1. APA Manuscript Elements
Psy 321/L
February 28, 2011

2. Title Page The title page includes 5 elements: Title Running Head
Author Byline
Institutional Affiliation
Author Note

3. Title The title should be: typed in uppercase and lowercase letter,
A title should summarize the main idea of the manuscript.
The recommended length for a title is no more than 12 words.
The title should be:
typed in uppercase and lowercase letter,
centered between the left and right margins,
and positioned in the upper half of the page.

4. Running Head The running head is an abbreviated title.
It is printed at the top of the pages of the manuscript to identity the article for readers.
Should be a max of 50 characters, counting letters, punctuation, and spaces between words.
It should appear flush left in all UPPERCASE letters at the top of the title pages and all subsequent pages (in the ‘header’ of the document).

5. Running Head continues
On the first page, the running head should be preceded with the words “Running head:”
On the subsequent pages, the words “Running head:” should not be before the actual running head.
Page number should be flush right on all pages in the header.

6. Author Byline (names) Preferred form:
First name, middle initial, last name.
Omit all titles (e.g. Dr., Professor) and degrees (e.g., PhD, PsyD, EdD).

7. Institutional Affiliation
The affiliation identifies the location where the author or authors were when the research was conducted.
Include a dual affiliation only if 2 institutions contributed substantial support to the study.
Include no more than 2 affiliations per author.
When an author has no institutional affiliation, list the city and state of residence below the author’s name.
The names of authors should be in the order of their contributions, centered between the side margins.
The institutional affiliations should be centered under the author’s name, on the next line
Example:
John G. Foster II and Roy R. Davis Jr.
Educational Testing Service, Princeton, New Jersey

8. Author Note Appears with each printed article to:
Identify each author’s departmental affiliation,
Provide acknowledgements,
State any disclaimers or perceived conflict of interest, and
Provide a point of contact for the interested reader

9. Author Note Cont. First Paragraph: Complete departmental affiliation
Identify departmental affiliations at the time of study for all authors,
Format: name of author as it appears in the byline, comma, department name, comma, university name, semicolon, next author name, and so on, and end with a period.
Second Paragraph: Changes of affiliation (if any)
To identify any changes in author affiliation subsequent to the title of the study use the following wording:
[author’s name] is now at [affiliation].

10. Author Note Cont. Third Paragraph Acknowledgements
Indentify grants or other financial support (and the source, if appropriate) for your study.
Acknowledge colleagues who assisted in conducting the study or critiquing the manuscript (not reviewers).
End this paragraph with thanks for personal assistance, such as in manuscript preparation.
Special Circumstances
If there are any special circumstances, disclose them before the acknowledgements in the 3rd paragraph.
For example, if the manuscript is based on data also used in a previously published report (e.g. longitudinal study) or a doctoral dissertation, state that information in this paragraph.

11. Author Note Cont.
Fourth Paragraph: Person to contact (mailing address, )
Provide a complete mailing address for correspondence. End this paragraph with an address and no period.
Place the author note on the title page, below the title, byline, and affiliation.
Center the label Author Note.
Start each paragraph of the note with an indent, and type separate paragraphs for the authors’ names and current affiliations, changes in affiliations, acknowledgements, and special circumstances, if any, along with the person to contact.

12. Author Note Example
Jane Doe, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; John Smith, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Chicago. John Smith is now at Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego. This research was supported in part by grants from the National Institute on Aging and from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jane Doe, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL

13. Title Page Example

14. Abstract
An abstract is a brief, comprehensive summary of the contents of the articles; it allows readers to survey the contents of an article quickly and, like a title, it enables persons interested in the document to retrieve it from abstracting and indexing databases.
Do not exceed the abstract word limit of the journal to which you are submitting your article
Word limits vary from journal to journal and typically range from 150 to 250 words.
When preparing your manuscript, begin the abstract on a new page and identify it with the running head or abbreviated title and the page number 2.
The label Abstract should appear in uppercase and lowercase letters, centered, at the top of the page.
Type the abstract itself as a single paragraph without paragraph indentation.

15. Abstract Example

16. Introduction
Start the Intro on a new page following the abstract (what would be Page 3)
Do not title the section Introduction, instead center the title of the paper using title case before the introduction section of your paper.

17. Section Headings Method Results Discussion Participants Materials
Procedure/Measurement
Results
Discussion

18. Section Headings Overview of Headings
All major headings are centered and title case. What is title case? Well, it means that each of the main words is capitalized (e.g., “Each of the Main Words is Capitalized”).
Subsection Headings
All subsection headings are left justified, bold, and title case. Notice there are no extra lines between headings and preceding or following paragraphs. All text is double-spaced.
Sub-sub headings. The sub-sub headings are (a) indented, (b) bold, (c) use sentence case
(i.e., only the first letter of the sub-sub heading is capitalized), (d) followed by a period. The text immediately follows sub-sub heading on the same line. By the way, these headings are actually not called “sub-sub headings”; I just like saying ‘sub-sub’.
I didn’t really have anything to say in this paragraph, but I wanted to show that the next paragraph would be indented as usual. So, with that in mind, blah blah blah.
Other Notes About Headings
You should try to avoid having only one subsection. It is best to have at least two subsections in any section. Otherwise, there is little reason to use a subsection heading.

19. Method Example

20. Results Example

21. Discussion Example

22. Footnotes
Footnotes follow the references section

23. Tables
Tables come after footnotes, but before figures.

24. Figures
Comes last in the manuscript