Maximum 50 Characters and Spaces 13

MAXIMUM 50 CHARACTERS AND SPACES 13

The header is placed flush left 0.5” from the top; The phrase “Running head:” appears only on title page—it is as described above and it typically a shortened version of the title—note upper and lowercase Running head but UPPERCASE TITLE- On each page that follows, simply use the title without the phrase Running head. (p. 229 in APA 6th edition)

Paper Title Here

Author Name

Institution Name

Class number

Date

Note: This paper has been prepared for your reference by Dr. Kate Emmons and modified by Dr. Bill Huitt. It is not perfect, especially as we all are becoming accustomed to the new APA manual, 6th edition. Please use it both as a template for your course papers as well as for tips on writing, organization, and APA format. You may print this paper for reference before modifying it. Then you can replace the text and headings with your own, and save early on with a new filename.

The 2007 version of MS Word also has some built-in APA tools that might be helpful.

© Katherine Emmons, PhD 2004-2011

Last modified: 06-06-11 (thanks to Pam McCullough). If you have corrections, comments, or questions, please write to

Abstract

[Type the abstract here, left aligned with no indentation, starting on the first line (Use CTRL/Enter to force starting on a new page). It should be one paragraph and 120 words or less. Note than an abstract is to summarize and introduce the PAPER rather than the topic. It is not a substitute for (or the same thing as) the introduction, which is the first section of the paper.]

Title of Paper: Centered, Uppercase and Lowercase, Not Bolded

The purpose of this paper is to help you format your course papers per APA (American Psychological Association, 2010).

There are also some tips on organization in this paper. For example, the first paragraph should address the following questions concisely and explicitly:

· What is this paper about?

· What is the thesis or position statement of the paper?

· How is the paper organized?

In many ways, academic writing follows the same rules as public speaking:

1. Tell them what you are going to tell them (introduction and statement of the problem or position, and how the paper is set up in terms of sections and topics).

2. Tell them (body of paper to include your main points, evidence and discussion).

3. Tell them what you told them (summary and conclusion).

This paper provides direction and tips for using headings and subheadings for sections, as well as using in-text citations and quotations. The paper also provides an overview of tables and figures in APA, as well as the correct format for references (notice that the headings below correspond to the topics as introduced here). You can find an online tutorial of APA in the reference section (American Psychological Association, 2010a)

Sections and Headings

Scholarly writing is very organized and the use of headings will help you achieve this organization. Use headings that correspond to the layout of the paper as specified in the introduction. For papers submitted for presentation at a conference or to journals, all text is double spaced with no extra lines inserted. Because I want you to practice formatting your papers as if they were to be presented at a conference or published, do not add extra lines anywhere in the document. You may find that this differs in other classes because APA allows the insertion of extra lines for class papers or other works such as dissertations.

For papers with two heading levels, each main section of your paper should have a Level 1 heading. A Level 1 heading is centered, lower and upper case, and is boldface, not italicized (American Psychological Association, 200- 6th Edition).

Each section should have an introductory statement, which is a topic sentence. In addition, make sure you provide transitions between sections. At the very least, make an explicit connection in each section to the thesis or position statement of your paper. If you cannot make this connection to the purpose of your paper, chances are that you do not need the section at all.

Subheadings

Level 2 subheadings are very useful for helping organize your paper. The above Level 2 subheadings for this section and the next section are flush left, boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase.

APA in Headings

Level 2 subheadings are flush left, boldface, and in uppercase and lowercase. If you need more information on Level 1 and 2 headings, see pages 62 and 63 in your APA manual, 6th edition (American Psychological Association, 2010).

Also, ensure that you do not have “orphan” headings at the bottoms of pages. Place them on the next page.

Level 3 subheadings. Occasionally, you may have need for an additional level of subheadings. This is how a level 3 subheading should look.

In-text Citations

In-text citations are an important component of scholarly writing because they help show the reader your own research process, and provide credit to others for their statements and ideas. Any work that is not your own must have a citation that refers to its original source. This goes for verbatim quotations, paraphrasing, and general referencing of ideas attributable to somebody else. If you provide a verbatim quotation, you need to use quotation marks, as well as cite a page number. Here is an example: “References in APA publications are cited in text with an author-date system…” (American Psychological Association, 2010, p. 174). If you are paraphrasing or citing an idea, page numbers are not necessary, but are recommended if the passage refers to a specific part of the source (American Psychological Association, 2010, p. 179).

Web pages are cited in-text like any other reference. Do not put the URL or web address in the document itself. The following sentence is an example of a quotation from a web page, with citation: Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) (2010, ¶. 3) stated “Online articles follow the same guidelines for printed articles. Include all information the online host makes available, including an issue number in parentheses.” You can use the symbol “¶” for these citations to indicate the paragraph number, or the abbreviation “para,” but it is not always easy to determine paragraph numbers of web pages. Paragraph numbers are not necessary if you are only paraphrasing, thus it is recommended over direct quotation.

If you are referencing a web site rather than a specific document, it is best to place the URL in the body of the paper. For example, if you were referring to an excellent source of material on APA style, the Purdue Online Writing Lab (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/), you would include the URL. It is likely that your word processor will automatically make the URL “hot” and you will need to remove that from your document. Simply put the cursor on the URL, right click and the select “Remove Hyperlink.”

Use of Quotations

When used sparingly, quotations provide examples and illustrate ideas in scholarly writing. Do not use quotations to provide the important information. Instead, it is best to paraphrase and synthesize, but also provide the proper citation. If the reader can skip all quotes and still get all the main information in your paper, then you have used quotations effectively. Make sure your words write your paper.

Choose quotations carefully and provide transitions between them and your own writing. “The evidence of others’ information and opinions should back up, not dominate, your own ideas” (Aaron, 2000, p. 37). In other words, your own words are much stronger. Be sure to begin and end all sections and paragraphs with your own words.

Quotations that are longer than forty words should be formatted as block quotations and quotations marks are not used. It is a good rule to never start or end a paragraph with a quotation.

Appendices

Appendices are used to provide additional information that might be relevant to the paper, but that is not needed to understand the major points of the paper. For example, if you were discussing how to write a syllabus for a college-level course, you would discuss the main points of the syllabus and then present the actual syllabus as an appendix (See Appendix A). Any appendices would be placed immediately after the references.

Tables and Figures

Tables and figures illustrate concepts or provide data. They can be inserted directly into the body when a paper is published. That is the format you will use for submitting a thesis or your dissertation. However, if your paper is submitted for a conference or to a journal for publication, tables and figures should go at the end of the paper after the references and after any appendices. Again, as I want you to practice preparing a document as if you will submit it for a conference or for publication, that is what you will do in this class. Examples on how to do this are offered below. If your paper will have no tables or figures, please ignore this section.

Tables

Tables are an efficient way of presenting data. Make sure you refer to all tables by number in your narrative, and provide summary explanation for each. You will then place a phrase in the document to show about where it should be placed. For example, if you wanted to discuss useless information about animals, you would do so and then refer the reader to Table 1.

[Place Table 1 about here]

Figures

A figure is usually any type of illustration other than a table. Be selective about your use of figures and make sure that they clarify ideas and do not detract from your paper’s thesis or position. There are examples of different kinds of figures in your APA manual, starting on page 151. In this paper, Figure 1 is nonsense information, and cites a fictional source. If you copy a figure created by somebody else into your own document, you need permission to use it.

[Place Figure 1 about here]

Always refer to your figures by number in your text and never refer to them as “the figure above” or “the figure below.” Note that Figure 1 has a descriptive caption after “Figure 1” in italics. I have added a correctly-formatted source citation below the caption. Note that APA format does not use a typical APA reference or in-text citation in figures, and lists the title first.

Formatting References

Reference formatting can be tricky in APA. If you can get the basic format down for books and journals, you will be in good shape. Electronic references are more varied. Perhaps refer to the Citation Machine (Warlick, 2000-2010) for an excellent, free online APA reference resource. The Citation Machine will help you format your references, whether they are books, journal articles, book chapters, or Web pages. This tool will not be 100% correct with every citation, but it can get you most of the way there. Then, you can finish it up by using your APA manual. MS Word 2007 also has APA tools for citations and references; however they may not be up to date for the 6th edition. APA (2010b) has provided a sample of references online and the URL is below in the reference section for this paper. It includes primarily academic journal article examples. In general, if the source does not have a specific author or specific date, it is not a good reference for a graduate-level or professional paper. Sometimes you have to look hard by going to the home page for the web site. For materials published on professional websites, if there is no specific author, use the name of the organization as author. However, if there is not specific publication date, it is best to find another source of information, especially if it is used as a source for a major fact or concept for your paper.

The URL or Web address of Web references must be accurate and refer to the specific page being referenced, not another page on the site. The APA 5th edition specified that a retrieval date should be included. This seems to be gone from APA 6th edition. Indeed, the 6th edition seems to have less, not more, information on how to cite and reference electronic resources. One important addition is a DOI number (Digital Object Identifier) for journal articles found online. This is very new and most of us are still learning how to use it. If you are formatting a dissertation or thesis you will need it; therefore, I want you to practice locating the DOI and using it with your reference. The 5th edition specified that if the page you are referencing is on a large Web site, it is probably best to include the sponsoring organization. While the 6th edition does not specify this, continue to use this protocol.

There are two things that are easy to forget when formatting your references. These are specifics about the author name and capitalization of titles. These are addressed in the next sections.

Author(s) Name

Use last name and first initial of authors’ names (and middle initial, if provided), not the full name. List multiple authors in the order listed in the publication. If there is no author, use the title of the document only as a last resort. Look first for an institutional or corporate author. An example of an institutional author might be the Department of Education, or American Psychological Association. If there is no obvious individual or corporate author, use the title of the document in place of the author (see reference example #9 on page 200 of your APA 6th edition manual). If you are using a web-based source, you might have to search for this information. If there is no date and no author, it is not a credible source for graduate-level work.

Using Capital and Lower Case Letters

Pay close attention to the APA rules on capitalization. Book titles and Web page titles (except for the first word, words after punctuation, and proper nouns) are always lower case and italicized. Journal article titles are lower case and are NOT italicized. Journal names like Journal of Higher Education are both capitalized and italicized.