A Pocket Style Manual, APA Version

Writing Papers in APA Style
1. Writing college papers in APA style

1a. Research paper: Literature review
 1b. Research paper: Original empirical research
 1c. Laboratory report
 1d. Analytical essay
 1e. Annotated bibliography
 1f. Administrative report
 1g. Case study
 1h. Clinical paper
 1i. Professional memo
 1j. Reflective essay
 1k. Social issue paper

2. Understanding APA conventions

2a. Privileging current sources
 2b. Using appropriate tone and language
 2c. Avoiding stereotypes, bias, and offensive language
 2d. Understanding intellectual property
 2e. Collecting and reporting data
 2f. Protecting research participants

3. Posing questions to start a paper

3a. Choosing a narrow question
 3b. Choosing a challenging question
 3c. Choosing a grounded question

4. Finding appropriate sources

4a. Locating reference works
 4b. Locating articles
 4c. Locating books
 4d. Locating other sources online

5. Evaluating sources

5a. Selecting sources
 5b. Reading with an open mind and a critical eye
 5c. Assessing Web sources with special care

6. Managing information; avoiding plagiarism

6a. Maintaining a working bibliography
 6b. Keeping track of source materials
 6c. Avoiding unintentional plagiarism as you take notes

7. Supporting a thesis

7a. Forming a working thesis
 7b. Testing your thesis
 7c. Organizing your ideas
 7d. Using sources to inform and support your argument

8. Avoiding plagiarism

8a. Citing quotations and borrowed ideas
 8b. Enclosing borrowed language in quotation marks
 8c. Putting summaries and paraphrases in your own words
 8d. Avoiding self-plagiarism

9. Integrating sources 

9a. Using quotations appropriately
 9b. Using signal phrases to integrate sources
 9c. Synthesizing sources

Formatting Papers in APA Style
10. Parts of a paper in APA style

10a. Title page
 10b. Abstract
 10c. Introduction
 10d. Method
 10e. Results
 10f. Discussion
 10g. References
 10h. Footnotes
 10i. Headings
 10j. Appendices
 10k. Visuals

11. APA paper format

11a. Formatting the paper
 11b. Preparing the list of references

12. Sample pages from papers in APA style

12a. Research paper: Literature review (education)
 12b. Research paper: Empirical research (psychology)
 12c. Analytical essay (sociology)
 12d. Annotated bibliography (economics)
 12e. Laboratory report (psychology)
 12f. Administrative report (criminology/criminal justice)
 12g. Clinical practice paper (nursing)
 12h. Reflective essay (education)
 12i. Business report
 12j. Professional memo (business)
 12k. Social issue paper (composition)

Documenting Sources in APA Style
13. APA in-text citations
14. APA list of references

14a. General guidelines for listing authors
 14b. Articles and other short works
 14c. Books and other long works
 14d. Web sites and parts of Web sites
 14e. Audio, visual, and multimedia sources
 14f. Personal communication and social media

15. APA notes

15a. Footnotes in the text
 15b. Notes in tables and figures

Clarity
16. Tighten wordy sentences.

16a. Redundancies
 16b. Empty or inflated phrases
 16c. Needlessly complex structures

17. Prefer active verbs.

17a. When to replace be verbs
 17b. When to replace passive verbs

18. Balance parallel ideas.

18a. Items in a series
 18b. Paired ideas

19. Add needed words.

19a. Words in compound structures
 19b. The word that
 19c. Words in comparisons

20. Eliminate confusing shifts.

20a. Shifts in point of view
 20b. Shifts in tense

21. Untangle mixed constructions.
 

21a. Mixed grammar
 21b. Illogical connections
 21c. Is when, is where, and reason . . . is because constructions

22. Repair misplaced and dangling modifiers.
 

22a. Misplaced words
 22b. Misplaced phrases and clauses
 22c. Dangling modifiers
 22d. Split infinitives

23. Provide sentence variety.
 

23a. Combining choppy sentences
 23b. Varying sentence openings

24. Find an appropriate voice.
 

24a. Jargon
 24b. Clichés
 24c. Slang
 24d. Sexist language

Grammar
25. Make subjects and verbs agree.
 

25a. Words between subject and verb
 25b. Subjects joined with and
 25c. Subjects joined with or or nor
 25d. Indefinite pronouns such as someone
 25e. Collective nouns such as jury
 25f. Subject after verb
 25g. Who, which, and that
 25h. Plural form, singular meaning
 25i. Titles, company names, and words mentioned as words

26. Be alert to other problems with verbs.
 

26a. Irregular verbs
 26b. Tense
 26c. Mood

27. Use pronouns with care.
 

27a. Pronoun-antecedent agreement
 27b. Pronoun reference
 27c. Case of personal pronouns (I vs. me etc.)
 27d. Who vs. whom

28. Use adjectives and adverbs appropriately.

 28a. Adjectives
 28b. Adverbs
 28c. Comparatives and superlatives

29. Repair sentence fragments.
 

29a. Fragmented clauses
 29b. Fragmented phrases
 29c. Acceptable fragments

30. Revise run-on sentences.
 

30a. Revision with a comma and a coordinating conjunction
 30b. Revision with a semicolon (or a colon or a dash)
 30c. Revision by separating sentences
 30d. Revision by restructuring the sentence

31. Consider grammar topics for multilingual writers.

 31a. Verbs
 31b. Articles (a, an, the)
 31c. Sentence structure
 31d. Prepositions showing time and place

Punctuation

32. The comma

32a. Before a coordinating conjunction joining independent clauses
 32b. After an introductory word group
 32c. Between items in a series
 32d. Between coordinate adjectives
 32e. To set off a nonrestrictive element, but not a restrictive element
32f. To set off transitional and parenthetical expressions, absolute phrases, and contrasted elements
32g. To set off nouns of direct address, the words yes and no, interrogative tags, and mild interjections
32h. To set off direct quotations introduced with expression such as he argued
32i. With dates, addresses, and titles
32j. Misuses of the comma

33. The semicolon and the colon
 

33a. The semicolon
 33b. The colon

34. The apostrophe
 

34a. To indicate possession
 34b. To mark contractions
 34c. Conventional uses
 34d. Misuses of the apostrophe

35. Quotation marks
 

35a. To enclose direct quotations
 35b. Around titles of short works
 35c. Other punctuation with quotation marks
 35d. Misuses of quotation marks

36. Other marks
 

36a. The period
 36b. The question mark
 36c. The exclamation point
 36d. The dash
 36e. Parentheses
 36f. Brackets
 36g. The ellipsis mark
 36h. The slash

Mechanics
37. Capitalization
 

37a. Proper vs. common nouns
 37b. Titles with proper names
 37c. Titles of works
 37d. Special terms
 37e. First word of a sentence or quoted sentence
 37f. First word following a colon
 37g. Abbreviations

38. Abbreviations
 

38a. Before and after a name
 38b. Organizations, companies, countries
 38c. Units of measurement and time
 38d. Latin abbreviations
 38e. Plural of abbreviations
 38f. Other uses of abbreviations
 38g. Inappropriate abbreviations

39. Numbers

 39a. Using numerals
 39b. Using words for numbers

40. Italics
 

40a. Titles of works
 40b. Words as words and other uses
 40c. Ships, aircraft, spacecraft
 40d. Foreign words

41. Spelling
 

41a. Major spelling rules
 41b. Spelling variations

42. Hyphenation
 

42a. Compound words
 42b. Words functioning together as an adjective
 42c. Suffixes and prefixes
 42d. Hyphenation at ends of lines

Glossaries
Glossary of usage
Glossary of grammatical terms

Index
Documentation directories
Charts and lists for quick reference
List of sample pages from student papers
Revision symbols

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