APA Style & Citations For Dummies

Joe Giampalmi

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781119716457
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Writing & Presentation Skills

Write right in for scholarly success

While world-renowned for the precision and clarity it lends to scholarly writing, keeping track of APA style's exacting standards can be demanding (at times even excruciating!) for initiates and seasoned writers alike. Created and governed by the American Psychological Association, it provides a universal style for formatting, citations, and footnotes in psychological research, behavioral and social science journals, and beyond. Getting up to speed is tough stuff, but once you've got it, your work will have that easy-to-follow scholarly authority that will get high marks from your professors and peers alike.

Your friendly, frustration-free guide for this adventure in simplifying APA style is Joe Giampalmi, who has taught more than 100 APA-style composition courses to college students. He takes the pain of following APA style away by breaking it down to its essential elements and focusing on the important stuff students encounter most. You'll work through specific, real-life examples of using APA style for psychology, criminology, business, and nursing papers. In addition to demystifying the intricacies of formatting and citation, APA Style & Citations For Dummies has got you covered in all matters of grammar and punctuation—as well as guidance on how APA style can help you negotiate issues around the ethics of authorship and the importance of word choice in reducing bias.

• Develop conciseness and clarity
• Pay attention to flow, structure, and logic in your writing
• Know when, why, how, and what to cite
• Keep your writing ethically conscious and bias-free

Writing in APA style is something that almost all students will need to do at some point: APA Style & Citations For Dummies is a must-have desk reference to know how to win the approval of your professors—and earn the marks you need for success!

Part 1

Conforming to Standards: APA and the Academic Environment

IN THIS PART …

Discover the storied history of the American Psychological Association (APA) that shaped today’s guidelines for academic writing, research, and documentation in almost every academic field — and resulted in APA becoming the leader among its peers.

Examine grade-influencing differences between APA’s sixth and seventh editions that affect title page design, page layout, citations, and references.

View side-by-side comparison charts of APA and MLA that reveal subtle game-changing differences for students transitioning documentation styles.

Apply lessons from adversity that will help you master APA, improve your writing, and succeed in college.

Read APA and college-adapting advice for nonnative English-speaking students confronted with cultural differences and language-barrier challenges.

Avoid habits highly conducive to plagiarism such as super citations, citation procrastination, and conditional common knowledge — and read a professor’s perspective on plagiarism.

Motivate yourself by visualizing your college graduation day protocol: faculty procession, academic regalia, tassel toss, and “Pomp and Circumstance.”

Chapter 1

Capitalizing on Consistency: APA and the Academic Classroom

IN THIS CHAPTER

Getting to know the APA

Positioning APA among leaders

Crossing the curriculum with APA

Studying English and APA as an add-on language

The hours you commit to studying APA style and citations, working on research and writing, and completing your required readings moves you days closer to achieving your academic goal of earning your college degree.

Congratulations on the academic success you achieved to date and your hard work that positions you toward earning your college degree in the near future. Your degree will change your life and your family’s future, especially if you’re a first-generation college graduate. Your school success has been punctuated with accomplishments and milestones such as the following:

• Navigating your first day of school without your parents
• Reciting the alphabet
• Learning to read and write
• Meeting your first forever best friend
• Experiencing your first love and first heartbreak

You also survived fractions and decimals, school lockers, middle school hallways, social media embarrassment, and getting lost your first day of college classes. Some of you may even have attended the wrong class on the first day of college, but you survived the obstacles.

Today you face another challenge on your educational expedition: studying and implementing a documentation style that credits, formats, and organizes writing projects consistent with standards in your field of study. You (more likely your professor) chose the American Psychological Association (APA) style and citation guide and not Modern Language Association (MLA) or Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS) because you’re studying a social science subject such as sociology, political science, anthropology, linguistics, education, business, or communications.

Although MLA and CMoS also offer a high-quality documentation style, APA continues to grow as the documentation style of choice among academic institutions today.

Familiarizing yourself with APA and any documentation style, less challenging than navigating middle school hallways, can cause you some frustration but will eventually hardwire your brain for user-friendly access to standardize, organize, and document your academic papers. And mastering APA will make you feel as proud as surviving AP English.

Consider this chapter your jumping-off point to the APA. Here I explain a brief history of APA, the importance of documentation, and APA’s position among other documentation styles. I also offer advice for non-native language students who face the challenge of APA along with the most challenging skill for the brain — writing in a second language.

Understanding APA and Academic Standards

APA, the world’s largest association of psychologists, establishes standards for scholarly writing in most of the social and behavioral sciences for academic writing style, citing sources, and formatting documents. More than a hundred years ago, APA established organizational consistency guidelines for professional scholars, undergraduates, and high school students who created papers for scholarly publication and classroom submission. APA’s style and citation guidelines set a standard for writing and reading academic documents as well as helping manage volumes of scholarship for academic writers and readers.

A documentation style, such as APA and MLA, standardizes crediting works of others, citing sources, listing references, and organizing documents from the title page to appendices. A consistent format guides readers through text with visual consistency, logical flow of headings, and systematic organization to retrieve sources on demand. Standardization also reduces bias when sources are presented. Documentation standards are as important as punctuation standards.

Your professor and university have competitive choices for a style and citation guide. They chose the publication manual (Publication Manual of the American Phycological Association, Seventh Edition) that sold millions of copies worldwide in multiple languages. APA’s popularity continues to grow across academic disciplines and universities. In addition to APA’s growth, it’s the only documentation style with its own For Dummies version. What more could you ask for?

The following sections focus on the role of the APA supporting research in the social sciences and beyond. An early internal conflict within the APA resulted in publishing its first style guide. Students today share responsibility to honor those academic standards that were established over a century ago.

THE ORIGIN AND PURPOSE OF APA

The American Psychological Association (APA) began with a few dozen psychologists who organized around 1900 for the purpose of promoting scholarship and standards among growing numbers of academicians in the social sciences. Like many groups of academicians passionate about their beliefs, pioneering APA members experienced an intellectual dichotomy between academic diversification and academic standardization. Some members believed APA should expand academic interests into other fields of scholarship beyond the social sciences. Other members believed APA lacked the intellectual maturity to expand and should first develop standards for their specialized interests at the time.

Proponents of standardization emerged, as well as an official seven-page writing and style guide. The purpose of the early style guide was to promote professionalism and help readers manage growing libraries of research materials.

Looking back from today’s perspective, both groups were right. APA expanded academically far beyond the social sciences, and its standards for academic writing, scholarly publishing, and citing sources ranks at the top of the industry.

Standardizing how you handle topics

The APA establishes standards that provide structure and meaning to a research document. Standards identify guidelines that are important and how to achieve them. Lack of stan...