case studies). Objectivity in APA Style also obligates the writer to avoid biased language and to respect the power of language and labels.
APA Style necessitates an approach that respects and preserves the chain of evidence and how science builds on previous findings and refines theoretical explanations over time. An example is the citations an author uses to support claims made in scientific writing. When you see the flow of a sentence or paragraph interrupted by names and years in parentheses, this is the author giving credit for ideas—exemplified by someone writing about how to optimize teaching and learning (Gurung & Schwartz, 2009). Listing the last name of the author (or authors) and the year when the work was published provides evidence for the writer’s claim and makes readers aware of the continued refinement of theories from one scientist’s work to the next. Giving credit where credit is due also helps avoid plagiarism (see Chapter 5 for details on avoiding plagiarism). Taken as a whole, APA Style is one important component of what helps the author of a journal article—and, correspondingly, the research presented in it—reflect scientific objectivity.
For our purposes, APA format is what makes a journal article “look” scientific. APA format refers to the precise method of generating your article, manuscript, or term paper by using the rules set forth in the Publication Manual. When we refer to “APA format,” we mean the nitty-gritty details of how your written work will appear on paper: the margins, the font, when to use an ampersand (“&”) and when to use the word “and,” inserting the correct information in the top 1-inch margin of your paper, when to use numerals (“12”) and when to spell out numbers (“twelve”), how to format tables with only horizontal lines, and how citation styles in the text vary with the number of authors. These details address the appearance of an APA-formatted paper. And now, because APA has recently issued a new edition of its manual, you also need to make sure you understand whether your instructor wants you to write the paper in sixth edition or seventh edition APA format.
An EasyGuide to APA Style (4th ed.) is written for students who are learning to write in APA Style using APA format. Why not just rely on the “official” book, the seventh edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (hereafter known as the PM; APA, 2020)? The PM is not evil. And if your instructor thinks you should purchase it, then you probably should. But you should know that the PM was not written primarily as a guide to help students learn to write better. (That is the purpose of this book.) The PM was originally written to provide guidance to researchers on how to submit journal article manuscripts for consideration to be published in the scientific literature. However, it is clear that the PM has evolved into much more than an instruction set and is now a prescriptive collection of rules (format) and writing advice (style) aimed at facilitating and fostering scientific research. Could you actually use our EasyGuide as a replacement for the PM? We think so, but be sure to follow the advice of your instructors. After all, they are the ones who are reading, grading, and providing feedback. That said, beware the itty-bitty style guides that are often required for English composition or first-year writing classes. It may be nice to have one book with all the major styles in it, but books such as these often do not provide all the key information needed and, therefore, are rarely a good substitute for the real thing—or better yet, for a resource such as the one you now hold in your hands.
Here is an analogy to consider when thinking about the PM: The 2020 rulebook for Major League Baseball is 192 pages long; knowing the rules to baseball may be important to a baseball player, but just knowing the rules will not make you a better baseball player. However, if you add tons of baseball practice with feedback from knowledgeable sources (such as coaches, experienced players, books, and videos), you can become a better ballplayer over time. We want this book to be one of those knowledgeable sources you consult on a regular basis to improve your scientific writing throughout your undergraduate career. Combined, the three of us have taught for a long time and have read and graded thousands upon thousands of pages of student papers. We take you behind the scenes of writing and point out major common errors so you can avoid them. We have organized this book to make it easy to find the information students typically need to have when learning APA Style to write papers, which is sometimes not the case with the PM.
Why APA Style Anyway? Wasn’t MLA Good Enough?
Odds are you have already learned some of the rules of at least one other style guide, which may have been that of the MLA (Modern Language Association). It might have been in high school or even in a college-level English composition class, but you may have used MLA style if you wrote your papers with footnotes, if you had a bibliography or works-cited page at the end of your paper, or if you used op. cit. or ibid. in your referencing. The typical MLA method of citing involves listing the author followed by the page number where the information came from (compared with APA Style, which uses author followed by year published). So why APA format? Wasn’t MLA good enough?
It is hard to know with certainty why MLA style was not adopted for psychological writing. The Modern Language Association was founded in 1883 (MLA, 2009); the American Psychological Association was founded in 1892. However, the first “Instructions” to APA authors were not published until 1929, and the MLA Handbook is now in its eighth edition—formally known as the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (MLA, 2016). So, for whatever reason, separate style guides emerged—and there are many more (e.g., Chicago style; American Sociological Association [ASA] style; Turabian style; Modern Humanities Research Association [MHRA] style; and for newspapers, Associated Press [AP] style).
So where did APA Style and format come from? In the very first “Instructions in Regard to Preparation of Manuscript” (1929), a six-member panel recommended “a standard of procedure, to which exceptions would doubtless be necessary, but to which reference might be made in cases of doubt” (p. 57). On a less positive (but believable) note, the 1929 “Instructions” noted that “a badly prepared manuscript always suggests uncritical research and slovenly thinking” (p. 58). Whether fair or not, the quality of our writing reflects the quality of our thinking! Good science requires communication, and if we do not communicate well, even the best ideas in the world will not be understood by others. (Think about the professor who you know is brilliant but has a hard time communicating on a level any student can understand.)
Even though APA format may seem cumbersome to learn, once you are familiar with it, you will feel more comfortable with its conventions. If you have started to read journal articles and papers, you may notice that most, if not all, follow the same organization. The more articles you read, the more thankful you will be that each article is written in the same format and style. It really does make reviewing the literature much easier. We cannot imagine reading a journal article in which the Results section appears before the Method section (and that is not because we lack imagination or are geeks). By following (and relying on) APA Style and format, we provide readers scaffolding to process the complex ideas and information being presented. Ever watch a movie in which the sequence of events is shown out of order (e.g., multiple flashbacks)? Can you tell if something is foreshadowing or background information? Then the movie jumps again. Are we back to the present, or is this a peek into the future? Only once in a while does it work well. (Check out the movies Memento [Todd et al., 2000], Inception [Nolan et al., 2010], and David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive [Edelstein et al., 2001] for real mind-bending experiences). Following a sequence and order provides a framework for understanding what happened, what is happening, and what will happen.
In the Long Run, Attention to Detail Matters (Including APA Style and Format)
As you become familiar with the details of writing in APA Style and format, either through using this book alone or with the PM, you should keep two important points in mind. First, there will be times when you are frustrated by having to learn a “new” format, when MLA, Chicago, or another style was working just
