American Psychological Association (APA) Style

American Psychological Association (APA) style

APA style generally refers to the editorial style that many of the social and behavioural sciences have adopted to present written material in the field.

Editorial style consists of rules or guidelines that a publisher observes to ensure clear and consistent presentation of written material. Editorial style concerns uniform use of such elements as:

punctuation and abbreviations
construction of tables
selection of headings
citation of references
presentation of statistics
as well as many other elements that are a part of every manuscript

The American Psychological Association has established a style that it uses in all of the books and journals that it publishes. Many others working in the social and behavioural sciences have adopted this style as their standard as well.

APA's style rules and guidelines are set out in a reference book called The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.

For a start, we will put more emphasis on APA’s system of citations in text and reference format

References
Reference Section
Double spaced, both within and between references?
Hanging indent format used (APA Style Manual page 299, 313-314)?
Listed in alphabetical order?
Journal article with more than six authors, add et al. after the sixth author’s name?
Journal title and volume number (including commas before and after volume number) in italic?
Issue number NOT included unless journal repaginated with each issue?
Page numbers included for chapters of edited books?
Capitalize only first word (and first word after a colon) of book titles and journal articles, as well as proper nouns?
Book title in italic?
Accurate spelling, date, title?
References in Text
Use ampersand in parentheses and the word "and" in text?
Use commas only for three or more authors?
Use both names for two authors?
For 3-6 authors, name them all the first time cited and use et al. thereafter?
For more than authors, cite surname of first author followed by et al.?
Article citations listed in alphabetical order within parentheses?
Article citations within parentheses separated by semicolons?
Within a paragraph, year NOT included in subsequent references to a study as long as the study cannot be confused with other studies cited in the paper?
Included initials of first author when two or more primary authors have same surname?
Added suffixes (a, b, c) to works by same author with same publication year?
Reference citations in text properly formatted (APA Style Manual pages 207-214)?
Accurate spelling and date?
Complete - every text citation also found in References section?
Exact agreement in spelling and dates between text and Reference citations?
The reference list includes only the sources used in the research and preparation of the paper and cited in the text. The reference list must be in one-to-one correspondence with the authors you mentioned in the text of your paper. Authors are responsible for all information in a reference. Accurately prepared references help establish your credibility as a careful researcher.

Reference Examples for Electronic Source Materials

Periodicals

71. Internet articles based on a print source

At present, the majority of the articles retrieved from online publications in psychology and the behavioural sciences are exact duplicates of those in their print versions and are unlikely to have additional analyses and data attached. This is likely to change in the future. In the meantime, the same basic primary journal reference (see Examples 15) can be used, but if you have viewed the article only in its electronic form, you should add in brackets after the article title "Electronic version" as in the following fictitious example:

VandenBos, G., Knapp, S., & Doe, J. (2001). Role of reference elements
/ in the selection of resources by psychology undergraduates [Electronic version]. Journal of Bibliographic Research, 5, 117-123.

If you are referencing an online article that you have reason to believe has been changed (e.g., the format differs from the print version or page numbers are not indicated) or that includes additional data or commentaries, you will need to add the date you retrieved the document and the URL.

VandenBos, G., Knapp, S., & Doe, J. (2001). Role of reference elements
/ in the selection of resources by psychology undergraduates. Journal of Bibliographic Research, 5, 117-123. Retrieved October 13, 2001, from

72. Article in an Internet-only journal

Fredrickson, B. L. (2000, March 7). Cultivating positive emotions to
/ optimize health and well-being. Prevention & Treatment, 3, Article 0001a. Retrieved November 20, 2000, from

74. Article in an Internet-only newsletter

Glueckauf, R. L., Whitton, J., Baxter, J., Kain, J., Vogelgesang, S.,
/ Hudson, M., et al. (1998, July). Videocounseling for families of rural teens with epilepsy -- Project update. Telehealth News,2(2). Retrieved from

Use the complete publication date given on the article.
Note that there are no page numbers.
In an Internet periodical, volume and issue numbers often are not relevant. If they are not used, the name of the periodical is all that can be provided in the reference.
Whenever possible, the URL should link directly to the article.
Break a URL that goes to another line after a slash or before a period. Do not insert (or allow your word-processing program to insert) a hyphen at the break.

Nonperiodical documents on the Internet

77. Stand-alone document, no author identified, no date

GVU's 8th WWW user survey. (n.d.). Retrieved August 8, 2000, from
/

If the author of a document is not identified, begin the reference with the title of the document.

78. Document available on university program or department Web site

Chou, L., McClintock, R., Moretti, F., Nix, D. H. (1993). Technology and
/ education: New wine in new bottles: Choosing pasts and imagining educational futures. Retrieved August 24, 2000, from ColumbiaUniversity, Institute for Learning Technologies Web site:

If a document is contained within a large and complex Web site (such as that for a university or a government agency), identify the host organization and the relevant program or department before giving the URL for the document itself. Precede the URL with a colon.

Other Electronic Sources

88. Electronic copy of a journal article, three to five authors, retrieved from database

Borman, W. C., Hanson, M. A., Oppler, S. H., Pulakos, E. D., & White,
/ L. A. (1993). Role of early supervisory experience in supervisor performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 443-449. Retrieved October 23, 2000, from PsycARTICLES database.

When referencing material obtained by searching an aggregated database, follow the format appropriate to the work retrieved and add a retrieval statement that gives the date of retrieval and the proper name of the database.

On-line Updates of APA Style Manual available at

Research Proposal

Research proposal is a framework designed to guide the researcher throughout the research process. It specifies what the researcher will do, how to do the research, and why the researcher is doing the research. Structure of the proposal includes the following:

1.1 Background to the study

This section may also be referred to as context of the problem. It acquaints the reader with the problem to be dealt with. A relevant context or a frame of reference for the problem is established through citation of relevant literature.

1.2 Statement of the problem

In one or two sentences, the statement of the problem should identify all major variables to be researched on in their conceptual form. The relationship of the variables to be investigated is stated, sometimes in question form.

1.3 Sub-problems/Research questions

These are questions which identify the nature of the research problem or the issue you wish to focus on. Research questions follow logically from the statement of the problem (the research problem)

There are three categories of research questions:

Descriptive questions ask what some events or phenomena are like, excluding results of experiments.
The difference questions look for differences between participants
The relationship questions explore the extent to which variables are related.

1.4 Hypotheses

Research hypothesis states the expected relationship between variables

(a) Hypotheses are used when looking for relationship or difference

(b) Statistical hypotheses are stated in two forms-directional and null.

1.5 Significance (or importance) of the study

This is an indication of the value or relevance of the problem both to practice andto theory. The potential benefits of the prospective or hypothesized findings are stated in this section.

1.6 Assumptions

Assumptions are statements of what the researcher believes to be facts but these cannot be verified.

1.7 Theoretical framework

This is a collection of theories and models from the literature which supports a positivistic research study:

The theoretical framework is a fundamental part of the positivistic type of research as it explains the research questions or hypotheses.

1.8 Delimitations off the study

Delimitation is also referred to as the scope of the study. It gives both conceptual and practical boundaries of the study

1.9 Limitations

Limitations are those conditions beyond the control of the researcher that may place restrictions on the conclusions of the study and their application to other situations.

1.10 Definition of Terms

Important terms especially variables are defined in operational terms, that is, they should either be observable or measurable.

Chapter 2: Review of related literature

Literature review is a written summary of the findings from sources of published data. Items to include are:

(a) The similarities and differences between your present study and studies done by other researchers;

(b)The weakness, short-comings and strong points of other studies;

*Use your research questions to develop subheadings for the chapter

Methods

3.1 Research design

This refers to the detailed plan for conducting a research study (Hussey and Hussey 1997:183) is the plan for the study providing a framework for collecting data (Leedy 1980).

3.2 Participants

This concern the size and major characteristics of the sample or population being studied.

There are various ways of getting data which include interviews mailed questionnaires, participated observation or secondary data retrieval from existing records. The choice of the instrument depend on several factors including the design, appropriateness and how reliable and valid the data collected in a particular manner is going to be. A pilot study can also be included here. This is a small scale study to test the instruments and other viability aspects.

3.3 Research Instruments

Describe the instruments to be used in sufficient detail

3.4 Data collection Plan

The procedure section should describe all operational details such that another researcher would need to know to be able to replicate the method.

Such details usually include;

(1) The specific order in which steps are to be undertaken

(2) The timing of the study.

(3) Instructions given to subject, and

(4) Briefings, debriefings and safeguards.

3, 5 Data presentationand analysis plan

This section describes the method(s) of data treatment, that is, the analyses to be undertaken, quantitative or qualitative or both types of statistics to be under any are only mentioned here. Here one can present dummy tables, charts, graphs or other figures and text depending on the nature of the project.

References

All sources consulted in compiling the proposal are listed in alphabetical order

Appendix

(a)Timeframe

Timetable for the study

(b)Budget

Detailed cost estimates for the different stages of the study