# APA style

| This page provides a starting resource to learn about writing in APA style. APA style is a widely-used, professional writing style for academic work in the social sciences and is endorsed by the American Psychological Association. Unfortunately, the full APA style manual is only available by purchasing a hard-copy. As a result, there are many unofficial APA style guides on the web, so if you can't find what you're looking for here, try the external links. Warning: This is an incomplete list of APA style principles. | Subject classification: this is a psychology resource. The Wikipedia article on APA style. Completion status: this resource is ~25% complete. |

## Abbreviations

* Are they kept to a minimum? (Avoid overusing abbreviations. In general, a reader will find your work easier to read if you don't use abbreviations. Abbreviate judiciously.)
* Are all non-conventional abbreviations fully expanded when first used? (e.g., Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS))
* Are conventional abbreviations used? For example, ANOVA.
* Symbols (such as =) used as replacements for words (e.g., equals) should be treated as words in terms of punctuation. Therefore, = should always have a space before and after. Example (p = .31 is correct; p=.31 is not correct). Other examples of symbols include > and <.

## Capitalisation

* Where referring to measured constructs within the study, use first-letter capitalisation (e.g., Self Confidence)
* Where referring the theoretical constructs, do not use capitalisation (e.g., self confidence).
* APA Style is a "down" style - more info.

## Citations

For further reading on this topic, see the 6th edition Publication Manual section “Citing References in Text” (pp. 174–179).
* Only cite resources which you have directly consulted, otherwise secondary citations should be used.
* Citations involve author and year, with the full details provided in the reference list.
* Citations in brackets should be in alphabetical order, e.g., (Ashton, Numena, & Kelly, 2000; Donohue & Wong, 1997; Klein, 1990)
* When citing a source with six or more authors, use first author et al. (e.g., Smith et al., 2009)
* For a more detailed set of examples, see , , ,

#### Subsequent citations

* If a reference is cited more than once in a paragraph, the subsequent citations should not include the year. e.g., "...race, religion, sexuality, gender and age (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008). This concept refers to an us versus them, or alternatively the in-group versus the out-group mentality (Baumeister & Bushman)..."
* et al. should be used for the initial and subsequent citations within a paper when there are six or more authors.
* Is "et al." used for second and subsequent citations which have three or more authors?

## Formatting

* Use Times New Roman 12 point font throughout.
* The first line of each paragraph should be indented.
* Do not use underline.
* Use italics for emphasis.
* Italicise statistical symbols which use the normal alphabet.

## Grammar

* Comma usage (a common issue is incorrectly leaving out commas before "and" when listing three of more items) - See more details about comma punctuation rules: -
* Be clear and consistent about the use of "grammatical person". Third person is most common, followed by first person.

## Numbers and statistics

* "The general rule governing APA style on the use of numbers is to use figures to express numbers 10 and above and words to express numbers below 10" (APA, 2001, p. 122).
* Test statistics and p values should generally be rounded to two decimal places.
* All statistical symbols that are not Greek letters should be italicised (M, SD, t, p, etc.).
* Where a number could be above or below one (in theory), also include the preceding 0 (e.g., skewness = 0.71).
* Be wary of making causal claims based on cross-sectional data.

## Parts of a manuscript

For research-based articles and reports, the following are the typically recommended parts:

### Running head

* Appears in the header on each page.

### Page number

* Appears in the top-right of the header on each page.

### Abstract

* Maximum length tends to vary between ~150 and ~250 words depending on publisher requirements. Thesis abstracts are often longer e.g., up to ~500 words.
* Not indented
* Starts at the top of the page

### Method
#### Participants
#### Design

* Optional; usually only for complex designs

#### Analysis

* Optional; usually only for complex or unusual analyses

### Results

* Data is plural; datum is singular.