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APA in a Nutshell
GENERAL NOTES:
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Times New Roman is now the only accepted font style for APA
Spacing after Punctuation Marks:
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Space twice after punctuation marks at the end of a sentence (p. 88)
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Still use 1 space after commas, colons, and semicolons; after periods separating parts
of a
reference citation, and after periods in a personal name (I. B. Smith).
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APA formatting, used in the College of Education (and other social sciences departments)
allows us to give credit to the authors who have influenced our thinking and writing and
allows our readers to locate our references for their own research. There are two kinds of
documentation in your papers:
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The first kind of documentation deals with the way you give credit to someone else’s
thoughts, ideas, or work within the text of your paper.
The second kind of documentation is the reference list, or bibliography, at the end of
your paper which gives complete bibliographic information about each of the
sources you used.
First kind of documentation: Documenting sources within the text
When you refer to an author’s thoughts or ideas or work in your writing, you need to credit
them. The way you do that is to make sure that the author’s name/s and the date of the
work are included. These go inside parentheses and are referred to as parenthetical
documentation.
Author’s Names: When you mention an author by name, you need to put the year of the
work right after the author’s name. For example: When Rosenblatt (1938) first mentioned
the term transaction she was using a term from her mentor, John Dewey.
When you mention a person’s idea, but not their name, you refer to the author and the date
of the work at the end of the sentence. For example: Readers transact with texts based on
their personal and cultural histories (Rosenblatt, 1938).
When you are referring to a book with two authors, include both names in the citation, e.g.
(Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993).
If the work has three or more authors, you need to mention all of the author’s names the
first time you refer to their work. For example: (Veazey, Lassey, Goodman, & Wilhelm,
2004). However, the next time you refer to the same work, you only have to write the first
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author’s name and follow it with the term et al. For example: Teachers’ concerns for using
retrospective miscue analysis often reflect their inexperience with it (Veazey et. al. 2004).
Quotations: Use quotes sparingly to clarify points you’re making. Be careful not to plop
them in the middle of paragraphs. Lead in or out of quotes with your own words.
When you use a direct quotation, you need to mention the name of the person as well as the
page number where you found the quote. For example: Rosenblatt (1938) said, “There is
no such thing as a generic reader” (p. 65).
Direct Quotes from Online Material without Pagination
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New APA guidelines use “para” instead of the symbol ¶ to indicate location of
direct quotes
of online sources that do not have pagination.
Example:
Basu and Jones (2007) went so far as to suggest the need for a new “intellectual
framework in which to consider the nature and form of regulation in cyberspace”
(para.4).
Display a quote of 40 or more words in a freestanding block of typewritten lines, and omit
the quotation marks. Start block quotations on a new line and indent the block about ½
inch from the left margin. The entire quote should be double-spaced. For example a block
quotation might look like this in someone’s paper:
As Noddings (2004) explained in her article:
When I interned in a third-grade classroom, I was so impressed with the
way the children conducted their literature studies. They came to each
session with questions, illustrations, and comments that they had marked in
copies of their book with post-it notes. They were engaged with the story and
couldn’t wait to start their discussions. (p. 24)
Quotes from electronic sources: When you are using quotes from an electronic source, you
also include the author’s name and the year. However, since many electronic sources do not
have page numbers, use a paragraph number. For example: (Myers, 2000, para. 5) or
(Beutler, 2000, Conclusion section, para. 1).
Ellipsis points: Use them when you leave words or phrases out of the middle of a quote
because those words or phrases aren’t particularly important to your point (3 dots with a
space between each . . .)
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Haight (2005) explains that “understanding the value of diverse practices from
community settings . . . can help us strengthen the teaching of all children” (p. 2).
The ORIGINAL QUOTE was: “understanding the value of diverse practices from
community settings – in this case, in Sunday School – can help us strengthen the teaching of
all children”(p. 2) I used ellipsis points instead of the words, “in this case, in Sunday
School.” Those words weren’t important to my point.
Don’t use ellipsis points at the beginning or end of quotes, only in the middle. So, DON’T do
this: “. . . diverse practices from community settings” OR this: “diverse practices from
community settings . . .”
Second kind of formatting: Reference Lists (aka bibliographies):
The second kind of documentation that you need to include is a list of all of the references
to other people’s ideas, thoughts, or works that you made within your paper. Your reference
list contains the complete bibliographic information for the sources that you mentioned
parenthetically in the text, so that your reader can locate the pertinent information about a
book, article, or electronic source, etc. that you mentioned in your paper. Reference lists are
put at the end of a paper and are organized in alphabetical order by authors’ last names (or
title when there is no author).
Titles: Notice that all titles are italicized, only the first word of a title is capitalized as well as
the first word after a colon in the title. The only other exception is that proper nouns are
capitalized, too.
Britten, P. (2008). The chattering classes: Media in the United States. New York:
Atheneum.
Book with no author: Start with the first significant word in the title, i.e. omit first words
like The, A, An.
Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.) (2001).
Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
Books with one author:
Jewett, P. (2004). Children’s literature of South Carolina: A Compendium. New York:
Scholastic.
Books with more than one author:
Agosin, P., Veazy, A., & Brinson, J. (2004). Challenges of teaching the classics to
secondary students: How to connect student concerns to the canon. Portsmouth,
NH: Heinemann.
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Edited books:
Ferguson, T. & Ford, K. (Eds.). (2004). How to incorporate enactment strategies in the
secondary English classroom and maintain your cool while being cool. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Chapter in an edited book:
Hollender, P. (2004). Questioning and enacting strategies for elementary readers: A
question of stripes. In T. Ferguson & K. Ford (Eds.), How to incorporate
enactment strategies in the secondary English classroom and maintain your cool
while being cool (pp. 309- 330). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Journal articles:
Lentz, S. (2004). Lake Wobegone as humorous entry to the classics. English Journal,
45(2) 15-30.
Journal articles with two (or more) authors:
Osborn, B., Veazey, A. & Parker, A. (2005). Bringing literature to the social studies
curriculum in elementary and middle school classrooms: A teacher research
study. Language Arts, 55(4), 36-54.
FOR ALL ELECTRONIC SOURCES:
NEW DOI RULES: Digital Object Identifiers
The biggest change in the new APA guidelines involves citing online periodicals in the
reference section. New guidelines have added the digital objective identifier (DOI) to the
citation. A DOI is a unique string of numbers assigned by a registration agency (the
International DOI Foundation) to online periodicals to identify their content and provide a
consistent link to their location on the Internet (refer to sections 6.31 and 6.32, pp. 187-192;
and section 7.01, pp. 198-205, APA, 2010). New format states
— when DOI is present, no longer have to include URL
— when DOI is not present, include URL
When DOI Is Present
General format:
• Author, A. A. (date). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume(number), page numbers.
o doi: xx.xxxxxxx
• Example:
Herbst-Damm, K. L., & Kulik, J. A. (2005). Volunteer support, marital status, and the
survival times of terminally ill patients. Health Psychology, 24, 225-229. doi:
10.1037/0278-6133.24.2.225
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When DOI Is Not Present
General format:
• Author, A. A. (date of publication). Title of article Title of Journal, volume(number),
page numbers. Retrieved from URL
Example:
• Sillick, T. J., & Schutte, N. S. (2006). Emotional intelligence and self-esteem mediate
between perceived early parental love and adult happiness. Applied Psychology,
2(2), 38-48. Retrieved from http://ojs.lib.swin.edu.au/index.php/ejap
Other Changes for Online Periodicals on Reference Page:
• no longer include retrieval date unless source information may change over time
• no longer include databases used such as EBSCO or ProQuest
Formatting Your Paper
Formatting questions
APA also includes directions for formatting your writing. It guides the writer with
questions like:
DO I NUMBER THE PAGES? Yes, in the top right corner of each page, but not on p. 1.
DO I DOUBLE SPACE? APA says to double space your paper – including indented
quotations of over 40 words and in charts.
Headings (pp. 62-63):
APA also gives writers a way to organize their writing with headings. Headings are very
important ways for you to lead your reader through the organization of your paper since
headings organize your ideas and subordinate ideas. You'll find that they will help you, too,
with organizing your writing.
BOLDFACE is now used in headings rather than italics.
Level 1 headings are used for major sections of papers. They are centered in boldface with
all major words capitalized. There is no punctuation after a Level 1 heading.
Level 2 headings are used for subsections of Level 1 sections of papers. The heading is
flush left, in boldface, with all major words capitalized. There is no punctuation after a Level
2 heading. Text starts on the next line, indented in five spaces.
Level 3 headings are subsections of Level 2 sections. Level 3 headings start indented five
spaces, like a new paragraph, in boldface. Only the first word of the heading, first word of
subtitle (if subtitles are used), and proper nouns are capitalized. Level 3 headings end with a
period. Regular text follows the heading (refer to Table 3.1, APA, 2010, p. 62). Example
follows.
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METHODOLOGY (Heading 1)
Participants (Heading 2)
My participants were three boys from my fifth grade class, Tom, Patrick, and Javon.
(All names are pseudonyms.) I chose them because xxxx, xxxxx, xxxxx, and xxxxx.
Setting (Heading 2)
I had two settings for this study. Since I wanted to answer my question about what
happens when struggling fifth-grade readers “buddy read” with first graders, I chose to
collect data in the first grade classroom when the boys were working with their younger
reading buddies and also in our fifth-grade classroom during our reading block.
Setting one. (Heading 3) The fifth grade classroom was a single-gender classroom of
boys. There were x number of boys in the class, and the XXXX reading program was being
used as well as supplemental texts in our classroom library for independent reading.
Setting two. (Heading 3) The first grade classroom was our second setting. There
were x number of first graders, and they were learning to read using texts the teacher chose
that had simplified language, many illustrations, and stories that she believed would be
engaging to her young readers.
Data Collection (Heading 2)
My whole class engaged in the buddy reading project with the first graders. However,
to help me answer my question about what would happen when these three specific fifth
grade boys had the opportunity to “buddy read” with the first graders, I transcribed audio
tapes of their reading sessions in the first grade classroom. Additionally, I took field notes
while my class visited the first graders. I conducted formal interviews with the three boys
about their literacy histories and informal interviews with them based on what I observed in
the first graders classroom and in our classroom.