreviations or symbols are presented in lowercase, some uppercase, some in italics, some in regular typeface your job is to use these symbols and abbreviations exactly as they are presented in the manual.
And while we re on the subject of abbreviations Acronyms and Initialisms Please read carefully the information on abbreviations beginning on p. 106, sections 4.22 4.30, including the rules for Latin abbreviations. The rules for using some unique abbreviations are mentioned elsewhere. For example, the rule for using U.S. as an abbreviation is found in the punctuation section, 4.02 Period. Note the emphasis on spacing between periods in initials and abbreviations. There is no spacing in certain classes of abbreviations.
Caution! In your presentation copy, make sure you examine the formatting of all punctuation (including, as the previous slide mentioned, periods), especially Hyphens and dashes Ellipses (formed by holding down ctrl + alt + period if you re using a PC). Ellipsis ending a sentence must include period (e.g.. ). Within the sentence there should be one white space before and after the set of three dots. Double and Single Quotation Marks and their use with other punctuation.
In-Text Citations and References All citations must have a corresponding reference entry and all reference entries must appear in text. The only exception is Personal Communication, which is noted in-text but not given a reference entry. Parenthetical matter is placed in alphabetical order by name of author. Attend to this carefully, especially when you have entries by multiple authors. Example: (Barend, Dubrovnik, & Lassy, 1989; Mentzer, 2007; Oscar, Hammerstein, & Abraham, 2009). Also attend carefully to punctuation and the spacing separating list items within parentheses.
Spelling of author names in text and in references must be exactly the same. Among the first actions carried out by an editor or reviewer is to compare these items and note any discrepancies. Many journals will quickly reject articles without exact correspondence between citations and references, and you are sure to earn a poor grade from your professors. You also must insert a citation and reference entry if you paraphrase. APA also recommends supplying page numbers for paraphrase, but not always. Print out and carry with you at all times Table 6.1 on p. 177 that shows how to format citations depending on number of authors. See next slide.
All references must be formatted correctly, including spelling of author names and titles of books, articles and other material. Publication information, too. You must be very finicky about punctuation, proper spacing, use of italics, and capitalization.
Be exacting in documenting sources, especially those from the Internet. Use the DOI if at all possible. See APA section 6.32 (pp. 189-192) for instruction how to format the information in your reference entries. DOI stands for Digital Object Identifier and is a collaborative system for embedding permanent links to information made available on the Internet. Many publishers now routinely supply a DOI, listed with the publication information on the title page of article. See table on the next slide for information how to discover a DOI if you do not already have one. Note also the particular formatting of the abbreviation in reference entries.
Before you do anything else, read Chapter 8, The Publication Process. More than anything, you are concerned with making a manuscript appropriate for presentation to academic and other professionals. Your professional document will be critically read, reviewed, and judged. If you review Chapter 8 first, then all preceding chapters of the book make sense in that they define a professionally prepared manuscript, one that is ready for publication.
What's the Purpose of Any Editorial Style? A style emphasizes consistent and accurate presentation of research. This is a consent activity: All authors agree to be bound by the rules of presentation and publication as defined by the stylebook. Why? Because you are presenting research data and you are buttressing your point of view on the research with references to the research work of other people. Other people's work, just like your own, is covered by copyright law.
A Quick Note About Copyright You own your work. Other people own their own work. The rules of this ownership are defined by U.S. copyright law. You do not use other's work, nor do other people use yours, without express permission, if the use is larger than fair use. Anytime you use other people's words, pictures, data, tables, figures, concepts, and so forth, you must follow with exact accuracy the guidelines of your editorial style. Quotes must be exactly what was written, including citations and errors in the cited material, and must be designated by quotation marks, correct intext citation, and accompanying reference entry. All changes to quotes must be noted. Follow the directions in Chapter 6 from the beginning through 6.10. Especially note how to use the ellipsis ( ).
Reminder on Crucial APA Concerns Complete reference entries and in-text citations. Basic format is author + date + title + publication information. (Covered in chapter 6, Crediting Sources, and chapter 7, Reference Examples.). Correctly formatted APA headings. Your headings are signposts that guide the reader through the map of your argument/presentation of research. Analogous to the function of the skeleton of your body, headings provide structure and coherence. Other APA manuscript style requirements: Pay close attention to Chapter 4, The Mechanics of Style. All word, sentence and paragraph level formatting instructions are here.
Reminder on Crucial APA Concerns Many times writers are not careful with quotations. When you copy a passage, you must leave it exactly as it is, including keeping citations in the passage, errors, and keeping punctuation and spelling exactly as it reads. You are allowed to note errors by adding (sic). You can omit sentences or words within quotes, indicating the omission with the ellipsis. APA also allows changes to initial letter of quote and to end of sentence punctuation. Read carefully chapter 6, esp. from the beginning through 6.10.
Reminder on Crucial APA Concerns Be very careful with all citations and references. All citations in text must have a corresponding and exactly the same reference entry. And vice-versa. Do not depend on reference tools software to always format your reference correctly. Even if the tool allows you to choose APA 6th edition, examine the formatting again once it is in your document. You will always find items to correct.
Reminder on Crucial APA Concerns Read the very interesting APA chapter 3. Especially Writing Style. Guidelines here can apply to most writing. Note especially the remarks under Precision and Clarity on anthropomorphism, attribution, and use of the editorial we.
Reminder on Crucial APA Concerns Use http://blog.apastyle.org/ APA style experts run this very helpful blog. They cover many of the more common problems encountered by writers. The blog has a searchable database and includes a link to the official APA site http://www.apastyle.org/ that in turn has several handy links to FAQs.