Running head: FINISHING TIMES IN THE NEW YORK MARATHON
The Distribution of Finishing Times in the New York Marathon
Emily Parkins
Vesalius College
Author Note
Assignment 1 for STA101 Introduction to Statistics (Professor Luc Hens)
28 August 2014
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FINISHING TIMES IN THE NEW YORK MARATHON
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Abstract
An abstract is a summary of the paper. If the assignment consists of textbook problems,
you don't need an abstract. If the assignment is another type of paper, this is where you
summarize the paper, in maximum 120 words and one paragraph. Don't indent the
abstract.
FINISHING TIMES IN THE NEW YORK MARATHON
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The Distribution of Finishing Times in the New York Marathon
This is the format for problem sets or papers in my statistics courses, based on APA
style. To learn more about APA Style, consult Bullock, Brody, and Weinberg (2014, pp.
158-191), the writing manual from the core writing classes (HUM101 and HUM102)
(which includes an extended example). Use this document as a template. Repeat the title
when the main text starts (as above). Double space throughout. Use 1" (about 2.5 cm)
margins Use paragraphs to group sentences with related ideas. Indent the first line of each
new paragraph by ½" (1.3 cm).
If the assignment consists of exercises from Freedman, Pisani, and Purves (2007),
Write up your answer in short, declarative sentences. Write complete sentences.
Complete sentences minimally contain a subject and a verb. The answers I expect should
be much more elaborated than in the “Answers to Exercises” section in Freedman, Pisani,
and Purves (2007, pp. A-43--A101). Note that “pp.” means “pages”; the abbreviation for
“page” is “p.” Explain what you are doing, for instance by telling the reader which
formula or which technique you are using. Show your work.
APA style uses author-year citations, as illustrated in the previous paragraph.
Freedman, Pisani, and Purves (2007) is a citation in the author-year format. Sometimes
the author is an institutional author, the source has no date (n.d.), or the document you
cite is obtained from the internet. Verify the Central Intelligence Agency (n.d.) citation in
the list of references to see how APA Style deals with these issues.
Show your work. For assignments consisting of a series of short textbook problems
don't include an abstract. Start a new line for a new exercise:
Review Exercise 7 in Freedman, Pisani & Purves (2007, p. 988)
FINISHING TIMES IN THE NEW YORK MARATHON
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Don't leave a blank line between two subsequent paragraphs or exercises. Use face
in the header title and center the header title.
Some review exercises consist of several parts. Start a new paragraph for each part.
(a) Here you write the answer to part a. When you finished your answer to part (a)
start a new paragraph for part (b).
(b) Don't forget to indent when you start the answer to part (b).
If your paper runs over more than one page, you should have the page number in
the header, right-flushed, starting from page two. If you use this document as a template,
you don't have to do anything: the page numbers appear automatically.
Introduce a formula or equation with a short sentence, followed by a colon (:).
Indent each formula or equation by ½” (1.3 cm) by pressing the tab key. The next two
lines illustrate how to deal with formulas. The average age of the three children is:
(4 years + 7 years + 2 year)/3  4.3 years
The symbol means “approximately” and you should use it whenever you round a
number. In LibreOffice.org Write do: Insert > Special character > Font: Symbol. Then
select the “approximately” symbol (code U+2248) (Warning: if you opened this
document in a word processor that doesn't have the appropriate fonts included, the
symbol for “approximately” may incorrectly show up as “H”. Check the pdf-version to
see the correct symbol.) In English you use a point (.) to separate decimals (as in 3.14159
for pi), not a comma. The correct symbol for a multiplication is the multiplication
symbol “times” which looks like a sans-serif letter x) not * or the letter “x.” In
LibreOffice.org Write do: Insert > Special character > Font: Symbol. Then select the
“times” symbol (code U+00D7 (215)).
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Figures and tables are numbered, even if there is just one figure (figure 1) or one
table (table 1). They also have a descriptive title. Keep the caption (number and title) on
the same page as the figure or table. If you include a figure or a table, refer to it as
illustrated in the next sentence. Figure 1 shows that weight tends to increase with height.
A shorter way to refer to a figures is illustrated in the next sentence. A scatter plot shows
that weight tends to increase with height (figure 1).
Start a new page for the references section. The header (References) is centered; no
bold or italics. References have hanging indents: the first line of each citation is leftflushed, but subsequent lines of each citation are right-indented by 1/2” (1.3 cm). The
references are ordered alphabetically by author.
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References
Bullock, R., Brody, M., & Weinberg, F. (2011). The Little Seagull Handbook (5th ed.).
New York and London: W. W. Norton.
Central Intelligence Agency. (n.d.). The World Fact Book. Retrieved on 26 September
2012 from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
Freedman, D., Pisani, R, & Purves, R. (2007). Statistics (4th ed.). New York and London:
W. W. Norton.