APA and Style Guidance: Top Tips and Common Errors
Publication Manual of American Psychological Association (Sixth Edition)
Guidance for DClinPsy Exeter Course Academic/Research Papers
Frequently Asked Questions, Common Errors and Top Tips
All submitted work as part of the DClinPsy should be written in accordance with
APA (6 th addition) guidance. Doctoral students should be writing according to this format as publishers now expect papers for submission to be presented in this way. It also is a useful discipline to practice and adopt as you will then be able to write clearly, professionally and academically whomever your target audience. The main problems appear to be;

Use of headers: You should follow APA guidance on use of headers. Do not use numbers or letters to seriate titles. However, in the text you can use numbers, letters or professionally acceptable bullets to seriate.

Tables/figures: You should follow APA guidance for the format for tables and figures. Tables/Figures must occupy one page only. Ask yourself if they are necessary or could the information have been included in the text. Don’t use too many in your paper. If making a comparison between data, place the data side by side and not underneath.

Formatting: Papers should be typed in double spacing and use an appropriately professional font e.g. Times New Roman.

Running header: APA requires that the paper has an appropriate selfexplanatory title and that each page has the title of the paper at the top left
(and the page number at top right).

Referencing/citing sources: APA should be followed for referencing both in the text and in the references list. You should use a hanging indent on the second line of each reference in the reference list.

Other: Generally, APA does not require contents pages but again this may make the paper easier to read.

Be economical in your expression and avoid redundant words but make sure you are clear, logical, orderly, precise and interesting. Please see APA manual p.65 for additional guidance on acceptable writing style.

Make sure you are familiar with the APA guidelines on plagiarism and that you always credit the appropriate source in the text. It is expected that you have read the original source where possible. Repeated secondary citations are not acceptable, e.g. “cited in Smith & Jones, 2004”.


Familiarise yourselves with the APA Manual (6 th Ed) or have a look at https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/10/ .
General Non-APA Guidance for Writing Reports
 Trainees tend to use the client/ family’s’ pseudonym repeatedly in a single paragraph. For example, “John did this. John then said that. We then asked
John about this etc” You only really need to use the name once and then use pronouns, unless doing so causes confusion as to who you are referring to.

Use scholarly/professional terminology only in your reports and avoid colloquialisms. Writing “we did some work around his distress” is not a specific psychological term and is not precise enough for your reader. Avoid
“flowery” language such as “I felt that” when giving your opinion. Avoid redundant words to save on your word count, e.g. “I talked to my supervisor about this and we decided to….” Replace with “After discussion with my supervisor…….” or “It was decided that………”

Imagine that you are writing for the courts! A piece of your written work could one day end up being read by a judge in a courtroom and/or by other non-clinical professionals or members of the public. Be careful when offering your opinion, make sure you clearly state that it is your professional opinion only and if appropriate back up your views with relevant theory, research and literature. If quoting a client or family member, make sure you source the quote. Use of diagnostic terms according to the ICD-10 or DSM-V criteria is encouraged by some NHS trusts but you need to make sure you are familiar with the criteria to be confident in the diagnosis or else be clear that it is a preliminary, tentative hypothesis or an atypical case.

If more appropriate, imagine that you are writing to a commissioner of services (who may know little about the technicalities, but is looking for value and effectiveness)! If you try this, you will soon be able to identify the redundant words/expressions, you will be clearer and more exact in your report about what you did, why you did it, if it worked and if not, what would need to change for it to be more effective. You will also learn to be concise, clear and specific in your writing.