APA style and citations for dummies - Joe Giampalmi 2021

Seeking attention: special conventions
Navigating pages: conventions of style
Earning applause: APA writing for the academic audience

Some language conventions stand out among their peers because of their special uses to pace readers through pages as they hear meaning from their internal voice: John Norman III (your internal voice whispers “the third”) served on many educational boards. Other conventions create visuals highlighting content such as books, periodicals, poems, abbreviations, and numbers. Enjoy the sights and sounds as you explore special features that guide readers on their journey.

Italics

Italics, an aesthetic cursive font based on a form of calligraphic handwriting, first appeared in Italy around 1500. Italics belongs to the family of conventions that give special meaning to words.

Common use of italics includes identifying major works such as book titles, periodicals, webpages, court decisions, names of ships, poems, pieces of art, movies, television shows, and newspapers: The Great Gatsby, Time, Enola Gay, Batman, American Idol, Thriller, Brown v. Board of Education, Challenger, and Hamlet.

APA emphasizes that key terms are italicized when they require a follow-up definition:

Science describes active immunity as vaccines that stimulate the immune system.

Italics identifying titles and other major works of art doesn’t include sentence punctuation that follows the title:

Did you read Walter Isaacson’s Leonardo da Vinci?

Italicize punctuation that’s part of the title:

I enjoyed reading Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

When handwriting, italics is represented by underlining.

Some stylebooks endorse the occasional use of italics to emphasize words. Most professors prefer that you emphasize ideas with word choice, not font choice. For example, avoid writing, “Are you going to submit that?” Prefer language that specifies that: “Are you going to submit that half-completed paper?”

When you continuously emphasize words with italics, you’re telling your professor that you choose not to take the time to consider better language. Also, patterns of italicized words designed to achieve emphasis provide evidence for receiving an unsuccessful grade.

Abbreviations

Let me be brief. Use abbreviations sparingly — about as infrequent as you lend a friend your credit card. APA advises that “writing is generally easier to understand when most words are written out….” Patterns of abbreviations are more likely to appear in scientific papers written at the graduate level.

When you use a term in text, APA recommends that you “present both the full version of the term and the abbreviation.” For example, if using the abbreviation OSHA, write, “Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) ensures a safe and healthy workplace.” After defining an abbreviation once, use only the abbreviation: “OSHA plays a major role in food safety.”

Other APA guidelines for abbreviations include

· Use periods following initials in names, such as Harry S. Truman and M.L. King.

· Use periods for abbreviations, such as a.m., p.m., e.g., Mrs., Mr., Dr., Jr., Mon., and Jan.

· Don’t use periods for abbreviations, such as APA, IQ, PhD, EdD, MSW, MD, and RN.

· Use periods in citation and reference abbreviations, such as p., 5th ed., and paras.

· Form plurals of most abbreviations by adding s (without an apostrophe), such as URSs, vols, and IQs.

· Abbreviate time references (hours, minutes, and seconds) when accompanied by numbers, such as 10 hr. 10 min. Don’t separate hours from minutes with a comma.

· Use v. (versus) with court case references such as Gross v. Lopez.

Form the plural for “page” (p.) with “pp.”

Use two capital letters for state abbreviations used exclusively as postal addresses: FL, PA, WA, TN, and AR. Use traditional state abbreviations for non-postal-addresses: Fla., Pa., Wash., Tenn., and Ark.

Numbers

In general, APA recommends writing words for numbers from zero through nine (one, two, three, and so on), and not spelling out the numbers 10 and above (10, 11, 12, and so on). Other stylebooks offer different guidelines.

APA numerical points of emphasis for numerical expression include the following:

· Avoid beginning a sentence, title, or heading with a figure, including a year reference. Avoid: 1969 was the year America landed on the moon. Reword: America landed on the moon in 1969.

· Prefer words to express fractions. Two-thirds of the pie was eaten.

· Avoid commas in numbers such as page numbers, serial numbers, and model numbers. The index begins on page 1001.

· Form plurals of numbers by adding “s” or “es.” Please separate all fours and sixes from both decks of cards. Rock and roll began in the ’50s.

· Prefer figures to represent dates, ages, scores, and sums of money. Your $200 refund will be mailed soon.

· Combine figures and words to express back-to-back numerical values. The Philadelphia Eagles scored four 2-point conversions in 2018.

Finally, APA suggests presentation approaches for combining numbers and text:

· If presenting three or fewer numbers, consider a sentence.

· If presenting four to 20 numbers, consider a table.

· If presenting more than 20 numbers, consider a figure.