APA style and citations for dummies - Joe Giampalmi 2021

Perfecting appearance: spelling
Navigating pages: conventions of style
Earning applause: APA writing for the academic audience

A book shouldn’t be judged by its cover, and a piece of writing shouldn’t be judged by its spelling, but both are. Just as the eyes are the window to the soul, spelling is the moral compass of a piece of writing. This judgment isn’t fair, but many readers (including professors) correlate poor spelling with poor writing. As an academician, your writing proficiency will be judged by your spelling proficiency.

Many inconsistencies of English spelling resulted after the Norman Conquest in 1066, when numerous foreign words filtered into English. Spelling problems became so severe in America that President Theodore Roosevelt headed (unsuccessfully) a reform attempt to standardize spelling in 1906. Regardless of the challenge, patterns of misspellings are unacceptable among the academic community — and derail readers from the writer’s message.

Teddy Roosevelt was right: English spelling lacks consistency and common sense. Educated people commit to achieving spelling success, and I offer some important spelling tips in the following sections.

Spelling strategies

Can you spell words generated by a search of the most commonly misspelled words? Here are some. If you can’t, the following strategies will prepare you for achieving success. And if you want to compete for a national spelling bee championship, recruit a twelve-year-old to tutor you.

· Keep a list of words you frequently misspell or words you question when you write: Note memorable patterns. For example, since people learn spelling by sight, note the shape of the ascender letters that surround “knead.” The ascender letters “k” and “d” present the visual of goal posts encapsulating the word. Also note the unusual “mn” beginning of “mnemonic,” which means a memory aid. “Mnemonic” also has an unusual configuration, lacking ascenders and descenders (letter formations extending up and down).

· Study a few spelling rules:

· “Weird” is an exception of the rule that i comes before e except after c (receive, deceive, ceiling) or when ie sounds like long a, as in neighbor and weigh.

· Nouns ending in y preceded by a consonant form the plural by changing y to i and adding es: army / armies; nursery / nurseries; sky / skies; body / bodies.

· Some nouns maintain the same form for singular and plural: pliers, moose, eyeglasses, scissors, sheep, deer, and tuna.

· Collect spelling oddities: nth (lacks a vowel); facetious (vowels in sequence); queueing (five consecutive vowels); almost (all letters in alphabetical sequence); bookkeeper (three consecutive double letters); asthma (begins and ends with a vowel and no other vowels between)

· Review homophones: its / it’s; their / there / they’re; two / to / too; stationary / stationery; alter / altar; hair / hare. Chapter 6 details uses of problem pairs.

· Master Spell Check: Enter appropriate words, integrate manually, address any wavy red underscores, and activate appropriate features.

APA spelling conforms to Merriam-Webster.com (www.merrian-webster.com). Spelling psychological terms conforms with the APA Dictionary of Psychology.

Each year produces only one national spelling bee champion, usually a twelve-year-old. Everyone else is challenged by the spelling of some words.

Pair with a peer and review each other’s papers exclusively for spelling. Your campus may also have resources where your writing is reviewed before final submission.

Possessives

If you travel outside the United States, you’ll experience the challenge of English language spelling and recognize that many retail signs contain misspellings, frequently possessives. Because foreign travel is likely on your bucket list, a few rules will help you recognize misuses and appreciate the challenge of English spelling for non-English-speaking people. If you don’t travel abroad, you can still find possessive errors in your community. And when you do find them, practice the golden rule of grammar: Being polite is more important than being correct.

Rules for forming possessives (see Table 7-1) are as basic as unlocking your phone:

· To form a possessive singular, write the singular form (building) and add ’s (building’s): The building’s exterior needed repair.

· To form a possessive plural, start by writing the plural form (buildings).

· If the plural ends in s, add an apostrophe (buildings’): The buildings’ configuration formed a hexagon.

· If the plural doesn’t end in s, add ’s: The geese’s habitat was not compromised by the event.

TABLE 7-1 Forming possessives

Foreign forms

The English language is rich with words from Latin, Greek, and French. Forms of many of these foreign words often include plurals from their original language. Spelling foreign words challenges many educated people. Table 7-2 can help.

TABLE 7-2 Foreign forms of nouns

Hyphenation

The hyphen, near-identical twin of the en dash, represents one of the most versatile conventions in the English language. The hyphen, which moonlights in the number’s department, also serves as a negative sign and formerly as a subtraction sign. It welcomes the work after being victimized by automation when word processing’s word wrap feature replaced its use as an end-of-line syllable separator. The hyphen lives on the top shelf of the keyboard, sharing space with long-time friend “underscore.” They enjoy the large picture window just above them.

Working in the compound industry, the hyphen clarifies meaning at the word level. Compound nouns are continually evolving from word pairs (fire house), to hyphenated words (fire-house), to single words (firehouse). Email was formerly e-mail.

The bad news for writers is that compound hyphenation rules lack consistency. The good news is that compounds offer three options (separate words, hyphenated words, and single words), and the better news is that almost all professors will accept any reasonable option. APA defers to Merriam-Webster for the defining word, and the dictionary says that forming compounds represents writers’ most significant spelling challenge.

Hyphenation guidelines include

· Hyphenate to clarify meaning: The parents supported their college twins living in two student dorms. Do the parents support each twin living in a different building (two student-dorms)? Or do the parents support their twins living together in “two-student dorms?”

· Hyphenate two related words serving as one adjective: The award-winning teacher declined the opportunity to run for public office.

· Hyphenate numbers from twenty-one through ninety-nine: The couple celebrated their thirty-ninth wedding anniversary.

Generally, avoid hyphenating the following:

· Foreign words: We visited an á la cart restaurant.

· Clear and well-established compounds: High school athletes, math department policy, and present day standards.

APA doesn’t hyphenate the following.

· Compounds containing an “ly” adverb: Commonly read books in college include Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild and Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink.

· Fractions used as nouns: Approximately one third of Americans earned college degrees.

Base-formation compounds (a word form to which prefixes and suffixes are added) vary their requirements for hyphenation. APA recommends hyphenating the following base-formation compounds:

· Capitalized base words: We visited a Pre-Revolutionary War museum.

· Self- and ex- prefixes: Many college business majors are self-starters. The ex-president of the automotive company visited the new plant.

· An -elect suffix: The captain-elect addressed the team.