Writing Research Papers Using Apa Style

Despite its universality, the many nuances of academia can make it a difficult language to master.APA provides writers with a consistent format they can use every time they write.Only some fraction of submitted manuscripts will ultimately be accepted for publication in an academic journal.

APA style is the formal writing style that is endorsed by the APA (American Psychological Association). Back when I was a student, I remember thinking that APA style was arbitrary.

It’s got lots of rules (e.g., within a parenthetical citation, use an ampersand (&), but outside a parenthetical, use the word “and” in between the names of authors). From the title page to the final concluding sentence. Who cares if I didn’t put the year of the publication in the in-text citation? Why does it matter if the term “Abstract” at the start of the abstract is not centered? Years later, I’ve had something of a change of heart when it comes to APA style.

The American Psychological Association, or APA, is the organization that created the language used and understood by academics around the world.

APA style is the expected standard in higher education and research papers to ensure sources are cited properly.

If you had to summarize your entire research in 150 words or less, what would you say? What information could be left out and included in more detail later? Sure, you will be reviewing some past literature along the way.

Writing a strong and clear abstract is an intellectual skill that is, in my mind, almost without rival. But the main thing that you are doing here is telling the reader what the main question is for your research and how this question has been studied in the past. Ultimately, your introduction should be very linear.Maybe you measured people’s level of extraversion (outgoingness) in a sample of 100 adults.And perhaps you also asked each person in your study to complete a measure of risk taking.Further, if you pursue publication, APA citations allow your readers to cross-reference your sources easily. lives outside of Pittsburgh, PA, and is a lead faculty member at CSU Global. On the weekends, Audra enjoys traveling, walking with her dog, and boating with friends and family.Any work of academic writing is based on the ideas that other people have shared through publication, and people working together in a field want to understand the origins of ideas. And then suppose that your basic finding is that there is a positive and significant relationship between extraversion and risk taking.In short, you found evidence that extraverts tend to report being risky relative to the reports of introverts. So how would you write that up in a way that was able to convey your findings and their implications to the scientific community?Usually, we think of it as a style that summarizes a report of some scientific study or set of studies that include actual data and a summary of the results.An APA style paper can also describe a study (or set of studies) or it might summarize some theoretical, conceptual ideas on a topic.These experts read it, provide critical (often VERY critical) feedback, and then the editor takes this feedback into account and makes a determination as to whether the paper should be published as an article in the journal.* Most journals in psychology and related fields require that the paper is in APA format.So from the perspective of a scholar in the field of the behavioral sciences, you need to master APA format because otherwise, you are probably going to have your papers rejected, even if your ideas are terrific.