APA Style- Research
HEADINGS
No numbers for headings
First level: Heading should be bold, and in center: Uppercase and Lowercase heading
Level 2 onwards:
2: Left aligned, bold, upper and lower case
3: Indented, boldface, lowercase heading with period
4: Indented, boldface, lowercase heading with period
5: Indented, lowercase heading with period.
Not beyond 5 headings
Do not use the word ‘introduction’
Seriation: Use numbers for analysis, Use bullets for hierarchical order or chronology
STYLISTS
First person voice is preferred for reporting your results, single order- I, multiple order- We
Passive or Active Voice?
Expected you write in Active Voice (Research has been done) unless and until you cannot help passive (I
did Research)
Idea of research is to clearly communicate something, if people do not know where to pause the idea of
sentence completely changes, therefore use full stops to write shorter sentences
Your research should be so clear that even a high school person reads it if he/she understands the
complicated jargons
Choice of words: VERY CAREFUL, no biases created, should convey exact meaning of what you want to
say as different words are open to interpretation
Use words like: The evidence suggests, our research indicates; not our research proves, avoid strong
words
Avoid overly ornamental language, flowery words, poetic language. Try to keep tone of your work very
neutral
Adjustment to labels:
Avoid: e.g.: People with reservation as compared to general population.
Pronouns:
E.g. Whenever an individual is referred to its general practice to refer to Male Pronouns. Later people
became aware that it is discriminatory. Therefore, people started consciously including she or he/she
Instead of his, use the: Instead of asked for his book, asked for the book
FOOTNOTES/ END NOTES
If you’re using a particular term and you don’t want to define it right away so you put it in the end of the
page (footnote) or end of the paper (endnote)
Citation:
Intext Citation
How to write about different types of texts, documents etc. in the reference list
Author names:
Organization as author
-
Name of organization full (year)- first citation
Second Citation onwards – Abreviation allowed for organization
2 or more works by same author in same year- use lower case letters with year- Eg. Kondpalle (1998 a);
Kondpalle (1998 b)
Citing indirect sources
I’m writing a paper, I found an interesting argument in a paper- but that argument is from Arun’s paper
In my paper I’d have to cite it as argument by Arun (as cited in X’s paper)
Reference Lists
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
First line from margin
Second line indented ½ inch from margin ( Hanging Indentation)- can do this in Paragraph option
Authors name inverted- Surname first(full) next abbreviation of first name
Maintain punctualization and capitalization
Symbols used- mention what they are
Name of Journal,Book will be written in italics- easy way to differentiate between the 2
Authors
Type of literature:
9.
-
Journal
Magazine- Month along with year; same as Journal
Newspaper
Letter to editor
Books
Author (Year of publication). tile of book(italics). location of publishing: name of publisher
Any article you’ve retrieved online- Retrieved from and on