Common Mistakes, Essay Advice

APA Refresher

APA REFRESHER

Reference List:

  1. Double space the reference list, but do not add any additional space between entries
  2. Be sure to place a comma between the journal title and volume number, e.g., Psychology Today, 17
  3. Be sure to place a comma between the date of retrieval and “from” when listing a source Web site or an electronic database, e.g., “Retrieved October 4, 2008, from…”
  4. Do not capitalize all major words in book titles or article titles, only in journal titles, e.g., Social adaptive theory. Psychology Today, 17
  5. Do not add a space between the volume number and the parentheses containing the issue number, e.g., Psychology Today, 17(1)
  6. Put spaces between initials, e.g., Georgia, J. M.
  7. When using a month in the date, do not abbreviate, e.g., (2005, November)
  8. Always italicize the names of documents retrieved from the Internet unless they are newspaper/journal articles, e.g., Barclay, L. (2002). The paradox of “justice”


  9. formalization: When procedures erode perceptions of fairness. Retrieved December 9, 2005, from http://frontiers.sauder.ubc.ca/Laurie_2002.pdf
  10. Always place commas between the author’s name and the ampersand, e.g., Michael, J. K., & Lorne, P. J. and Georgia, B. K., Mason, H. G., & Teakes, M. N.

In-Text Citations:

  1. (when using “et al.”) do not place a comma after the author’s name and be sure to place a period after “al,” e.g., Georgia et al.
  2. Place a comma between the author’s name and the year, e.g., (Terwilliger & Simpson, 2008)
  3. Use ampersands, e.g., (Terwilliger & Simpson, 2008, p. 3)
  4. Be sure to place a space between “p.” and the page number, e.g., (Georgia, 2003, p. 22)
  5. Use serial commas, e.g., (Mason, Georgia, & Lenny, 2008)

Headings:

  1. When using a running head, be sure it is formatted as follows: Running head: INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN BIMODAL PROCESSES
  2. Do not label the introduction
  3. Repeat the title on the first page of the document text
  4. Do not use underlining or bold for headings

Capitalization, Abbreviations, and Percentages:

  1. Spell out United States when used as a noun
  2. Do not capitalize the names of theories, excepting, of course, proper names within them, e.g., social adaptive theory and Darwin’s theory of evolution
  3. In general, capitalize sparingly
  4. Percents are always given as numbers plus the percent sign, e.g., 25%