APA Style Workshop Ji Hong Assistant Professor Educational Psychology Department

What is APA style?

APA Style originated in 1929, when a group of psychologists, anthropologists, and business managers sought to establish a simple set of procedures, or style rules, that would codify the many components of scientific writing to increase the ease of reading comprehension.

Why is APA style needed? Uniform style across journals and books helps readers to navigate and access material more efficiently. ◦ Clear communication ◦ Easy to read ◦ Easy to find information

Why is APA style needed? For example, without rules of style, three different manuscripts might use sub-test, subtest, and Subtest in one issue of a journal or book. Although the meaning of the word is the same, such variations in style may distract or confuse the reader. ◦ (In this case, subtest is correct APA style) The need for a consistent style becomes more apparent when complex material is presented, such as tables or statistics.

Who uses APA Style? Social Science ◦ Anthropology, Economics, Education, Management, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, Nursing, Social Work, Business, Criminology…etc. Other styles ◦ MLA: literature, arts, and humanities ◦ AMA: medicine, health, and biological sciences ◦ Chicago: history, non-scholarly publications

Contents of APA style 1. Writing for the Behavioral and Social Sciences 2. Manuscript Structure and Content 3. Writing Clearly and Concisely 4. The Mechanics of Style 5. Displaying Results 6. Crediting Sources 7. Reference Examples 8. The Publication Process

Reducing Gender Bias in Writing While you should always be clear about the sex identity of your participants, so that gender differences are obvious, you should not use gender terms when they are not necessary. Avoid using "he," "his" or "men" as generic terms applying to both sexes. Replacing "he" with "he or she," "she or he," "he/she," "(s)he," "s/he," or alternating between "he" and "she" are not recommended because they are awkward and can distract the reader. The pronouns "he" or "she" inevitably cause the reader to think of only that gender, which may not be what you intend.

Reducing Gender Bias in Writing Rephrase the sentence Use plural nouns or plural pronouns – this way you can use "they" or "their" Replace the pronoun with an article – instead of "his," use "the" Drop the pronoun – many sentences sound fine if you just omit the troublesome "his" from the sentence Replace the pronoun with a noun such as "person," "individual," "child," "researcher," etc.

Can I use “I” or “We”? Use a personal pronoun rather than the third person when describing steps taken in your experiments. ◦ We reviewed the literature. ◦ The authors reviewed the literature.

Passive voice or Active voice? Use the active voice rather than the passive voice. ◦ We conducted the survey in a controlled setting. ◦ The survey was conducted in a controlled setting.

Past tense or Present tense? Use past tense to express an action or a condition that occurred at a specific, definite time in the past, as when discussion another researcher’s work and when reporting your results. ◦ Schutz (2000) presents similar results. ◦ Schutz (2000) presented similar results.

Plural or Singular? Nouns of foreign origin that end in the letter a. ◦ The data indicate that Terrence was correct. ◦ The data indicates that Terrence was correct. ◦ The phenomena occurs every 100 years. ◦ The phenomena occur every 100 years.

Reference Examples Articles ◦ Aultman, L. P., Williams-Johnson, M. R., & Schutz, P. A. (2009). Boundary dilemmas in teacher-student relationships: Struggling with “the line”. Teaching and Teacher Education 25(5), Books ◦ Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

Additional Sources APA Publication Manual APA 6 th Edition Free Tutorial ◦ tutorial.aspx tutorial.aspx OU Writing Center ◦