FORMAT FOR INDIVIDUAL PROJECT REPORTS

INTRODUCTION TO APA STYLE

The purpose of this handout is to provide an introduction to APA style. APA style is the writing format recommended by the American Psychological Association. This format is used when submitting research articles to journals for publication. It is also the format required by many psychology and education departments, at the undergraduate and graduate level, for student papers, theses, and dissertations.

Much of APA style concerns the form you would use when writing about a research study, but some of it is relevant for other types of student papers; for example, many of your education and psychology professors will expect references in all papers to be done using APA style.

This handout provides an overview; it will describe some features of APA style which are relevant for your individual project reports. Become familiar with this format and use it for your individual project. Formal APA style is much more complex and detailed than what is described here. Should you ever need to know more about APA style, you can find a complete description in the 1994 APA Publication Manual of the American Psvchological Association,4th edition. Copies of the manual are available in Hillman and Langley libraries.

I. Writing style

-You may write in the first person.
-Do not use contractions or slang.

II. The parts of a research report

The first page of the report should be the title page. The body of the report should be composed of the following sections: Abstract, Introduction, Method (Subjects, Apparatus, Procedure), Results, Discussion, References. The sections (other than the title page) should be labeled with these titles. A brief description of each section is found below.

Title page

Title
Author's name
Author's affiliation (eg -University of Pittsburgh)

Abstract

The problem you are investigating, in one sentence if possible:
Subjects (number, sex, age, and other pertinent characteristics)
Method of gathering data
Findings
Conclusions and implications

lntroduction

Discuss relevant background literature.
State the purpose: Why is this study being done?
State the rationale: Develop your arguments.
State your hypothesis (hypotheses).

Method

Subjects/Participants
Number, age, sex, other pertinent characteristics
How did you select subjects?
Apparatus
Describe any materials or apparatus that you used.
Procedure
Summarize the steps in execution of your research.
Describe the conditions in your study.
Describe experimental manipulations, if you had them.
Include survey sheets or standard interview scripts.

Results

Summarize data collected.
Present tables of data and figures. (Number and label figures and tables.)
The first figure is Figure 1; the second figure is Figure 2, and so on. Tables are numbered independently from figures: The first table is Table 1, the second table is Table 2, and so on.
Explain tables and figures in the text, referring to them by number; for example, Table 1 shows....", or "As can be seen in Figure 1 .
If you analyzed data, give the rationale for the type of data analysis that you did.
DON'T discuss implications in the results section.

Discussion

Evaluate and interpret your results.
Discuss results in light of your hypothesis. Does the data support your hypothesis?
What have you learned?
What are the implications of your study?
What problems did you have in conducting this research?
What improvements might be made in your study, for future research?
What new research would be appropriate?

References

References are listed in alphabetical order, using the author's surname.
If you have several references by the same author, order the references according to date of publication; An earlier reference should be listed first.
All literature citations in the text of the report must appear in the reference section.
All references listed in the reference section must be cited in the text of your report.
For tips on how to refer to references in the text of your report, see Section IV below.
For tips on how to list references in the reference section, see Section V below.

IV. Referring to references in the text of your paper

In APA style, the author-date method of citation is used. When discussing a reference in the text of a paper, the author's last name and the year of publication are inserted into the text at the appropriate point.

One author.: When the author's name is used as a part of the narrative, as in Example 1 below, place only the year in parentheses. In Example 2 below, the author's name was not used as a part of the narrative. In such cases, place the author's surname and the date of the publication in parentheses, separating them by a comma.

Example 1. Jones (1987) investigated learning styles.......
Example 2. In a recent study of learning styles (Jones, 1987).

Two authors.: If there are two authors, cite both names each time the publication is referred to in the text.

Example 3. Jones and Smith (1988) investigated learning styles.....
Example 4. In an investigation of learning styles (Jones 8 Smith, 1988)......

When the names are used as a part of the narrative, separate the names by the word "and", and put the publication date in parentheses. Example 3 illustrates such a case. Example 4 illustrates a case in which the names are NOT used as a part of the narrative. In such a case, put the names and the publication date in parentheses. Separate the names by an "&", and separate the names from the date by a comma.

More than two authors.: When there are more than two authors on a publication, list all the names the first time the reference is cited in the text. In subsequent citations, use only the name of the first author, followed by "et al.". Examples 5 and 6 below illustrate the ways a text citation might look the first time the publication is referred to in the text.

Example 5. Allen, Baird, Carlson, and Doe (1985) investigated learning....
Example 6. A recent reaming study ( Allen, Baird, Carlson, & Doe, 1985) investigated several factors.....

Examples 7 and 8 below illustrate the forms the citations might take when they were again referred to in the text.
Example 7. Allen et al. (1985) conducted their studies................
Example 8. Time on task has been found to be an important factor in learning (Allen et al.,1985).

Quotes taken from a reference.

If you quote from a reference, enclose the quote in quotation marks. A quote must always have a citation. The citation for a quote must include the author(s), date, and page number(s). Example 9 below shows an example of a quote used in the text of a report.

Example 9. Piaget states, "Formal operations is the highest stage of cognitive development" (Piaget, 1972, p. 89).

V. Reference section: Format for references

NOTE!!!!!!!!!!!
Titles of books and names and volumes of journals should be underlined or italicized; these formatting functions are not yet available for certain browsers on the WWW!!!!

Journal articles.: Underline the title of the journal and the volume number, if you are using a typewriter. Italicize the title of the journal and the volume number, if you are using a word processor.
Books.: When the reference is to a book, underline the book title, if you are using a typewriter. Italicize the title, if you are using a word processor.

1. Journal article, one author: Paivio, A. (1975). Perceptual comparisons through the mind's eye. Memory & Cognition, 3, 635-647.
2. Two authors: Smith, J., & Jones, T. (1975). Perceptual comparisons............
3. Three or more authors: Smith, J., Jones, T., & Doe, J. (1975). Perceptual comparisons............
4. Magazine reference, without volume number: Gardner, H. (1981, December). Do babies sing a universal song? Psychology Today. pp. 70-76.
5. Reference to an entire book: Bernstein, T.M. (1965). The careful writer: A modern guide to English usage. New York: Atheneum.
6. Reference to an edited book: Levine, J., & Wang, M. (Eds.). (1983). Teacher and student perceptions: Implications for learning. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
7. Reference to a chapter in an edited book.: De Charms, R. (1983). Intrinsic motivation, peer tutoring, and cooperative learning: Practical maxims. In J. Levine & M. Wang (Eds.), Teacher and student perceptions: Implications for learning (pp. 391-398). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
8. See also: Li and Crane (1993). Electronic Style: A guide to citing electronic information.

FORMAT FOR INDIVIDUAL PROJECT REPORTS INTRODUCTION TO APA STYLE