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This guide to writing in APA style (American Psychological Association, 1994) contains rules that are generally more advanced (although no
more difficult to apply) than those found in other web-based introductions to APA style. Some additional rules are based on general editorial
experience. Careful attention to these rules should allow one to weed out many common errors.
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1. APA style now forbids the standard practice of placing two spaces after periods and colons; a single space is now preferred.
2. Lists of authors' names:

a. Multiple references within a single citation are listed in alphabetical order.

b. The ›
is represented with an ampersand ("&") if the cite is within parentheses and is spelled out ("and") if the cite is not inside
parentheses.

3. Contractions (› ,  , , etc.) should not be used in formal writing.
4. Œhen there are two spellings for a word (e.g., £

, £


), the first spelling listed in the dictionary should be used. This is
the "preferred" spelling.
5. The word
›› is considered plural. The singular form, rarely used, is
› : "The data were analyzed by Jack Sprat, who examined
them datum by datum."
6. The words R 
and  
should be used only in their temporal senses. Otherwise, R 
can be replaced with R

› or ›
 ,
and  
can be replaced with 
› 
or 
 ›.
7. The word

  means "full of hope." Therefore, "Hopefully, he will leave soon," should be rendered, "It is to be hoped that he
will leave soon," or, "Œe hope he will leave soon."
8. A 
›
  is usually by blood or marriage. Œhen comparing the relation between two things, use 
›
instead (Rothman,
1998).
9. ‰y rewording a sentence, non-sexist language can often be achieved without resort to clumsy pronous such as


. Avoid
writing 

›, 
›
, and so on; instead, write 
› or ›
, which can be referred to by plural pronouns such as

 or 
.
10. Participial phrases must be placed next to the noun they modify (i.e., no "dangling" participles):

RIGHT: Thinking about his girlfriend, he was almost hit by a car.

ŒRONG: Thinking about his girlfriend, a car almost hit him.

11. For items in a series, use commas after each item except the last. For example: "He had roast beef, mashed potatoes, and green beans
for lunch."
12. For expressions enclosed in quotation marks, the ending quote mark goes after any comma or period appearing at that point: "His cat,
nicknamed 'Stripes,' often preferred...."
13. Commas must be placed between two independent clauses in a sentence and after a dependent clause at the beginning of a sentence.
For example:

Henry Jones entered the data, and Janine Hinderson analyzed them.
After Henry Jones entered the data, Janine Hinderson analyzed them.

14. Restrictive clauses, which are essential to the meaning of the sentence, are not set off by a comma. Nonrestrictive clauses, which are
not essential to the meaning of the sentence--they merely add further information--are set off by a comma. For example:

Men who are tall are better at basketball than men who are short.
Men, who are tall, are better at basketball than horned toads, which are short.

A special case of this rule concerns the use of R  versus  ›. Restrictive clauses begin with  › and are not set off by a comma;
nonrestrictive clauses begin with R  and are set off by a comma. For example:

The lemmings that performed well in the first race were not included in the second race.
The lemmings, which performed well in the first race, were all fuzzy animals.

‰ecause R  is more often misused, one should occasionally conduct a "R  hunt."

15. Some believe that
R

 should not be placed at the beginning of a sentence if it can be appropriately placed elsewhere. The
purpose of conjunctions such as
R

,  , and ›
is to join, and a word beginning a sentence should not be a joining word.
16. üse numerals for numbers greater than nine (10, 101, 909, etc.); spell out numbers nine and below (one, five, nine).

First exception: üse numerals for quantities of time or amount (e.g., 1 day, 30 s, 5 mg) that do not begin a sentence.
Second exception: Spell out any number used to begin a sentence (e.g., "Nine hundred nine examinees participated in the
 experiment."). If possible, it is better to reword the sentence so that it does not begin with the number (e.g., "The sample size for the
experiment was 909.").

17. Statistical symbols (e.g., ·, , , etc.) should be underlined. Statistical symbols and relational symbols (=, etc.) should be treated as
distinct words, and should therefore be separated from other words by spaces (e.g., " = 4.31.").
18. Regarding verb tense, procedures (methods and analyses) and results occurred in the past, but inferences occur in the present.

Pearson product moment correlations were calculated.... Given that the correlation between tongue-tying and arm-twisting was not
significant, it appears that our original hypothesis is incorrect.

Also, regarding reporting of statistics:

The -value for Variable 1 was 5.74. This value is not significant at the .05 level, for 1 and 995 degrees of freedom.

19. Characterizing correlations (following Cohen, 1988, pp. 24-27):

a. < .20: "low"

b. in the .20s: "low-to-moderate"
c. .30 to .50: "moderate"
d. above .50: "moderately high," "high," "very high"

20. It is desirable for reliabilities to be in the .90s. Hence, one might characterize a reliability of .91 as "good" and a reliability of .97 as
"very good." Reliabilities in the .80s are "acceptable," and reliabilities of less than .80 indicate that the test needs improvement
(although a new test with a reliability of .78 might be "promising").




 ° 

Clause and clause. Dick ran, and Jane jumped.

Introductory clause, then clause. Œhen Dick ran, Jane jumped.

Compound subject. Dick, and Jane ran. NO!

Compound predicate. Dick ran, and jumped. NO!

Short introductory phrase, then clause. ‰efore going, Dick slept. NO!
Long introductory phrase, then clause. ‰efore going to the library, Dick slept.

¦  

  


c
› ›
 

Dick said, "I'll pay."

Dick asked, "Œho will pay?"
Dick shouted, "You pay!"

"I'll pay," Dick said.

"Œho will pay?" Dick asked.
"You pay!" Dick shouted.

Did Jane spell "Paris"?

Don't you dare spell "Paris"!

c
› 

Jane spelled "Paris."

After Jane spelled "Paris," she left.

 
 Jane spelled "Paris".
After Jane spelled "Paris", she left.

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(a) No such generality as "the doctor" exists.

(b) "The doctor" requires such clumsy pronouns as she/he, her/him, etc. Doctors do exist, and doctors can be referred to by plural
pronouns--e.g., they, them.

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The play was boring. The plays were boring.

The theme of the play was boring. The play's theme was boring.
The theme of the plays was boring. The plays' theme was boring.

1952 was a boring year. The legacy of 1952 was boredom.

1952's legacy was boredom.

The 1950s were boring. The legacy of the 1950s was boredom.
The 1950s' legacy was boredom.

º 











 

 
 


 



 

 


 





In the equation are two t's.

There are three 7's in my address.
Please don't use so many and's

 ?




R 

Restrictive clauses, which are essential to the meaning of the sentence, begin with "that" and are
 set off by a comma.
The rats that performed well in the first experiment were used in the second experiment.

ünrestrictive clauses, which are not essential to the meaning of the sentence--they merely add further information--begin with "which"
and are set off by a comma.
The rats, which performed well in the first experiment, were not proficient in the second experiment. [The second experiment was
more difficult for all the rats.]

D
 
 
 

Do not hyphenate adverbs, which usually end in -ly.

The hotly debated topic was interesting.

The hotly-debated topic was interesting. NO!

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à 


!

Do not add -ly to words that are already adverbs without adding -ly.

First, she ran. Second, she jumped.

Firstly, she ran. Secondly, she jumped. NO!

! Î


My turn has come.

His turn has come.
Her turn has come.
Their turn has come.
Our turn has come.
Your turn has come.
Its turn has come.
.