A Guide to APA Format

By

Russ Dewey

[Revised and edited by John K. Adams]

[This page is a summary of rules from the APA Publication Manual. The version you are reading was revised 10/10/96 and was edited and revised again on September 5, 2000 with Bill Scott of the College of Wooster. I have made every effort to keep this document accurate, but readers have occasionally pointed out errors and inconsistencies which required correction. I am grateful to them and invite additional feedback. This document may be reproduced freely if this paragraph is included. --Russ Dewey, rdewey@gasou.edu]

[Note: On 03/03/2002, John K. Adams, Department of Psychology, Montclair State University edited this article extensively, and revised it to accord with the Fifth Edition of the APA Publication Manual.]

APA Manual RULES

Citations (giving credit in text)

• Use a name-date format, as follows:
• For single-author citations, use the following format: “As Smith (1990) points out…” or “A recent study (Smith, 1990) shows that…”
• For two-author citations, spell out both authors on all occurrences: “Smith and Jones (1990) determined…” or “One study (Smith & Jones, 1990) examined…” (Note the “&” for brevity within parentheses.)
• For multiple-author citations (up to five authors), name all authors the first time, then use “et al.” For example, the first time it would be “Smith, Jones, Pearson, and Sherwin (1990)”; but the second time it would be “Smith et al. (1990).” Be sure to put a period after "al" and do not use italics.
• For six or more authors, use “et al.” the first time, but be sure to list all authors in References section entry.
• If two or more multiple-author references shorten to the same "et al." form, give as many author names as necessary before et al. to make them distinct. For example, use “Smith, Jones, et al. (1991)” and “Smith, Burke, et al. (1991)” in the same paper.

Abbreviations

• In general, unless a given term is heavily used in the paper, avoid abbreviations.
• Define what an abbreviation means the first time it occurs.
• Do not use the “old-style” abbreviations for subject, experimenter, and observer (S, E, O).
• The following Latin abbreviations are desirable, but they should only be used within parentheses:
• (cf. …) means compare
• (e.g., …) means for example
• (…, etc.) means and so forth
• (i.e., …) means that is
• (viz., …) means namely
• (… vs. …) means versus
• Use abbreviations for measurement units, but use them without periods (lb, ft, s) except inches (in.).
• When using standard abbreviations for measurements, like m for meter, do not add an s to make it plural (e.g., 100 seconds is simply100 s, and 50 meters is simply 50 m).

Capitalization

• Capitalize the formal names of tests (e.g., “the Stroop Color-Word Interference Test”).
• But do not capitalize generic names of tests (e.g., “a Stroop color test”). Note: "Stroop" is a person’s name, so it remains capitalized.
• For the title of your paper, capitalize the first word and all major words. But for titles in References entries, see last section.
• Capitalize names of conditions, groups, effects, and variables only when they are definite. (Group A was the control group; the Age x Weight interaction is significant…)
• Capitalize a noun before a number when the combination is used as a name (e.g., Trial 2, Type 1 error).
• Do not capitalize names of laws, theories, and hypotheses (e.g., the law of effect, relativity theory).
• Do not capitalize when referring to generic entities (e.g., “an introductory psychology course”).

Commas

• Use commas between all members of a series (e.g., “…height, width, and depth”).
• Use commas to set off a reference in a parenthetical citation (Patrick, 1993).
• Use commas for simple seriation within a paragraph or sentence. For example, "The three choices are (a) true, (b) false, and (c) don't know." But use semicolons for more complex seriation where there are commas within the seriated items. For example, “The three choices are (a) true, signifying confirmation of the statement; (b) false, signifying denial of the statement; and (c) don’t know, signifying an inability to appraise the statement.”
• Use commas in exact dates, for example, April 18, 1992 (but not in April 1992).

Hyphenation

• Turn hyphenation “off” in your text editor (i.e., leave the right margin “ragged”).
• Do not hyphenate adverbs and superlative words (e.g., widely used test, best informed students).
• Do not hyphenate common prefixes (e.g., posttest, prewar, multiphase, nonsignificant) unless needed for clarity (e.g., pre-existing).
• Do not hyphenate foreign prefixes, or names using letters or numbers (e.g., a priori hypothesis, Type A behavior, Type 2 error) or when the meaning is clear without it (e.g., least squares solution, heart rate scores).
• Do not hyphenate if a noun comes first (e.g., the therapy was client centered, the results of t tests).
• But do hyphenate compound adjectives that precede nouns (e.g., client-centered therapy, t-test results) unless the compound adjective involves a superlative (e.g., best written paper).
• Hyphenate typical adjectival phrases (e.g., role-playing technique, high-anxiety group, two-way analysis).
• Hyphenate if the words could be misunderstood without a hyphen (e.g., re-pair, un-ionized, co-worker).
• If in doubt, consult a recently published dictionary. Standards change. For example, "data base" is now "database," and "life-style" is now "lifestyle."

Italics

• Use italics in References entries for: titles of books, names of journals, and volume numbers.
• Also italicize letters used as statistical symbols, biological species names, new terms and labels (the first time they are used), and words or phrases used as linguistic examples.
• Do not italicize common foreign phrases or abbreviations (e.g., vice versa, a priori, et al.).

Numbers

• Spell out common fractions and common expressions (one-half, Fourth of July).
• Spell out numbers beginning sentences (Thirty participants were selected...).
• Use numerals for numbers 10 and above, or when lower numbers are grouped with numbers 10 and above (e.g., from 6 to 12 words were presented).
• Spell out numbers that are below 10, and not the result of measurement, and not grouped with numbers over 10 (e.g., one-tailed t test, eight items, nine pages, three-way interaction, five trials).
• Use numerals for numbers that represent scores, measurements (e.g., “…was 4 cm”), or that otherwise involve units (e.g., “…was 5 years later”), or that represent calculation (e.g., “…was multiplied by 4”), or that represent statistical values or parameters (e.g., “F(1, 23) = 1.0”).
• To make plurals out of numbers, add s only, with no apostrophe (e.g., the 1950s).
• Ordinal numbers follow the same rules as cardinal numbers (e.g., “the first item of the 75th trial”).
• For clarity, use combinations of written and Arabic numerals for back-to-back modifiers (five 4-point scales).
• Use combinations of numerals and written numbers for large sums (over 3 million people).

Quotations

• Avoid them. Your reader is almost always better served by paraphrasing.

Miscellaneous: Slashes, parentheses, singulars and plurals.

• Do not use "and/or." In English, “or” is inclusive. For example, “Monday or Tuesday” means "Either Monday or Tuesday, or both." Therefore, if you need added specificity for some reason, just write, "Monday, Tuesday, or both.”
• Use parentheses to introduce an abbreviation, for example, “…the galvanic skin response (GSR).”
• Learn the singulars and plurals of words you might need to use: One “appendix” and two or more “appendixes” (not appendices); one “datum” and two or more “data”; one “matrix” and two or more “matrices” (not matrixes); one “phenomenon” and two or more “phenomena”; and one “schema” and two or more “schemas” (not schemata).

References section

Alphabetizing

• Alphabetize References entries by surname of sole author or first author. Note that single-author citations precede multiple-author citations having the same first author (e.g., Zev, 1990 comes before Zev et al., 1990). If all authors are the same, arrange by date; if even the dates are the same, see the Manual.
• Use prefixes in alphabetizing names if commonly part of the surname (De Vries).
• Do not use "von" in alphabetizing (Helmholtz, H. L. F. von).
• Treat Mc and Mac literally; Mac comes before Mc.
• Disregard apostrophes and capitals in alphabetizing; D'Arcy comes after Damon.
• Alphabetize corporate authors by first significant word. Do not use abbreviations in corporate names.

Formats

An entire chapter of the Manual is devoted to the References section of the manuscript. The following are examples of the most commonly used entries.

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 Behavior Processes, 9, 14-30.

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 the 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)

Note: In text this would be cited as: “Freud (1923/1961)”.

Group or institutional authors:

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

Magazine article:

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