Student Advice
APA Publication Manual Crib Sheet
Russ Dewey (rdewey@gasou.edu) provided the following crib sheet for an earlier version of the APA Publication Manual. Most of the points remain valid for APA, 6th Ed.
- Introductory information
- Rules
- Reference formats
Introductory information
APA style is the style of writing specified in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (4th ed., 1994). The publication manual began as an article published in Psychological Bulletin in 1929. That article reported results of a 1928 meeting of representatives from anthropological and psychological journals, "to discuss the form of journal manuscripts and to write instructions for their preparation." By 1952 the guidelines were issued as a separate document called the Publication Manual. Today the manual is in its fourth edition, and the APA format described in it is a widely recognized standard for scientific writing.
Some of the more commonly used rules and reference formats from the manual are listed here. However, this web page is no substitute for the 368 page manual itself, which should be purchased by any serious psychology student in the U.S., or by students in other countries who are writing for a journal that uses APA format. The APA manual can be found in almost any college bookstore as well as in many large, general-purpose bookstores, in the reference and style guide section. It can be obtained directly from the APA order department at 1-800-374-2721.
The fourth edition of the style manual, issued in 1994, contained these additions and changes to the pre-existing APA style:
- Abstracts are now limited to 960 characters including spaces.
- Bibliographic entries should be indented five to seven spaces on the first line, just like other paragraphs.
- Electronic references should have an address permitting retrieval (see the discussion in the Reference list examples section).
- Horizontal rules (lines) should be typed into tables; do not draw them in by hand.
- Hyphenation should not occur at the end of lines, only between words when necessary.
- Institutional affiliation should appear in the byline, departmental affiliation in the author note.
- Italics should be indicated on a word processor by underlining, not italics. [However, see the note above. Italics are used throughout this document in place of underlining.]
- Journal names are now underlined continuously from the title through the comma after the volume number, for example, Journal of Psychoneuromimmunology, 6, 7-8.
- Justification should be set to "off" or "left margin only" (the right margin should be uneven).
- Margins should be at least 1" all around.
- Paragraphs should be indented five to seven spaces.
- Running heads should be placed before the title.
The manual notes (pp. 237鈥�8) that "The size of the type should be one of the standard typewriter sizes (pica or elite) or, if produced from a word processor, it should be 12 points." The body of the paper should be in a serif typeface (like Courier or Times Roman) with lettering on figures in a sans serif face (such as Helvetica or Arial).
Following is a summary of rules and reference examples in the APA style manual. The manual itself contains all this information and more, organized and worded differently, indexed and illustrated. If in doubt about a specific rule or example, consult the manual itself.