Overview
Overview
The APA Publication Manual (American Psychological Association, 1994) provides the rules for preparing manuscripts for publication. The rules are designed to provide a common framework for scientific writing and to facilitate the communication of your research. By paying attention to these details you are identifying yourself as a person who cares about the scientific process and the communication of your ideas. It has been our experience that the attitude of your instructor (or a journal editor) towards your paper can be influenced by how you write the paper. A paper that shows a lack of concern for these style issues is likely to create a poor first impression.
This APA Style Workshop takes an active learning approach. Think of yourself as an editor who has been assigned the task of finding and correcting the APA style errors in paper that has been sent to you for publication. This task has been organized to focus your attention on a particular aspect or style issue. For example, the Reference module looks at the presentation of works in the reference section of the paper. The In Text Citations module looks at the presentation of those works within the text of the paper. The Numbers module focuses on the use of numbers (e.g., 2 vs. two) within the text. And the Statistical Copy module focus on the presentation of statistics (e.g., t(df) = value, p < .05).
You should study the section of the APA Publication Manual that is related to the module and then go to the workshop for that section.
Move your cursor over the paper to highlight relevant elements. Click on a highlighted element in the paper and a series of questions about that element will appear in a new window. Answer the questions and press the Answer Key button to get immediate feedback.
Browser note: The APA Style Workshop current is designed to work with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or greater. Due to browser incompatibilities it does not work with any version of Netscape Navigator.
References
American Psychological Association. (1994). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
1999-2000 All rights reserved. Lee A. Becker & Kelli J. Klebe