APA: The Format

APA: The Format

According to APA.org APA (American Psychological Association) Style  provides a foundation for effective scholarly communication because it helps writers present their ideas in a clear, precise and inclusive manner. American Psychological Association. (2019, October). About APA Style. And according to IUP APA is the style of documentation of sources used by the American Psychological Association. This form of writing research papers is used mainly in the social sciences, like psychology, anthropology, sociology as well as education and other fields, because it  provides fairly comprehensive guidelines for writing academic papers regardless of subject or discipline.  (Center et al., n.d.)

We need it because of the uniformity and consistency it presents enable readers to focus on the ideas being presented rather than formatting and scan works quickly for key points, findings, and sources. Apart from the fact that it covers the aspects of scholarly writing and that it specifically addresses the preparation of draft manuscripts being submitted for publication in a journal and the preparation of student papers being submitted for a course assignment.

Additionally, writing solid in this format gives you credibility because of the format’s association with the publication. When your paper is in perfect APA format, and your instructor o reviewer can look at your references page and see authoritative sources cited correctly, you’ve proven than you can “speak” the language of academia. Using APA language gives your ideas the credibility necessary to be taken seriously.

When a style works best, ideas flow logically, sources are credited appropriately, and papers are organized predictably and consistently. Authors plan for ethical compliance and report critical details of their research protocol to allow readers to evaluate findings and other researchers to potentially replicate their studies.

So basically what I’m trying to say is that the APA Style is the expected standard in higher education and research papers to ensure sources are cited properly, and that it’s primary purpose is to facilitate scientific communication by promoting clarity of expression and by standardizing the organization and content of research articles and book chapters. It’s the purpose of higher education to develop new ideas, knowing how to use APA lets us take part in that ongoing, worldwide conversation. APA governs two things: best practices for both formatting a page and using sources.

APA provides writers with a consistent format they can use every time they write. Consistency helps authors organize their arguments or research efficiently.  The format this authors talk about is referenced in the  Rivas, A. (march 6, 2023) Normas APA, and according to this manual you have to follow this rules:

1. Paper size: Letter
2. Font type: Arial- Times new roman
3. Font size: 12
4. Spacing:  2.0, without space between paragraphs
5. Alignment: Left, not justified
6. Margins: 2.5 each side
7. Indent: 5 spaces in the first line of each paragraph

Apart form this rules, there are many more that you have to follow when writing, like the type of numeration some things require because not everything uses Roman or Arabic numbers. Another important thing to mention is that your APA paper should include five major sections: Title page, Abstract, Main paper, Paper format, references and citations.

So, when  working with APA there are another two things to keep in mind: in-text citations and the reference page. In-text citations will use the author’s name and the date withing your research paper and these citations will refer back to the reference page at the end, which lists all the sources that you may have used in your research paper. Here are two examples:

• “Another theory came from the idea of the “matching hypothesis.” This was presented by Goffman (1952), who believed that men had the tendency to choose spouses who were of similar social status. The sums of these attributes include are social skills, wealth, power, intelligence, attractiveness, and other skills that are valued in society.”

• “In 1971 Berscheid, Dion, Walster, and Walster conducted another “computer date” dance. This time they paired similar attractive persons together for the date. An independent panel of judges assessed the attractiveness of each of the subjects.”

With the examples above, do you notice the difference?  In the first one the writer puts the author’s last name in the text immediately followed by the date in parentheses, but in the second the author’s names and the date of publication are both put in the body of the text, without using parentheses.

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