by Sarah Wiederkehr

We’ve been going on about who we are, what on earth this thing called a DOI is and how one finds one, and the typical components of an APA-Styled reference. We’ve also expounded, at great length, on the changes in APA Style brought about by the publication of the sixth edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. As fun as it’s been, and as much as we have enjoyed and learned from your comments, we realize the inherent drawbacks of holding what could be construed as a relatively one-way conversation. We would much rather be spending our energy on explaining things that you would like explained.

So, we pose these questions to you: What sorts of things would you like to hear about from us? What tips or tricks have you found useful in applying APA Style? What particular APA Style guideline trips you up or just plain confuses you? What APA Style rule seems particularly cumbersome? What advice can you give people just learning APA Style?

Sometimes knowing the logic behind a style rule can make a world of difference in learning how to implement (and, we hope, not dread) it. And hearing what works from other veteran users can be invaluable. So let us know what needs explaining, and feel free to share your own insights. Plant your questions, tips, and ideas in the comments below. We look forward to hearing from you!

by Timothy McAdoo and Chelsea Lee

Earlier in this series, I gave examples of lettered, numbered, and bulleted lists. Whereas those posts provided detail about each type of list and how to construct them, this post synthesizes the information to help you decide what list might be best for your paper.

Chelsea has consolidated this information into a handy table that shows typical uses for each type of list. Please note that it’s a general overview of the APA Style guidelines described in the Manual, not an exhaustive or absolute list. In fact, we’d love to hear other ways you use lists—feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments.

You can also download a PDF version of this table here.

What other uses do you find for lettered, numbered, or bulleted lists?

Lists, Part 1  |  Lists, Part 2  |  Lists, Part 3

by Timothy McAdoo

This is the fifth in a six-part series about lists. Today I’ll discuss bulleted lists, which are new to APA Style!

As the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association notes (p. 63), creating a list sometimes “helps the reader understand the organization of key points.” And although numbered lists are useful, in some cases the numbers may imply a chronology or ranking of importance that you don’t intend. Thus, I’m happy to share that bulleted lists are now an official part of APA Style (pp. 64–65)!

Bulleted lists allow a writer to create a list that stands out from the text without the implied chronology or order of importance that a numbered list might convey. Any symbol may be used for the bullets, although small circles or squares are typical software defaults. Here again, when full sentences are used, the first words should be capitalized and appropriate end punctuation should be included.

(Note that although we single-space examples in the blog, you should double-space lists in an APA Style manuscript just as you would regular text.)

Bulleted Lists Within Sentences

In the example above, I used full sentences. But, you can also use bulleted lists within a sentence. When you do so, capitalize and punctuate throughout the list just as you would in any sentence. For example, in the following list, note the commas following the first two items, the conjunction “and” included with the second-to-last item, the lowercase used for each item in the list, and the end punctuation with the last item.

And remember that the rule for semicolons when items have internal commas is still applicable:

In Part 6 of this series, we’ll provide an overview of good uses for each type of list.

Lists, Part 1  |  Lists, Part 2  |  Lists, Part 3

by Timothy McAdoo

This is the fourth in a six-part series. Today we’ll look at numbered lists.

Numbered lists (as noted on p. 64 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association) can be used to denote items in a series, such as conclusions or procedural steps. By virtue of their formatting, numbered lists stand out from the regular text and are more likely to catch a reader’s attention. So, be sure to use the numbered list format only when the list format will add clarity to the text.

Numbered lists can be useful to show the relationship between items: a chronology of events, each item’s relative importance, and so on.

The items can be single sentences or full paragraphs. In either case, the first words of the sentences are capitalized and appropriate end punctuation should be included.

If the items on the list are not complex and the list itself does not warrant special attention, consider running the items into regular text. See Parts 2 and 3 of this series for more detail on the use of serial commas, semicolons, and lowercase letters.

In Part 5 of this series, I’ll cover a list format new to APA Style with the 6th edition: bulleted lists!

Lists, Part 1  |  Lists, Part 2  |  Lists, Part 3

Lists, Part 1  |  Lists, Part 2  |  Lists, Part 3

by Timothy McAdoo

This is the second in a six-part series about lists in APA Style. Today I’ll provide examples of serial commas and semicolons.

The most basic type of list appears in the running text of a sentence, with each item separated by a comma. All lists in APA Style should include a serial comma—the final comma before the conjunction.

For example,

This gets more complex when an item or multiple items in your list already have commas. In these cases, separate the items with semicolons:

In the next example the same principle is applied to a series that includes statistics. Proper and consistent use of commas and semicolons clarifies the grouping of each set of statistics:

In Part 3, we’ll look at how to use lowercase letters to identify elements of a list in APA Style.

Lists, Part 1  |  Lists, Part 2  |  Lists, Part 3

by Timothy McAdoo

When I feel overwhelmed with tasks, I often make a list (or two or three).

• parallelism,
• serial commas, and
• semicolons.

• lettered,
• numbered, and
• bulleted.

For a general guideline about creating lists, the Manual states that “all items should be syntactically and conceptually parallel” (p. 63). This may seem obvious, but it’s easy to use wording that’s not precisely parallel when first getting your ideas onto paper. On the second draft, assess the structure of your lists carefully.

In this example, I’ve underlined the elements that should be parallel in syntax:

That sentence conveys the meaning, but the lack of parallelism weakens its impact. Consider this alternative:

In the following, the writer may think he or she is avoiding redundancy by omitting two instances of “Practice Group”:

There are many ways you might rewrite this sentence with a parallel structure. Here’s one example:

More examples of parallel structure can be found on pages 84–86 of the Manual.

More to Come

In Part 2, I’ll discuss APA Style guidelines for using commas and semicolons in lists.

Lists, Part 1  |  Lists, Part 2  |  Lists, Part 3

by Timothy McAdoo

This post is part of an ongoing series about how references work. Check out an introduction to the generic APA Style reference and the posts on the author or “who” element, the date or “when” element, the title or “what” element, and the source information or “where” element. Additionally, read about how adding supplementary information in brackets can improve your references.   

In The Generic Reference, Chuck described the basic building blocks of APA Style references and explained how to craft one from scratch when the specific case you need is not covered in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Once you understand the generic reference components (given in greater detail on pages 183–192), it’s also easier to understand and use the reference examples on pages 198–215 to your advantage. 

Here’s the key to getting the most out of the reference examples: If the exact situation you’re looking for is not represented, don’t be afraid to create a Frankenreference! That is, mix and match elements of the examples as needed. Just be sure that the reference you create has all of the basic building blocks: “author, year of publication, title, and publishing data—all the information necessary for unique identification and library search” (p. 180).

Let’s say you’ve found some cutting-edge data from a government report that is currently available online in draft form. You search the reference examples and find that there are only two cases of in-press works (Examples 5 and 6) and both are about journal articles. What to do? Just combine the aspects of each relevant example: That is, follow the format for technical and research reports described on page 205 (Examples 31–35, pp. 205–206) and combine either the appropriate “in-press” or “advanced online publication” elements from Examples 5 and 6 (pp. 199–200). 

Don’t worry if you can’t find two perfect matches; you’ll sometimes need to combine elements of three, four, or even more examples. Your Frankenreference may not look exactly like anything in the Manual, but it’s beautiful in its own way! Remember, because you want your reader to be able to retrieve and use the source, “when in doubt, provide more information rather than less” (p. 193). 

by Timothy McAdoo

This post is part of an ongoing series about how references work. Check out an introduction to the generic APA Style reference and the posts on the author or “who” element, the date or “when” element, the title or “what” element, and the source information or “where” element. An upcoming post will give advice on mixing and matching elements of example references.

Glancing through the references examples on pages 193–215 of the APA Publication Manual, you may notice that some references include information in brackets. These brackets always appear immediately following the title element (and any of its parenthetical information). Understanding this element of an APA Style reference can give you great flexibility when creating references. 

As indicated on page 186, “nonroutine” information can be included in brackets. Fourteen of the most common notations are included on that page (including “Audio podcast,” “Data file,” “Computer software,” and others). But these are not the only possible notations.  Any information that is “important for identification and retrieval” may be included in brackets. 

This is useful when you need to clarify the type of source. For example, although Example 50 (p. 210) shows “[Audio podcast]” after the title element, “[Video podcast]” is another possibility. Likewise, in Example 53 (“Map retrieved online”) brackets are included to clarify that the title element refers to a “[Demographic map].” 

Brackets can also be used to indicate that the title element refers to more than one thing, as in Example 57, where “Eyelink II” refers to both the “[Apparatus and software].” 

In short, if you’re referencing an unusual item, consider using brackets to clarify. 

What’s the most unusual item you’ve ever included in an APA Style reference list?

by Jeff Hume-Pratuch

This post is part of an ongoing series about how references work. It began with an introduction to the generic APA Style reference and posts on the author or “who” element, the date or “when” element, and the title or “what” element. Upcoming posts will cover adding supplementary information in brackets and mixing and matching elements of example references.

The last generic element in an APA reference is where a reader should go to locate the reference you used. (An alternate label for this element might be how—as in, “How can I locate that source?”)

Periodicals

For journals, newsletters, and magazines, the primary locator element is the volume number. It goes after the periodical’s title, in italics, and the article’s page range follows:

Elk, A. (1972a). My theory on brontosauruses. Journal of the

 All-England Summarize Proust Competition, 31, 12–27.

If (and only if) the journal is one that restarts the page numbering at 1 for each issue, include the issue number in parentheses after the volume number:

Elk, A. (1972b). The other theory on brontosauruses. Journal of the 

 All-England Summarize Proust Competition, 31(4), 47–50.

Note that if the issue number is used, it is in roman (i.e., not italic) type, as is the comma following it.

Books, Reports, and So Forth

Give the name and location of the publisher (city and state or, outside the United States, city and country) for books, reports, brochures, and other nonperiodical publications.

Gumby, T. F. (1972). The brain specialist. Cambridge, England: 

 Python.

Note that the name of the publisher is given in as brief a form as possible. Eliminate words such as Publishers, Co., and Inc., and use only the surname for publishing houses that are named after persons (e.g., Erlbaum, not Lawrence Erlbaum; Wiley, not John Wiley). The names of universities, associations, and so forth are given in full.

The “well-known city rule” is no longer in effect, so the state (or country, for non-U.S. publishers) is included for all publishers. However, there is one exception to this rule: If the publisher is a university whose name includes the name of the state, don’t repeat the state in the publisher location.

Clark, D. T., & Schoomaker, P. J. How not to be seen. Tampa:

 University of Florida.

Electronic Sources

The digital object identifier (DOI) is the new gold standard for locating electronic publications. Through the magic of international concordats and computer programming, it will get you to the online version of the article every time, even if the publisher has changed Web addresses. Over the past few months we have devoted considerable space on the blog to the use (and the pros and cons) of DOIs, so I’ll simply point you to Chelsea's DOI primer and handy flowchart for guidance on when to use DOI versus URL. You may also want to check out Tim's video on how to find those pesky DOIs, and Paige's discussion of document URL versus homepage URL.

Odd Cases

Do you have a locator problem that stumps you? Post it here and we’ll try to figure it out!