The Long and the Short of It

by Stefanie

The goal of writing, especially scholarly writing, is to convey information. Accomplishing that task certainly involves choosing the right words, but have you also considered the length of the sentences and paragraphs in which those words appear? Onwuegbuzie, Combs, Slate, and Frels (2010) include too-short and too-long paragraphs on their list of common APA Style mistakes. Labeling these style choices mistakes may seem harsh, but if you lose readers because of the style of your presentation, the term is apt.

The troubles that come with lengthy sentences and paragraphs are more obvious than those that accompany short ones. I suspect anyone who reads has, at some point, drifted off in the middle of a long, run-on sentence. And woe be to the person who has his or her reading interrupted in the middle of a page-long paragraph! Good luck finding your place and the train of thought after that. (Whatever you do, please don’t try to write the longest sentence in English; the current record holders are legendary.)

Short sentences (insert obligatory Hemingway reference here) and paragraphs can be easily read and digested, but a bunch of either can be choppy, abrupt, even boring. Imagine a Results section that followed this pattern throughout:

    The mean was 8.8.

    The standard deviation was 9.9.

    The results were nonsignificant.

This would get old fast. (Incidentally, you may want to consider a table rather than short or long sentences for numerical results.)

A blend of long and short sentences in a paragraph is ideal. Paragraph length is a little trickier. Single-sentence paragraphs are discouraged. As for long paragraphs, as noted on page 68 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, sixth edition, “if a paragraph runs longer than one double-spaced manuscript page, you may lose your readers. Look for a logical place to break a long paragraph, or reorganize the material.”

Have further questions about sentence and paragraph length? Please comment below or write to [email protected].

 

The Grammar of Mathematics: Percentage or %?

by Timothy McAdoo

As Chelsea so succinctly noted in her recent post about how statistical terms are introduced and used in APA Style manuscripts, “in the social sciences, the worlds of grammar and mathematics intersect.” Thus, when you first start to write about statistical results, you may encounter style questions that you’ve not considered before. In today’s post, I answer one such question:

Question: How do you decide whether to use the percentage symbol (%) or the word percentage?

Answer: Use the symbol only when it is preceded by a numeral; otherwise, spell out the word percentage.

For example,

What percentage of wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? In Experiment 1, we used a computer simulation to address this timeless question. The woodchucks (who would chuck) chucked 86.4% of the wood available during the test. This was a larger percentage than we hypothesized. Two woodchucks (33.3% of the virtual subjects) would not chuck wood (see Table 1).

You’ll find these guidelines on page 118 of the Publication Manual. On the same page, the Manual also notes just one exception: "In table headings and figure legends, use the symbol % to conserve space."

The Grammar of Mathematics: Writing About Variables

by Chelsea Lee

In the social sciences, the worlds of grammar and mathematics intersect, as authors must not only run statistical tests but also write about their results in a clear, consistent way. To help achieve that end, this post focuses on some of the grammar of mathematics: how to introduce and use statistical terms in text when you are reporting your results. 

The sixth edition Publication Manual provides a listing of many mathematical variables and terms that commonly appear in APA Style papers (see Table 4.5 on pp. 119–123). The table below excerpts some of the most common statistics, showing their written-out and abbreviated forms in both the singular and the plural. Following that, we discuss the ins and outs of using them in an APA Style paper. 

 

Written-out form		Abbreviation/symbol
Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Cohen’s d	Cohen’s ds	d	ds
degree of freedom	degrees of freedom	df	dfs
F statistic or F value	F statistics or F values	F	Fs
mean	means	M	Ms
sample size (subsample)	sample sizes (subsample)	n	ns
sample size (full sample)	sample sizes (full sample)	N	Ns
p value	p values	p	ps
r value	r values	r	rs
R2 value	R2 values	R2	R2s
standard deviation	standard deviations	SD	SDs
standard error	standard errors	SE	SEs
t value	t values	t	ts
z score	z scores	z	zs
Cronbach’s alpha	Cronbach’s alphas	Cronbach’s α	Cronbach’s αs
beta	betas	β	βs
chi-square	chi-squares	χ2	χ2s
delta	deltas	Δ	Δs

Singular Versus Plural

• The syntax of your sentence will dictate whether you need to use the singular or plural form of the variable.
• All plural abbreviated forms are made by adding a nonitalic lowercase “s.” Do not use an apostrophe plus an “s,” an italic “s,” or a capital “S.”
  • Correct: ps < .05; Ms = 3.70 and 4.22; degrees of freedom.
  • Incorrect: ps < .05, p’s < .05; Ms= 3.70 and 4.22; Means = 3.70 and 4.22; degree’s of freedom.

Written-Out Form Versus Abbreviated Form

• Use the written-out form of the variable in prose; use the symbol in conjunction with all mathematical operators (such as the equals sign or the greater than/less than signs).
• As usual, use singular or plural as needed by the context.

Italic Versus Nonitalic

• Variables are italicized.
• Superscript numbers are not italicized (e.g., R²).
• Identifiers (which can be superscript or subscript words, letters, or numbers) are not italicized. For example, if M_girls = 4.22 and M_boys = 3.78, the symbol for mean is italicized, but the nonvariable identifiers (here identifying the two groups, “girls” and “boys”) are not italicized.  

An Example

The means and standard deviations are reported in Table 1. We calculated Cronbach’s alpha as the reliability statistic and then ran a chi-square test. The read-aloud group (M = 4.55, SD = 0.65) and the read-silently group (M = 2.72, SD = 0.53) differed significantly on the test of reading comprehension, χ²(1, 50) = 4.25, p < .05. Boys and girls did not differ significantly (M_girls = 4.22 and M_boys = 3.78). The sample size for each testing group was 25, but several participants in each group (ns= 5 and 6, respectively) had missing data on the final question, and these were replaced with the participant’s mean score. This did not affect reliability (Cronbach’s α = .83). 

Punctuating Around Quotation Marks

Dear APA,

I’m quoting from a couple of different sources in my APA Style paper, and I can’t figure out what to do with all the quotation marks and periods and commas. Do I put the period inside or outside the quotation marks? What about question marks and quotation marks? I’ve been told so many different things over the years that the answers have just blurred together. Please help!

—Quizzical in Queens

Dear Quizzical,

We’re not surprised that you have been told different ways to punctuate over the years, because there do indeed exist different practices in the world. On the upside, if you are writing an APA Style paper, we have some nice, straightforward solutions for you.

To begin, let’s take a brief look at the two punctuation systems you’ve probably encountered, which are called American style (or North American Style) and British style.

Here is a quick chart of the differences:

Style issue	American Style	British Style
To enclose a quotation, use…	Double quotation marks	Single quotation marks
To enclose a quotation within a quotation, use…	Single quotation marks	Double quotation marks
Place periods and commas…	Inside quotation marks	Outside quotation marks
Place other punctuation (colons, semi-colons, question marks, etc.)…	Outside quotation marks*	Outside quotation marks*

*Place other punctuation inside quotation marks when that punctuation is part of what is being quoted, such as a quoted question.

 

As you might guess from our name, APA Style uses American style punctuation (see p. 92 of the 6th ed. Publication Manual), as do several other major style guides (such as AP, Chicago, and MLA). The table below elaborates, with examples for each punctuation mark.

Punctuation mark	In relation to closing quotation mark, place it…	Example	Notes
Period	Inside	Participants who kept dream diaries described themselves as “introspective” and “thoughtful.”
Comma	Inside	Many dream images were characterized as “raw,” “powerful,” and “evocative.”
Parentheses	Outside	Barris (2010) argued that “dreams express and work with the logic of gaining a sense of and a relation to ourselves, our lives, or our sense of reality as a whole” (p. 4).	See more examples of how to cite direct quotations here.
Semi-colon	Outside	At the beginning of the study, participants described their dream recall rate as “low to moderate”; at the end, they described it as “moderate to high.”
Colon	Outside	Participants stated they were “excited to begin”: We controlled for participants' expectations in our study.
Question mark or exclamation point (part of quoted material)	Inside	The Dream Questionnaire items included “How often do you remember your dreams?” and “What do you most often dream about?” We found intriguing results.	When a quotation ending in a question mark or exclamation point ends a sentence, no extra period is needed.
Question mark or exclamation point (not part of quoted material)	Outside	How will this study impact participants who stated at the outset, “I never remember my dreams”? We hypothesized their dream recall would increase.
Quotation within a quotation + period or comma	Inside	Some participants were skeptical about the process: “I don’t put any stock in these ‘dream diaries.’”	When multiple quotation marks are used for quotations within quotations, keep the quotation marks together (put periods and commas inside both; put semi-colons, colons, etc., outside both).

 

As a final note, we’d like to say that we realize APA Style is used in many places across the world that may not usually follow American style punctuation rules and that not all fields or publishers in the United States and Canada use American style punctuation. Does this mean that you should change to American style punctuation when you’re writing an APA Style paper? If you’re writing for publication with APA or you’ve been told to “follow the APA Publication Manual,” then the answer is yes. However, if you typically use British style punctuation (or some other style) and you have doubts about what to do, check with your publisher or professor to find out their preference.

We hope that this clears up how to punctuate around those quotation marks in your APA Style paper.

Quotably yours, 

Chelsea Lee

Capitalization After Colons

by David Becker

One basic rule of APA Style is to capitalize the first word after the colon in a title. For example, in the movie title Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, the is capitalized because it is placed directly after the colon. The same would be true for titles in a reference list where only the first word, proper nouns, and the first word after a colon or an em dash should be capitalized. Here’s an example:

Braucher, D. (1998). Darth Vader vs. Superman: Aggression and intimacy in two preadolescent boys' groups. Journal of Child & Adolescent Group Therapy, 8(3), 115–134. doi:10.1023/A:1022936202071

The first word directly after a colon that begins an independent clause should also be capitalized. For example, one would write, “There is a valuable lesson to be learned in The Princess Bride: One should never get involved in a land war in Asia.” However, if the sentence were reworked to say, “The Princess Bride teaches us the most famous of the classic blunders: getting involved in a land war in Asia,” then getting is not capitalized because the clause directly after the colon cannot stand on its own as an independent clause.

Occasionally, a numbered or bulleted list follows a colon. The same basic rules described above apply to these situations. To learn more, read our previous blog posts about numbered lists and bulleted lists. You can also read more about proper capitalization after colons in section 4.05 on page 90 and sections 4.14 and 4.15 on page 101 of the Publication Manual (6th ed.).

Properly Using While

 

by Tyler Krupa

 

This week, we address another item on the list of frequent APA Style points that writers find most challenging (on the basis of the recent article by Onwuegbuzie, Combs, Slate, & Frels, 2010; also see their recent guest post to our blog): the misuse of while.

According to the 6th edition of the APA Publication Manual (p. 84), the use of while should be limited to its temporal meaning (i.e., to link events occurring simultaneously). When that is not what is meant, the terms although, whereas, and, or but should be substituted in its place. To help clarify, examples of while being used correctly are listed below:

• One woman abused by her father sobbed while describing why she had not pressed charges against him.
• The participant stared at the computer monitor while he listened to the audiotapes.
• The patient took deep breaths while the doctor listened with a stethoscope. 

For comparison, examples of when it would be more precise not to use while are listed below:

• Although the results are encouraging, future research still needs to be performed.
• Risk factors focus on pathology and hazards, whereas protective factors emphasize positivism and hope for change.

We hope these examples help to clear up any confusion regarding the proper use of this term. If not, feel free to leave a comment while this topic is on your mind!

Since Versus Because

 

by Tyler Krupa

 

This week, we address another item on the list of frequent APA Style points that writers find most challenging (on the basis of the recent article by Onwuegbuzie, Combs, Slate, & Frels, 2010; also see their recent guest post to our blog): the use of since instead of because.

According to the 6th edition of the APA Publication Manual (p. 84), the use of since is more precise when it is used to refer only to time (to mean “after”). You should replace it with because when that is what is really meant. Examples of both terms being used correctly are listed below:

• Since Smith’s (2000) research was conducted, many additional researchers have achieved similar results.
• The participants were excluded from the experiment because they did not meet the inclusion criteria.
• Because the data were not complete, the results were excluded from the study.
• No additional testing has been performed since the last experiment.

We hope these examples help to clear up any confusion regarding the proper use of these terms. If not, feel free to leave a comment because we really would like to help!

 

 

 

Using Serial Commas

by David Becker

This week we address the serial comma, seventh in the list of the Top 10 most common APA Style errors as identified by Onwuegbuzie, Combs, Slate, and Frels (2010).

Also known as the Oxford comma, the serial comma is the final comma in a list of three items or more, and it is used immediately before and, or, and occasionally nor. For example, if Simon & Garfunkel had recorded their classic album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme under APA Records, which doesn't actually exist, then that album would have been titled Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme with the serial comma included. This rule also applies to parenthetical citations, in which ampersands are used in place of the full word and. For instance, one would say (Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, & Starr, 1964) instead of (Lennon, McCartney, Harrison & Starr, 1964).

There are various aesthetic and technical arguments for why serial commas should or should not be used. Although they aren’t required in journalistic writing, a distinct advantage of using serial commas is clear, unambiguous language, which is a necessity in scientific writing.

As an example of how omitting a serial comma can create ambiguity, if I were to say, "I had lunch with my parents, Barack Obama and the Prime Minister of Australia," it might seem like Barack Obama and the Australian Prime Minister were my parents, which I can personally assure you is not true. On the other hand, if I were to say, "I had lunch with my parents, Barack Obama, and the Prime Minister of Australia," then each of those items is clearly distinct from one another, and Barack Obama and the Australian Prime Minister are no longer my parents, all thanks to the addition of a serial comma.

For more information about commas and their proper usage in APA Style, see pages 88 and 89 of the Publication Manual, Sixth Edition (4.03 Comma). Also, pages 63–65 go into greater detail about creating lists (3.04 Seriation). You may also find it helpful to read two previous APA Style blog entries about creating lists: one on parallelism and another on commas and semicolons.

How Do You Spell IQ? Abbreviations as Words in APA Style

by Timothy McAdoo

In a recent guest post, Dr. Anthony Onwuegbuzie and colleagues (Onwuegbuzie, Combs, Slate, & Frels, 2010) presented a list of common APA Style errors. “Failure to spell out abbreviations and acronyms as needed” is eighth on the list.

So, what does “as needed” mean? Shouldn’t all abbreviations and acronyms be defined?

Almost, but there are a handful of exceptions. These exceptions are words for which the abbreviated forms have become commonplace. These abbreviations are often better known than their spelled-out counterparts. IQ, for example, is better known than is intelligence quotient. Likewise, your readers are more likely to recognize REM sleep than rapid eye movement sleep.

If these seem arbitrary, don’t worry! You won’t have to phone a friend each time you consider using an abbreviation. Just follow these guidelines, as recommended by the Publication Manual (p. 107):

• You may use “abbreviations that appear as word entries (i.e., that are not labeled abbr) in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (2005).” For these few cases, you don’t need to define the abbreviations.
• Conversely, entries that do include the abbr label are abbreviations that should be defined.
• If an abbreviation does not appear in the dictionary, you should define it.

Finally, see pages 106–108 of the Publication Manual for additional guidance on abbreviations, including how and when to introduce them, examples of under- and overuse, and more.

Spelling Success in APA Style

by Timothy McAdoo

Readers send us APA Style questions every week—by e-mail, phone, Twitter, and Facebook. We love hearing from you, and we love the variety of your questions!

People sometimes contact us just to verify how a word is spelled or formatted. For example, “Is the word Internet capitalized?” Yes, Internet, a proper noun, is always capitalized, whereas website is not. Some people may believe that the word Internet has taken on a more general use, but until this change is reflected in dictionaries, most style guides will likely continue to advise writers to capitalize it.

As this example shows, questions of spelling are often about, or overlap with, guidelines for capitalization, hyphenation, and other stylistic areas. We can look at those in later posts, but today I’ll stick with the first—and easiest—answer: When in doubt about a word’s spelling, consult a dictionary!

For psychological terms, see the APA Dictionary of Psychology. In all other cases, the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (p. 96) indicates that “spelling should conform to standard American English as exemplified in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (2005).” If you don’t find a word there, check “the more comprehensive Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (2002).”

We have just one request about spelling (per p. 96 of the Manual): When the dictionary provides multiple options, use the first one. For example, use toward (not towards) and canceled (not cancelled).

Spelling Success in APA Style

Readers send us APA Style questions every week—by e-mail, phone, Twitter, and Facebook. We love hearing from you, and we love the variety of your questions!

People sometimes write us just to verify how a particular word is spelled or formatted. For example, “Is the word Internet capitalized?” Yes, Internet, a proper noun, is always capitalized, whereas website is not. Some people may believe that the word Internet has taken on a more general use, but until this change is reflected in dictionaries, most style guides will continue to advise writers to capitalize it.

As this example shows, questions of spelling are often about, or overlap with, guidelines for capitalization, hyphenation, and other stylistic areas. We can look at more stylistic areas in later posts, but today I’ll stick with the first—and easiest—answer: When in doubt about a word’s spelling, consult a dictionary!

For psychological terms, see the APA Dictionary of Psychology. In all other cases, the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (p. 96) indicates that “spelling should conform to standard American English as exemplified in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (2005).” If you don’t find a word there, check “the more comprehensive Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (2002).”

We have just one request about spelling (per p. 96 of the the Manual): When the dictionary provides multiple options, use the first one. For example, use toward (not towards) and canceled (not cancelled).