by Melissa

We’re sometimes asked about how to cite international agreements, such as the Charter of the United Nations, in APA Style. You won’t find an example of how to cite that document in the APA Publication Manual.

The Charter of the United Nations is a legal document, so use The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation as your foundation for building APA Style references and citations.

The APA Style reference for the Charter of the United Nations can include these elements:

1. Name of the agreement
2. Article number
3. Paragraph number

References
The reference format and an example using that format appear below.

U.N. Charter art. xx, para. xx.
U.N. Charter art. 1, para. 3.

If you want to reference an entire article of the charter, you can omit the paragraph element:

U.N. Charter art. xx.
U.N. Charter art. 1.

In-Text Citations
In text, use one of these citation formats:

U.N. Charter art. xx, para. xx 

(U.N. Charter art. xx, para. xx)

In the below example of an in-text citation, the article and paragraph numbers (rather than page numbers) pinpoint the location of quoted text from the U.N. Charter.

The founders of the United Nations encouraged countries to work 
cooperatively on “international problems of an economic, social, 
cultural, or humanitarian character” (U.N. Charter art. 1, para. 3).

Consult the latest edition of The Bluebook to learn more about citing United Nations documents and other international agreements.

by Jeff Hume-Pratuch

You read that right: APA has just released the sixth edition of the APA Publication Manual as an e-book from the Amazon Kindle Store! (Sometimes the news is so nice, you have to say it twice.)

Here’s an audio clip of our staff's reaction at APA Style HQ:

Staff Reaction

Keep reading for more details, or just click on over to Amazon and buy it now (you know you want to).

The manual is available from Amazon’s Kindle store as a Print Replica book. Each page in a Print Replica book looks just like the print version, with the same words and images in the same position, but it includes features such as annotation, highlighting, and zoom functions. Page numbers correspond to the print versions, so you can easily find the information you need. Reading progress is also synced across multiple Kindle apps, so you can “save the page” if you need to switch devices.

Kindle Print Replica books can be read on Kindle Fire tablets, Kindle for PC, Kindle for Android Tablets, Kindle for Mac, or Kindle for iPad reading apps (all available for free download from Amazon), but not on E Ink devices.

The manual’s companion volumes have also been released for the Kindle, so you can put an entire shelf-full of APA Style products on your tablet today!

And now, back to the party!

by Chelsea Lee

Punctuation Junction: A series about what happens when punctuation marks collide.

The hyphen (-), en dash (–), and forward slash (/) are three punctuation marks used to indicate a relationship between words or phrases. Respectively, each mark indicates an increasing level of connection between words. The guidelines below illustrate ways to use these marks effectively, both alone and in combination.

1. Use a hyphen to indicate a temporary, unidirectional relationship between words that without the hyphen might be misread.

• Correct: The low-anxiety group outperformed the high-anxiety group in the number of items they recalled from the to-be-remembered list.
• Incorrect: The low anxiety group outperformed the high anxiety group in number of items they recalled from the to be remembered list.

2. Use an en dash to indicate an equal or bidirectional relationship between words or phrases.

• Correct: The researcher examined the measure’s test–retest reliability.
• Incorrect: The researcher examined the measure’s test/retest reliability.
• Incorrect: The researcher examined the measure’s test-retest reliability.

3. Use a slash to clarify a relationship in which a hyphenated compound is used. Otherwise, use a hyphen, en dash, or phrase to show the relationship.

• Correct: The hits/false-alarms comparison did not yield significant results, indicating the presence of a methodological error, a ceiling effect, or both.
• Incorrect: The hits-false-alarms comparison did not yield significant results, indicating a methodological error and/or a ceiling effect.

For more on how these punctuation marks are used, see Publication Manual §4.11 and §4.13. Keep an eye out for more Punctuation Junction posts coming soon!

by Chelsea Lee

Punctuation Junction: A series about what happens when punctuation marks collide.

Parentheses and brackets are used to enclose and set off material from the main text. Although writers usually need only one set of parentheses or brackets at a time, for more complex material they may need an enclosure within an enclosure (referred to as a double enclosure in this post).

Four guidelines govern how to use these punctuation marks together (or not) to handle double enclosures in an APA Style paper.

1. Use brackets inside parentheses to create a double enclosure in the text. Avoid parentheses within parentheses, or nested parentheses.

• Correct: (We also administered the Beck Depression Inventory [BDI; Beck, Steer, & Garbin, 1988], but those results are not reported here.)
• Incorrect: (We also administered the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck, Steer, & Garbin, 1988), but those results are not reported here.)

2. Separate citations from parenthetical text with either semicolons (for parenthetical-style citations) or commas around the year (for narrative citations). Do not use a double enclosure or back-to-back parentheses.

• Correct: Gender differences may reflect underlying continuous attributes, such as personality (e.g., communion and agency; Spence & Helmreich, 1978). These distinctions are reflected in sexually dimorphic brain structures (see Ellis et al., 2008, for recent meta-analyses).
• Incorrect: Gender differences may reflect underlying continuous attributes, such as personality (e.g., communion and agency) (Spence & Helmreich, 1978). These distinctions are reflected in sexually dimorphic brain structures (see Ellis et al. [2008] for recent meta-analyses).

3. When a mathematical equation contains one level of enclosure, use parentheses, ( ); for two levels, add brackets outside, [( )]; for three levels, add curly brackets outside, {[( )]}.

• Correct: Participants were asked to solve the following math problem for x after completing the priming measures: 8[x + 4(2x + 1)] = 248
• Incorrect: Participants were asked to solve the following math problem for x after completing the priming measures: 8(x + 4[2x + 1]) = 248

4. Avoid adding a level of enclosure to statistics that already contain parentheses. Instead, use commas to set off the statistics from the text.

• Correct: The results were statistically significant, F(1, 32) = 4.37, p = .045.
• Incorrect: The results were statistically significant (F[1, 32] = 4.37, p = .045).
• Incorrect: The results were statistically significant [F(1, 32) = 4.37, p = .045].

For more on how these punctuation  marks are used, see Publication Manual §4.09, §4.10, and §4.47. Keep an eye out for more Punctuation Junction posts coming soon!

***

Example text in Guideline 2 adapted from “Men and Women Are From Earth: Examining the Latent Structure of Gender,” by B. J. Carothers and H. T. Reis, 2013, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104, p. 386. Copyright 2013 by the American Psychological Association.

by David Becker

Have you ever seen a news report that just happened to relate to the topic of a paper you were writing? Did you really want to cite that report but just didn’t know how? For example, say you were writing a paper on psychological disorders and their treatments throughout history. By sheer coincidence, you saw a report about historical DC scandals that covered the tragic tale of Henry Rathbone, who was sitting next to President Lincoln when he was assassinated. Rathbone was stabbed by John Wilkes Booth as he retreated and suffered psychological damage for the rest of his life because of this traumatic event. “This would be a perfect example for my paper!” you think. Unfortunately, a live news broadcast is not a retrievable source in and of itself. However, if you can track down a retrievable version of that report or another source containing the same information, you can cite it.

Many news organizations, whether they are large 24-hour networks or small local stations, have archives of their live news reports available for viewing on their websites. You would cite such reports as you would cite a YouTube video or any other kind of streaming video. Here’s how to cite the online version of the above-mentioned report:

In-text citation: (“A Historical Look,” 2013)

Notice that the title of the video has been moved to the author position. This is because the name of the person who uploaded the video is not specified (see Example 9 on p. 200 of the Publication Manual for more information). Also note that video titles should be italicized.

Hypothetically, let’s say you were not able to find the report you saw on TV. In this situation, it’s best not to worry so much about citing the report itself. You can instead use it as a springboard for further research. There may well be other sources that contain the same information, perhaps even better information, than the report you saw. For example, if you did a little digging for more information about Henry Rathbone, you might find the article cited below that provides much more detail than the TV news report:

In-text citation: (Ruane, 2009)

I hope this article has helped you figure out what to do if you ever see a news report that you would like to incorporate into your research. If you have any questions on this or any other topic, feel free to contact us. Your question may inspire a future blog post!

by Chelsea Lee

Punctuation Junction: A series about what happens when punctuation marks collide.

The proper use of question marks and quotation marks in combination all depends on context: Namely, are you (a) quoting a question or (b) asking a question of a quotation? Let’s look at the two scenarios and how they impact punctuation.

1. When the quotation itself is a question, put the question mark inside the quotation marks.

• Correct: Participants were asked, “How many days, on average, have you felt depressed over the past 2 weeks?”
• Incorrect: Participants were asked, “How many days, on average, have you felt depressed over the past 2 weeks”?

2. When the sentence as a whole is a question, but the quoted material is not, put the question mark outside the quotation marks.

• Correct: To what degree will social desirability influence participants’ responses to the statement “I always remember to take my medication as prescribed”?
• Incorrect: To what degree will social desirability influence participants’ responses to the statement “I always remember to take my medication as prescribed?”

For more on how quotation marks work, see APA Publication Manual §4.07. Stay tuned for more Punctuation Junction posts coming soon! 

by Chelsea Lee

Punctuation Junction: A series about what happens when punctuation marks collide.

Periods, exclamation points, and question marks are three types of end punctuation—that is, they indicate the end of a sentence. Two properties of end punctuation are (a) that they are almost never used in combination with one another (even though sometimes it seems like they should be) and (b) that there is a hierarchy among the marks that determines which one you should use for a given sentence.

Follow the guidelines below to ensure you use end punctuation correctly in your APA Style papers.

1. If a sentence seems to call for both a period and an exclamation point or both a period and a question mark, use only the exclamation point or question mark, respectively. These marks are stronger than the period and take its place.

• Correct: The therapist began the session by asking, “How do you feel today?” The patient replied, “I feel 100% improved!”
• Incorrect: The therapist began the session by asking, “How do you feel today?”. The patient replied, “I feel 100% improved!”.

2. If a reference title ends in an exclamation point or question mark, this mark takes the place of the period that would have otherwise appeared after the title. These marks are stronger than the period and take its place.

• Correct: Raftopoulos, A. (2009). Cognition and perception: How do psychology and neural science inform philosophy? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Incorrect: Raftopoulos, A. (2009). Cognition and perception: How do psychology and neural science inform philosophy?. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

3. Only the exclamation point and question mark can ever appear in combination, to indicate an exclamatory question (this will rarely be used in an academic paper, however).

• Correct: When the professor told John he would have to repeat the psychology course, John’s eyes grew wide as he exclaimed, “What?!” Then he ran from the room.
• Incorrect: When the professor told John he would have to repeat the psychology course, John’s eyes grew wide as he exclaimed, “What?!.” Then he ran from the room.

For more on periods, see §4.02 of the APA Publication Manual.

Keep an eye out for more Punctuation Junction posts coming soon!

by Tyler Krupa

You may already know that references in APA Style are cited in text with an author–date system (e.g., Smith, 2012). But do you know when to include the year of publication when one of your citations appears more than once in a paragraph? Getting it right is simple as long as you remember the following two guidelines:

1. All parenthetical citations (i.e., citations in which both the author name and publication date are enclosed within parentheses) should include the year, regardless of how often they appear in a paragraph.

2. When the name of the author is part of the narrative and appears outside of parentheses, after the first citation in each paragraph you need not include the year in subsequent nonparenthetical citations as long as the study cannot be confused with other studies in the article (see p. 174 in the sixth edition of the Publication Manual).

To help illustrate these guidelines, let’s look at a few examples that correctly show when to include the year in citations appearing more than once in a paragraph:

We hope these examples clear up this point of possible uncertainty. Still have questions? Leave us a comment.

by Chelsea Lee

Punctuation Junction: A series about what happens when punctuation marks collide.

Commas and semicolons separate parts of sentences from one another. Although each mark has plenty of uses on its own, there are several more complex scenarios in which the marks are used together. Learn how to avoid grammar gridlock by following the punctuation guidelines shown below.

1. Separate independent clauses joined by a conjunction (and, or, but, etc.) with commas; separate independent clauses not joined by a conjunction with semicolons. Use commas within clauses as needed. 

• Correct: Some errors are more major than others; for instance, calling a tiger a mouse is a larger error than calling a tiger a lion, and adults may be less forgiving of large errors than small ones.
• Incorrect: Some errors are more major than others, for instance, calling a tiger a mouse is a larger error than calling a tiger a lion, and adults may be less forgiving of large errors than small ones.

2. Separate items in a list with commas; however, if any item already contains commas, separate the items with semicolons. 

• Correct: Even in families where books are absent, leaflets and magazines offer text-based information about consumables and services; e-mails and text messages can give information on the whereabouts, plans, and activities of friends; and computers may be used to find out about films or prices of consumables and holidays.
• Incorrect: Even in families where books are absent, leaflets and magazines offer text-based information about consumables and services, e-mails and text messages can give information on the whereabouts, plans, and activities of friends, and computers may be used to find out about films or prices of consumables and holidays.

3. Separate multiple citations within one set of parentheses with semicolons; separate author(s) and date within citations with commas. 

• Correct: Recent research in developmental psychology has explored this issue, often using the term selective trust to describe the ability to distinguish who should be trusted from who should not (e.g., Bergstrom, Moehlmann, & Boyer, 2006; Clément, 2010; Harris & Corriveau, 2011; Harris & Koenig, 2006; Heyman, 2008; Heyman & Legare, in press; Koenig & Harris, 2005).
• Incorrect: Recent research in developmental psychology has explored this issue, often using the term selective trust to describe the ability to distinguish who should be trusted from who should not (e.g., Bergstrom Moehlmann & Boyer 2006, Clément 2010, Harris & Corriveau 2011, Harris & Koenig 2006, Heyman 2008, Heyman & Legare in press, Koenig & Harris 2005).

For more on how commas and semicolons are used independently, see Publication Manual §4.03 and §4.04. Keep an eye out for more Punctuation Junction posts coming soon!

***

Examples 1 and 3 adapted from “Knowing When to Doubt: Developing a Critical Stance When Learning From Others,” by C. M. Mills, 2013, Developmental Psychology, pp. 404, 406. Copyright 2013 by the American Psychological Association.

Example 2 adapted from “Reading to Learn: Prereaders’ and Early Readers’ Trust in Text as a Source of Knowledge,” by E. J. Robinson, S. Einav, & A. Fox, 2013, Developmental Psychology, p. 512. Copyright 2013 by the American Psychological Association.

by Chelsea Lee

Punctuation Junction: A series about what happens when punctuation marks collide.

On their own, periods and parentheses aren’t too hard to use: Put a period at the end of a sentence; put material that’s helpful but not crucial to the main text inside parentheses.

But to use these two punctuation marks effectively in combination takes a little more finesse. Here are a few scenarios:

2. When a whole sentence falls inside parentheses, the period goes inside.

• Correct: (Several other courses were offered, but they were not as popular.)
• Incorrect: (Several other courses were offered, but they were not as popular).

Again, the period is strong and governs the main part of the sentence. Because the whole sentence is inside parentheses, the period goes with it.

3. These two approaches are incompatible.

• Incorrect: Students completed several psychology courses (social, personality, and clinical. Several other courses were offered, but they were not as popular.).

Parentheses cannot enclose part of one sentence plus an additional whole sentence. If you follow one punctuation principle, then you violate the other; if you follow both principles (as shown above), you wind up with three periods for only two sentences—also an unworkable result. If you follow neither principle, you leave the reader hanging because one sentence has no ending punctuation.

Instead, there are three ways to allow the two approaches to work in parallel. 

You can separate the statements into separate sets of parentheses:

• Students completed several psychology courses (social, personality, and clinical). (Several other courses were offered, but they were not as popular.

Rewrite the parenthetical so that it consists of one sentence rather than two:

• Students completed several psychology courses (social, personality, and clinical; several other courses were offered, but they were not as popular).

Or drop one set of parentheses:

• Students completed several psychology courses (social, personality, and clinical). Several other courses were offered, but they were not as popular.

Keep an eye out for more Punctuation Junction posts coming soon!