Running Head: BASICS OF PREPARING AN APA PAPER 1
This is a template for building a paper formatted according to the Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. –6th ed.· Read the help information in the boxes, then remove them
· Replace the remaining information with the equivalent for your paper
Basics of Preparing an APA Paper
John L. Student
Nicola Valley Institute of Technology
· Full title: Capitalize all important words (not “of”, “at”, etc.)· All lines centre justified
· Student name, typically full first name and initial
· Affiliation (usually institution), no place necessary if a college or university
Abstract
An abstract is a concise summary, which appears on page 2. This paragraph is not an abstract, it describes one. Published in a journal they would typically range from 150-250 words. It should contain the best terminology for describing the paper as the words in it are often indexed.
Basics of Preparing an APA Paper
Title structure
Centre your title. Capitalize major words, type Acronyms (such as APA for American Psychological Association) without periods.
Word 2007 Editing
If you are editing in Word 2007 you can set APA on under the References tab and Style—APA.
Reference citations in text
Indent the first paragraph in the text .5 inches. In text reference citations frequently cause concern. You want to indicate in some way the author, the publication date, and the location of each citation, if the citation is to a particular part of a document. The general rule is this: include in parentheses any of those elements not mentioned already. Some examples will be given below showing how the reference citation gets shorter as you place more information in the text itself. You should be informing your reader of three things, WHO is being cited, WHEN was the cited work published, and WHERE within the work is the reader directed, as in this example: (Smith, 2008, p. 22). You only put within the parentheses ( ) the information that you did not provide somewhere in the text. Read on for illustrations.
Complete citations, example
In a relationship a “controller” tries very hard to force people around him to submit to his power (Jones & Shechter,1993, p. 13).
Citations when author provided already, example
Ann Jones and Susan Schechter in When love goes wrong, note that a controller tries very hard to force people around him to submit to his power (1993, p. 13).
Citations when author and date provided already, example
In 1993 Ann Jones and Susan Schechter in their book When love goes wrong, note that a controller tries very hard to force people around him to submit to his power (p. 13).
Citations electronic works, no pagination, example
If you are citing an electronic source (usually a web page) that does not have page numbers you can site paragraphs like this (Merchant Law Group, 2006, para. 3), or with the paragraph marker (Merchant Law Group, 2006, ¶ 3). You can similarly cite an entire chapter.
Citations to an entire book
When you are making a reference citation pointing to the entire work, you have no need to include page numbers in your in-text citation, as illustrated below.
When love goes wrong is an excellent book to recommend to clients who live with an abusive controlling partner (Jones & Schechter, 1993).
Using a reference citation for a quotation
At any time when you use another’s words or ideas you must use a reference citation. If you quote words directly for under 40 words you use quotation marks, if you quote 40 or more words you offset the text in a “block quotation,” which is indented .5 inches, the same amount as the first word of a new paragraph.
Breath focus is important in yoga, “Sometimes it’s difficult to relax enough for breath-focus” (Kelly, 2001, p. 40).
Kelly (2001) stated that stress can hamper fertility because of a reduction in egg quality and a late egg release:
It seems amazing that relaxation can help make a baby, but its not as far-fetched as it sounds. Researchers have long known that chronic stress can cause unhealthy elevations in heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure and muscle tension, and can weaken the immune system. Now they believe stress may dampen fertility too, by reducing egg quality, delaying release of eggs, preventing implantation of a fertilized egg or lowering levels of hormones needed for an embryo to thrive. (p. 42)
Notice in the block quotation above, no quotation marks are used, and the reference citation is split, with the date appearing after the author, and the page number after the block quotation.
Research Priorities
You should be performing pre-research to identify your topic, and refine it to a manageable theme. Browse books, articles, and the web with an intent of stimulating your interest. When you have the generaltopic, narrow it to something manageable, and finally identify a thesis interesting to you that you can present a convincing argument.
Topic / Adoption of Native childrenNarrowed Topic / Adoption of Native children in British Columbia during the period when residential schools were closing.
Thesis / Assimilation was attempted through mass apprehension and adoption of Native children into non-Aboriginal homes following the failure of residential schools to achieve that end.
Sources for Research
The academic writer should demonstrate in a paper that the thesis was supported by a broad range of creditable sources. That will usually include books, journal articles, media materials, and sometimes, personal interviews. For the resources to be creditable the authors and institutions should have recognized expertise in their fields. Academic journals generally produce more reputable articles because most of them are refereed, that is articles have to be examined and edited by experts in the field. Caution should be used when citing web pages, unless authorship and sponsoring institution can be verified.
The quantity and quality of supporting expertise can be quickly assessed by glancing over the References at the end of the text. Students should be particularly aware that instructors often judge the extent of a writer’s research efforts by the impressiveness of the reference section.
The reference section starts on a new page with the heading “References” centered. Double spacing continues, with hanging indent set on so that the second and following lines of any entry are indented .5 inch. In Microsoft Word, set Format—Paragraph—Special at “hanging”. In Word (2007) you highlight your paragraph, right click on the highlighting, then select “paragraph” and “indentation—special—hanging.” You can also strike CTRL-T to hang an indent, and SHIFT-CTRL-T to undo hanging indent.
Word 2007 has an interesting new feature. With your cursor located where you want a citation, Click on References—Insert Citation. You will be asked to enter basic data on the work in question, and when you come to your references page, Word insert on the spot as in (Smith, 2002). Then at the end of the document click on References-Citations and Bibliography—Bibliograpy to insert the finished “References.” In other words, you enter each reference as you type the document to get the “in text” citations. Then those references are all saved, sorted in alphabetical order, and inserted on your “References” page.
There are many good resources both for preparing your document as a whole, and your references located on the Internet. A very complete and well done resource has been provided by Lake Sumter Community College (2006). Keep in mind that there is no authority any greater to resolve disputes than the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association itself (2002).
References
American Psychological Association (2002). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
Jones A, & Schechter, S. (1992). When love goes wrong. New York: Harper Collins.
Kelly, A. L. (2001, January). Does stress hurt fertility. Shape. New York: Weider Publications, 40-42.
Lake Sumter Community College (2006). Library instruction: Research guides. Retrieved September 17, 2006 from http://www.lscc.edu/library/resguid.htm
Merchant Law Group (2006). 2006 residential schools compensation settlement. Retrieved September 14, 2006 from http://www.merchantlaw.com/ResidentialSchools.html