Part 1:

Introduction to APA VII

Publication Manual
 Misconceptions about Scientific
writing
 Writing the paper is the routine part of the research process
Forces you to commit to your evidence and conclusions

 Just the facts

The facts are just part of the argument that the author is making

 What you say is all that is important, how you say it isn’t important
Good writing leads to higher chance of accomplishing your goals
Why a structured format?
 Why a structured format?

To ease communication of what was done

Forces a minimal amount of information

Provides a logical framework (for argument)

Provides consistent format within a discipline

 People know what to expect

 Where to find the information in the article

Allows readers to cross-reference your sources easily

Major goal: Clarity
Major goal: Clarity

Communicate with clarity

 Accuracy of Scientific Knowledge
 Ethical Reporting of research findings
No falsification and fabrication .Manipulating research materials,
equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results
such that the research is not accurately represented in the research
record.)
Fabrication is “making up data or results.

 Data retention and sharing

 Duplicate publication or sharing
Copyright issue
Piecemeal sharing or publication of data
 Reanalysis of previous data
 Acknowledging and citing pervious work
Protecting Intellectual Property Rights
Who gets Authorship?
 Who have actually performed

 Made substantial contribution

Formulating of problem and hypotheses

Structuring research design

Organizing and conducting statistical analysis

Interpreting results

Writing major part of the report/paper

 Cont….
 No authorship but acknowledgement

Designing and building apparatus/material

Suggesting or advising statistical analysis

Collecting or entering data

Modifying or structuring computer program

Recruiting participants
 Cont…
 Authorship and it’s placement is negotiable
Varies with nature and type of input between student and teacher in
various phases on collaborative research
Name of principal contributor come first and other in order of
contribution
Relative status don't define authorship placement
Preferably students (for Master’s thesis) should be the first author of
multiple publications based on thesis
Same is true for PhD student, until the work is published as part of
collection of studies by other researchers
If thesis is part of faculty’s project then it is negotiable
Cont…

Copyrights

Published work is journal or organization

Unpublished work is researcher’s (author’s) right and the

organization where it was conducted, as of thesis

APA Publication Manual
APA publication manual originated in 1929
To cite sources in psychology, education, and
social sciences
Approximately every 10 years updated its
manual
The (latest) 7th edition of APA Manual
published in October, 2019
Globally implemented in scientific
research papers and thesis/dissertation
writings
 Basic Elements of APA 7 Style
Font options: sans serif fonts such as 11-point
Calibri, 11-point Arial, or 10-point Lucida Sans
Unicode, 12-point New Times Roman
References page always starts on a new page.
Page numbers: right top corner
Page Numbers & Table Numbers: Arabic Numerals
Margins: 1 inch on all sides except left margin 1.5
inch
Typed, double-spaced on standard-sized unruled
paper (8.5 X 11 inches)
Indent para with one tab (½ inch).
Put one space between sentences
 Basic Punctuation
Punctuation establishes the pace of a sentence:
telling readers where to pause (comma, semicolon, and
colon), stop (period and question mark)
Period (Full Stop) End of sentence and single space
after it
Serial Comma , (also called an Oxford comma,
Harvard comma) between elements in a series of three
or more items.
Example:
Factors of personality include extraversion,
conscientiousness, openness to experience,
agreeableness, and neuroticism.
 Basic Punctuation
Semicolon;
If one or more items in the series already contain a
comma, use semicolons between the items instead of
commas.
Example
Subjective well-being is characterized by the presence of
positive affect, such as whether people feel happy and
peaceful; the absence of negative affect, such as whether
people feel angry or bored; and a high level of life
satisfaction.
 Hyphenation Principles
Compound words: written as two separate words (e.g.,
health care)
one hyphenated word (e.g., self-esteem)
one solid word (e.g., caregiver)
If a compound word does not appear in the dictionary,
it is called a temporary compound.
Temporary compounds: use hyphens in them
Compound adjective appears before a noun, use a
hyphen (e.g., decision-making behavior, high-anxiety
group).
Compound adjective appears after the noun, a hyphen
is unnecessary (e.g., behavior related to decision making,
group with high anxiety).
 Prefixes and Suffixes
Words with prefixes and suffixes are usually
written without a hyphen in APA Style.

Some common examples are presented

next.
The Publication Manual contains additional
prefixes and suffixes and corresponding
examples that follow the same pattern
Prefix Example

anti antisocial

co covariate

non nonsignificant

over overqualified

pre preexisting

pro prosocial

post postgraduate

re reevaluate

un unbiased

under underappreciated
 Title Case Capitalization
Upper-Lower Case
Small words: conjunctions, small prepositions,
upto three words will be in small letters
Example: Role of Anxiety in Adjustment
But if four or more words then first alphabet
will be in caps
Example: Role of Anxiety in Adjustment
Among Elderly People
Attitudes of Caregivers Towards Patients With
Spinal Cord Injuries
Numbers
In general write as words all numbers from one to
nine and use numerals for all numbers 10 and
over.

Never begin a sentence with a numeral. written

in words otherwise in digits
Forty-eight percent of the sample showed an
increase; 2% showed no change.
Use numbers to represent the mathematical
fractions, fractional or decimal quantities (.33),
percentages (5%), ratios (3:4), percentiles (25 th),
and quartiles(1/4).
 Use of Symbols
If written outside parenthesis: write in words
If written in parenthesis then use symbols
Most of the Asians including Pakistanis and Indians
Most of the Asian (including Pakistanis & Indians)

Major elements of adjustment, that is, resilience assist…

Major elements of adjustment (i.e., resilience) assist …

Most of the studies investigated extraversion, for example,

Yukl (2018) found…
Most of the studies investigated personality (e.g., Yukl,
2018) found…
Part II:
Levels of Headings
Citations
References
 Level 1: Centered, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading (Title Case)

Level 2: Flush Left, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading (Title Case) (text starts from
next line)

Level 3: Flush Left, Italic, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading (Title Case) (text
starts from next line)

Level 4: Indented, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading (Title Case) ending with a
period. (text continue with heading)

Level 5: Indented, Italics, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading (Title Case) ending
with a period. (text continue with heading)
Example
Research Title
Effective Teaching Evaluation Model for Faculty Development
Heading Levels
Effective Teaching (Level 1)

Teaching as Contextual Construct (Level 2)

……………… [Text]

Imperfect Measures of Effective Teaching (Level 3)

……………… [Text]

Empirical Scales and Relevant Measures. ……………… [Text] (Level 4)

Locally Relevant Evaluations. ……………… [Text] (Level 5)

In Text Citations
One work, one author:
Johnson (2010) found that locus of control…
Student retention at doctoral level institutions (Jones, 2008)…….

One work by two authors: Cite both names every time the reference occurs in
the text:
Smith and Jones (2008) reported that…
Epidemiological samples were found to be consistent (Packer & Rupert, 2004).

When a work has three or more authors: First time citations, include only the
surname of the first author followed by et al. and the year:
Hall et al. (2010) found that…
(Hall et al., 2010) found that…
Continued…

One Work, One Author

Beginning of sentence
Ahmed (2006) reported that empirical research verified
compliance.
Middle of sentence
After looking into the issue, Toor (2007) stated that the
findings were not valid.
End of sentence
The report concluded were victims of cyber terrorism
(Windhorst, 2004).
 Multiple articles from the same author(s). _______________ (Levinson, 2016, 2018,
2020)
 Multiple articles from the same author(s) in same year ____________ (Levinson,
2016 a, 2016b)

 Personal communication: Talking with T. Cash (personal communication, April 30,

2021) . . . (no reference required in reference list)

 Use the author, date in-text citation format for webpages and websites. ____________
(Medley, 2019) or Medley (2019)
 Webpage on a website with a group author ____________ (Small Business
Administration, 2019) or Small Business Administration (2019)
 Blogs ____________ (Guta, 2019) or Guta (2019)
 Podcasts ____________ (Coleman, 2020) or Coleman (2020)
Reference List
On a separate page titled References (NOT Works Cited,
Bibliography), list all the sources cited and quoted in the
paper
Make sure you list ALL your sources referred to in the
body of the paper
All references listed alphabetically, by first author
Only author’s last name and initials are provided (invert
all authors’ names)
 Begin each entry flush with the left margin
 Indent subsequent lines five to seven spaces (hanging indent)
 Double space both within and between entries
 Italicize the PRIMARY SOURCE like title of books,journals,
magazines, thesis titles, and etc.
Journal Articles
Journal Article with DOI (Digital Object Identifier)
Grady, J. S., Her, M., Moreno, G., Perez, C., & Yelinek, J. (2019). Emotions in
storybooks: A comparison of storybooks that represent ethnic and racial groups
in the United States. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 8(3), 207-
217. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000185
Model:
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of article. Title of
Periodical, volume number(issue number if available), page numbers. DOI
Journal Article with article number
Jerrentrup, A., Mueller, T., Glowalla, U., Herder, M., Henrichs, N., Neubauer, A., &
Schaefer, J. R. (2018). Teaching medicine with the help of “Dr. House.” PLoS
ONE, 13(3), Article e0193972. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193972

Note. If the journal article has an article number instead of a page

range, include the word “Article” and then the article number
instead of the page range.
Books
Whole Authored Book
Model:
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of book. City:
Publisher.

Jackson, L. M. (2019). The psychology of prejudice: From attitudes to social

action (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association.
https://d oi.org/10.1037/0000168-000

Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst.
Penguin Books.

Svendsen, S., & Løber, L. (2020). The big picture/Academic writing: The one-
hour guide (3rd digital ed.). Hans Reitzel Forlag.
https://thebigpic ture-academicwriting.digi.hansreitzel.dk/
Whole Edited Book

Model:
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Eds.). (Date of publication). Title of book. City:
Publisher.
 Kesharwani, P. (Ed.). (2020). Nanotechnology based approaches for tuberculosis
treatment. Academic Press.

 Torino, G. C., Rivera, D. P., Capodilupo, C. M., Nadal, K. L., & Sue, D. W. (Eds.).
(2019). Microaggression theory: Influence and implications. John Wiley & Sons.
https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119466642

Several volumes of multivolume work

 Harris, K. R., Graham, S., & Urdan T. (Eds.). (2012). APA educational
psychology handbook (Vols. 1–3). American Psychological Association.
Chapter in Edited Book
 Aron, L., Botella, M., & Lubart, T. (2019). Culinary arts: Talent and their development.
In R. F. Subotnik, P. Olszewski-Kubilius, & F. C. Worrell (Eds.), The psychology of high
performance: Developing human potential into domain-specific talent (pp. 345–359).
American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000120-016

 Dillard, J. P. (2020). Currents in the study of persuasion. In M. B. Oliver, A. A. Raney, &

J. Bryant (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (4th ed., pp. 115–129).
Routledge.

 Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of article. In A.A. Author
(Ed.), Title of book ( 123 ed., pp. ##-##). City: Publisher.
 Conference Proceeding
Conference proceedings published in a journal

Duckworth, A. L., Quirk, A., Gallop, R., Hoyle, R. H., Kelly, D. R., & Matthews, M. D. (2019).
Cognitive and noncognitive predictors of success. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, USA, 116(47), 23499–23504. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910510116

Conference proceedings published as a whole book

Kushilevitz, E., & Malkin, T. (Eds.). (2016). Lecture notes in computer science: Vol. 9562. Theory of
cryptography. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-49096-9

Conference proceedings published as a book chapter

Bedenel, A.-L., Jourdan, L., & Biernacki, C. (2019). Probability estimation by an adapted genetic
algorithm in web insurance. In R. Battiti, M. Brunato, I. Kotsireas, & P. Pardalos (Eds.), Lecture
notes in computer science: Vol. 11353. Learning and intelligent optimization (pp. 225–240).
Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05348-2_21

 Dissertation/Theses
Published Dissertation or Thesis References

Kabir, J. M. (2016). Factors influencing customer satisfaction at a fast food hamburger chain: The relationship
between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty (Publication No. 10169573) [Doctoral dissertation,
Wilmington University]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.

Zambrano-Vazquez, L. (2016). The interaction of state and trait worry on response monitoring in those with worry
and obsessive-compulsive symptoms [Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona]. USA Campus. Repository.
https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/620615

 Unpublished Dissertation or Thesis References

Harris, L. (2014). Instructional leadership perceptions and practices of elementary school leaders [Unpublished
doctoral dissertation]. Department of Psychology, University of Virginia., USA.

Jami, H. (2012). Attitude towards hijras and their reciprocal perceptions (Doctoral dissertation). National Institute
of Psychology, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Website
Website with no Author
 Website with no date
Some webpages will have a 'last updated' date, use this
only if it is clearly related to the content you are citing,
not if it applies to the whole website. Otherwise use
'n.d.' for 'no date'.
Reference List
Material Type In-text citation
Example