The Updated APA Style JARS: Advancing Psychological Research

by David Kofalt

A (Very) Brief History of Journal Article Reporting Standards and APA Style

In one form or another, reporting standards have been a part of the APA Publication Manual. Although reporting standards have continued to develop with each edition of the Publication Manual, APA’s contribution to reporting standards were systematized and clarified in the December 2008 American Psychologist article "Reporting Standards for Research in Psychology: Why Do We Need Them? What Might They Be?" that was adapted as an appendix in the sixth edition of the Publication Manual.

Journal Article Reporting Standards Today: APA Style JARS

"Journal Article Reporting Standards for Quantitative Research in Psychology: The APA Publications and Communications Board Task Force Report" Full-Text HTML | PDF
"Journal Article Reporting Standards for Qualitative Primary, Qualitative Meta-Analytic, and Mixed Methods Research in Psychology: The APA Publications and Communications Board Task Force Report" Full-Text HTML | PDF

 

In January 2018, APA published an update to the reporting standards in two open-access articles in American Psychologist. Collectively referred to as APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards, or APA Style JARS, the articles provide standards for quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research in psychology.

Whereas APA’s previous reporting standards focused solely on quantitative research, in response to the growth of qualitative research, the January 2018 update introduced standards for reporting qualitative and mixed methods research in psychology.

The update also involved a broad revision of the quantitative standards, which now include standards for clinical trials, replication studies, longitudinal studies, N-of-1 studies, and studies that use Bayesian statistics or structural equation modeling. In addition, the quantitative standards now separate hypotheses, analyses, and conclusions into primary, secondary, and exploratory groups.

APA Style JARS Tools

Last week APA launched a brand-new companion website for APA Style JARS that provides tools for students, authors, reviewers, and editors. Through this site, users can download the two open-access APA Style JARS articles as well as an editorial introducing the updated standards written by Anne E. Kazak, editor-in-chief of American Psychologist. Users can also find an APA Style JARS informational video, information on the history of reporting standards at the APA, frequently asked questions, and user-friendly printable checklists corresponding to each of the 15 APA Style JARS tables, adapted from the American Psychologist articles.

The APA Style JARS articles and companion site serve as tools to help students, researchers, and educators throughout the research process, enabling authors to more thoroughly and accurately communicate their research, and in turn, providing readers with information that is more accessible and easily understood.

 

Creating a Reference for a Work Published With a Typo in the Title

by Timothy McAdoo

If there’s a typo in a quotation, you use [sic] to show the reader that the error is in the original source and that you’re faithfully quoting it just as it appeared.

But, what if there’s a mistake in an article’s title? Do you add [sic] to the reference? We recommend not doing that, because it may appear to be part of the reference title. Instead, we recommend using a footnote.

First, know that typos in titles of published journal articles and book chapters are rare. If you think you’ve found a typo, there are a three things to check first:

1. Is it really a typo? Or is it a rhetorical device or an author’s creative license? For example, in a title like “It's More Than Reading, Writing and 'Rithmetic,” the author is aware of the misspelling, and you should not add a footnote. Likewise, you need not add a footnote if the title includes contractions or slang.
   
   Example article with an intentional misspelling (do not use [sic] or a footnote)
   

   DeAngelis, T. (2003). It's more than reading, writing and 'rithmetic. Monitor on Psychology, 34(9), 46–47. https://doi.org/10.1037/e319112004-036

2. Did the typo appear in the published article? Or, is it a typo only in the database, web page, or other source where you found the title? That is, let’s say you discovered an article via a search of the PsycINFO database. If you notice a typo, first determine whether the article was published that way or whether that’s a mistake in the database record only. (If so, let us know, and we’ll correct the record!)
   
   To do so: First, find a PDF or a print copy of the article. Or, check the publisher’s website. Publishers often offer a free table of contents. If you can’t track down an original, you can always contact the publisher’s office.
3. Was a correction published? If so, see our earlier post on how to cite a corrected journal article.

If the article title really included a typo, explain in a footnote, if you want to ensure that your readers know that the mistake is not yours.

Example article that published with a typo in the title (explain in a footnote)

Linn, L. (1968). Social identification and the seeking of pyschiatric1 care. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 38, 83–88. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-0025.1968.tb00558.x

1The published article includes this typo.

 

How to Cite a Corrected Journal Article

 by Chelsea Lee

Mistakes sometimes make their way into published articles. When these mistakes are discovered, they must be disclosed to the community of scholars so that other researchers do not draw conclusions from false premises. If the error is relatively minor (e.g., mistakes in values of a table that do not impact the results of analyses), the online version of the article is usually corrected so that online readers only ever see the correct version. The article will carry a notice that it has been corrected, and the journal will also publish a separate correction notice describing the nature of the error. If the errors are far reaching, the publisher will retract the article and, depending on the reason for the errors, may publish a replacement corrected version. It is possible to cite the retracted version of the article (e.g., to discuss that it was retracted), and in this post I will explain how to cite a corrected version of an article.

Citing a Corrected (But Not Republished) Article

To cite an article that has been corrected, simply provide the publication details as you would to cite any other journal article. Readers will discover the existence and nature of the corrections when they visit the article.

Haataja, A., Ahtola, A., Poskiparta, E., & Salmivalli, C. (2015). A process view on implementing an antibullying curriculum: How teachers differ and what explains the variation. School Psychology Quarterly, 30, 564–576. https://doi.org/10.1037/spq0000121

• In text: (Haataja, Ahtola, Poskiparta, & Salmivalli, 2015).

Citing a Retracted, Corrected, and Republished Article

To cite an article that has been republished in a corrected version, provide the publication details for the corrected version as you would to cite any other journal article. Often times the authors will include the words “corrected version” or similar in the title to alert readers as to the corrected nature of the article, but if these words are not present in the corrected version, do not add them or make other notations.

Kullgren, K. A., Tsang, K. K., Ernst, M. M., Carter, B. D., Scott, E. L., & Sullivan, S. K. (2015). Inpatient pediatric psychology consultation-liaison practice survey: Corrected version. Clinical Practice in Pediatric Psychology, 3, 340–351. https://doi.org/10.1037/cpp0000114

• In text: (Kullgren et al., 2015).

Citing a Correction Notice

It is possible to cite a correction notice as well, and the format follows the regular format for a journal article reference. Here is an example:

Elliott, E., & Leach, A.-M. (2016). Correction to Elliott and Leach (2016). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 23, 99. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap00001214

• In text: (Elliott & Leach, 2016)

Citing Both Retracted and Corrected Versions of an Article

If you want to cite both an original article that has been retracted and its corrected version, create two separate references. Use the format described in this post for the retracted article.

If both the retracted and corrected articles would have the same in-text citation (by virtue of having the same authors and year of publication), put lowercase letters after the year to distinguish the two, as described in this post on reference twins. (Of course, if the retracted and corrected versions were published in different years, this is not a problem.)

Do you have other questions about citing corrected articles? Leave a comment below.

How to Format Scientific Names of Animals

by Timothy McAdoo

When an animal name is part of a journal article title, it is conventional to provide the animal’s scientific name (genus and species). Genus is always capitalized and species is not. Notice that the scientific names are also italicized (see examples on p. 105 of the APA Publication Manual).

For example, see the following articles from APA Journals:

This convention of including the scientific name in the paper’s title is not an APA Style guideline specified in the manual; however, it is an accepted norm of scientific research. (If you have any questions about whether to include the scientific name in your paper or manuscript, ask your teacher, advisor, or editor.)

So, if you cite an article that includes a genus and species in the title, how should the title appear in your reference list? Keep the italics and capitalization of the animal’s scientific name exactly as they appear in the original title:

MacLean, E. L., Krupenye, C., & Hare, B. (2014). Dogs (Canis familiaris) account for body orientation but not visual barriers when responding to pointing gestures. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 128, 285–297. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0035742

Tu, H.-W., & Hampton, R. R. (2014). Control of working memory in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, 40, 467–476. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xan0000030

The Origins of APA Style

by Anne Breitenbach 

APA Style is older than virtually all of its users—if you were born after 1929, then APA Style is older than you are. But just because APA Style is nearing its 10th decade doesn’t mean that its origins need to be lost to the mists of time. This post will share some of the origins of APA Style.

The first glimmer of what has become APA Style emerged in a seven-page article published by the Conference of Editors and Business Managers of Anthropological and Psychological Periodicals following a 2-day meeting in Washington, DC. This article appeared in one of psychology’s preeminent journals, APA’s own Psychological Bulletin.

A prime incentive for publishing that first article was to save publishers money and time, as submitted manuscripts were often too long, inconsistently formatted, and wandered through their content. The authors were responding to a real need and genuinely trying to help would-be authors as well as improve the quality of the submissions. That they were aware that setting guidelines has a substantial and direct effect on those would-be authors is evident, as is conveyed by the downright diffident tone of their opening paragraphs.

The committee realizes that it neither has, nor wishes to assume, any authority in dictating to authors, publishers or editors; but it suggests the following recommendations for use as a standard of procedure, to which exceptions would doubtless be necessary, but to which reference might be made in cases of doubt, and which might be cited to authors for their general guidance in the preparation of scientific articles. (Bentley et al., 1929, p. 57)

In those seven pages you can find the core of the APA Style you know and love. Authors are urged to brevity in making their arguments; use of headings to impose logical structure; and subdivision into an introduction, statement of results, and discussion. There is a discussion of what to cite and how to cite a reference, and space is given to the use of tables and figures. Other familiar elements are not yet present and will be added over time. For example, there is no guidance on writing style or grammar—beyond the exhortation that those who are incompetent should get help. Reference types were few, and so the explosion of reference formats lies in the future. Nor would you have found instruction on how to avoid plagiarism or use bias-free language to write sensitively about participants or people in general.

As the APA Style Publication Manual evolved into its current sixth edition, the content has expanded and the tone has become more confident of a right, even a responsibility, to set standards, at least in APA’s own journals. In the future, especially given the explosion of digital technologies now used to disseminate content, we will continue striving to ensure that clear communication continues.

Reference

Bentley, M., Peerenboom, C. A., Hodge, F. W., Passano, E. B., Warren, H. C., & Washburn, M. F. (1929). Instructions in regard to preparation of manuscript. Psychological Bulletin, 26, 57–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0071487

Giving Thanks in APA Style

By David Becker

It’s Thanksgiving, that time of year when you can thank your friends, family, and all the other important people in your life by bringing them together for a massive, fun-filled feast. If you’re a researcher about to publish the results of a recent study, you may also want to give thanks to those who helped you conduct it or prepare your manuscript. Inviting them to Thanksgiving dinner would certainly be a great way to express gratitude, but you can also thank them in an author note.

The author note, which is explained on pages 24–25 in the Publication Manual, generally appears in the footer of a published journal article. In a draft manuscript, it is part of the title page (see the order of manuscript pages on page 229 in the Publication Manual). Most student papers do not include one. You can find examples of the author note through our Best of the Blog post. Sample paper 1 demonstrates the author note's typical location in a draft manuscript, and the sample published paper shows what an author note looks like in a journal article.

The author note usually lists the authors’ departmental affiliations and contact information, states any disclaimers and potential conflicts of interest, and provides acknowledgments. These acknowledgments can be included in the third paragraph and used to identify grants or other financial support, explain any special authorship agreements, and thank those who provided personal assistance. Generally, you don't need to acknowledge peer reviewers, journal editors, or others who routinely review and accept manuscripts.

Personal assistance encompasses individuals whose work may not warrant authorship credit—that is, they didn’t do any actual writing or make significant scientific contributions (see pages 18–19 in the Publication Manual and Standard 8.12 of the APA Ethics Code for more details about defining and assigning authorship)—but their assistance was nonetheless valuable and deserving of some form of credit. Maybe you would like to thank some students who helped recruit research participants and collect data, or perhaps a couple friends and colleagues who took some time out of their busy schedules to proofread the first draft of your manuscript before you submitted it for publication. You can thank them in the acknowledgments section of your author note. It may not be tasty—or even edible—like a Thanksgiving dinner, but I’m sure your benevolent contributors will appreciate the recognition.

Happy Acknowledgmentsgiving!

How to Cite an Article With an Article Number Instead of a Page Range

Several online-only journals publish articles that have article numbers rather than unique page ranges. That is, instead of the first article in the issue starting on page 1, the second on page 20, the third on page 47, and so on, every article starts on page 1. Why choose this approach? Because the online-only publisher does not have to worry about creating a print issue (where a continuous page range would assist the reader in locating a piece), this numbering system simplifies the publication process. So to still demarcate the order in which the articles in a volume or issue were published, the publisher assigns these works article numbers.

Many of our readers wonder what to do when citing these references in APA Style. No special treatment is required—simply include the page range as it is reported for the article in your APA Style reference. The page range may be listed on the DOI landing page for the article and/or on the PDF version of the article. Here is an example of an article with a page range, from the journal PLoS ONE:

Simon, S. L., Field, J., Miller, L. E., DiFrancesco, M., & Beebe, D. W. (2015). Sweet/dessert foods are more appealing to adolescents after sleep restriction. PLoS ONE, 10, 1–8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115434

If the article is published in a format without page numbers entirely, just leave off this part of the reference (i.e., end the reference with the volume/issue information for the article). Here is an example article without any page numbers, from the journal Frontiers in Psychology.

Cheryan, S., Master, A., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2015). Cultural stereotypes as gatekeepers: Increasing girls’ interest in computer science and engineering by diversifying stereotypes. Frontiers in Psychology, 6. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00049

In-Text Citations of Direct Quotations

In the text, citations of direct quotations should refer to the page number as shown on the article, if it has been assigned. If the article has not been assigned page numbers, you have three options to provide the reader with an alternate method of locating the quotation:

• a paragraph number, if provided; alternatively, you can count paragraphs down from the beginning of the document;
• an overarching heading plus a paragraph number within that section; or
• an abbreviated heading (or the first few words of the heading) in quotation marks, in cases in which the heading is too unwieldy to cite in full, plus a paragraph number within that section.

Here is an example direct quotation from an article without page numbers that uses the abbreviated heading plus paragraph number method:

To increase the number of women in science and engineering, those in positions of power should strive to create "inclusive cultures so that those who are considering these fields do not necessarily have to embody the stereotypes to believe that they fit there" (Cheryan, Master, & Meltzoff, 2015, "Conclusion," para. 2).

You can read more about including page numbers in in-text citations here. Also see section 6.05 of the Publication Manual.

Do you have additional questions about citing articles with article numbers? Please leave us a comment. 

Keywords in APA Style

by Timothy McAdoo

What are keywords?

If you’ve searched PsycINFO, Google Scholar, or other databases, you’ve probably run across keywords. In APA Style articles, they appear just under the abstract. They are usually supplied by an article’s author(s), and they help databases create accurate search results.

How do I pick my keywords?

Keywords are words or phrases that you feel capture the most important aspects of your paper. To create yours, just think about the topics in your paper: What words would you enter into a search box to find your paper? Use those!

We call these natural-language words, because they reflect the way people really talk about, and search for, a topic. In fact, in some databases, to provide comprehensive results, the “keywords” search option actually searches the article titles and abstracts along with these designated keywords.

In short, when later researchers are searching PsycINFO or other research databases, the keywords help them find your work.

For example, if you’ve written a paper about the benefits of social media for people with anxiety, your keywords line might be as follows:

Keywords: anxiety, social media, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat

Note how I’ve included the social media platform names. Keywords don’t have to be formal; they just have to be useful! These keywords will help the later researcher who searches for one of those terms or a combinations of them (e.g., “anxiety and social media,” “anxiety, Facebook, and Twitter”).

Also, because these are natural-language words, keywords can include acronyms. Keywords for a paper on using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test with patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder might look like this:

Keywords: Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, WCST, OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder

The Publication Manual does not place a limit on how many keywords you may use. However, to be most effective, keywords should be a concise summary of your paper’s content. We recommend three to five keywords.

Where do they go?

The keywords line should begin indented like a paragraph. (In typeset APA journal articles, the keywords line is aligned under the abstract.)  Keywords: should be italicized, followed by a space. The words themselves should not be italicized. You can see an example under the abstract in this APA Style sample paper.

Note (02/01/2016): An earlier version of this post indicated that the keywords line should be centered. This was corrected in the paragraph above.

Comparing MLA and APA: The Reference List

By David Becker

Today, we continue with our series of posts highlighting some differences between APA and MLA reference styles. Last week, I outlined how the two styles handle in-text citations. Today’s post focuses on the reference list (or the “Works Cited” list as it is called in MLA Style). Below are examples of how each style would handle two common sources—a print book and a journal article from a research database. I have color coded the text to help you better visualize the differences in the basic elements of a generic reference. The who is in red, the when is in blue, the what is in yellow, and the where is in purple, all of which can be mixed and matched to form the Frankenreference.

Let’s begin with a print book, one of the simplest sources to cite:

MLA Gordin, Michael D. The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe. Chicago: U Chicago P, 2012. Print. APA Gordin, M. D. (2012). The pseudoscience wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the birth of the modern fringe. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

The two styles vary in a number of ways, including punctuation, capitalization, and placement of the date. Also, unlike APA Style, MLA Style includes the format of the source—either “Print” or “Web”—as an extra piece of “where” information, and it often requires writers to abbreviate publisher names.

Now let’s take a look at something a bit more complicated, a journal article from a research database:

MLA Shafron, Gavin Ryan, and Mitchell P. Karno. “Heavy Metal Music and Emotional Dysphoria Among Listeners.” Psychology of Popular Media Culture 2.2 (2013): 74-85. PsycNET. Web. 11 Feb. 2014. APA Shafron, G. R., & Karno, M. P. (2013). Heavy metal music and emotional dysphoria among listeners. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 2, 74–85. doi:10.1037/a0031722

The most substantive difference is that MLA Style requires the name of the database from which you retrieved the article and the date of retrieval as well; it does not use the DOI. In contrast, APA Style requires a DOI (when there is one), but doesn’t require the date of access (see p. 198 of the Publication Manual for more detail). In most cases, the name of the database is not used in an APA Style reference, although a few exceptions are outlined in Chapter 7.

I hope this comparison of MLA and APA styles is helpful to those of you who find yourself transitioning from one to the other. If you are a student switching from MLA to APA, your most important resources will be the Publication Manual and this blog. I also recommend that you try our free tutorial on the basics of APA Style and visit our FAQ page, in addition to our pages on quick answers for citing sources and formatting your research paper. If you have any questions after checking those resources, you can contact APA Style directly or find us on Facebook and Twitter.

Retraction Action

by Stefanie

My first word processor was a glorified typewriter; I could type my college papers but only see four lines at a time on a tiny screen, until I hit the print button. What came out often had mistakes that I had not caught on first (cramped) review. Luckily, I could go back, fix the mistakes, and print again. This ritual is also followed by students today, even those using newfangled computers with big screens and programs for catching errors before they are committed to paper. Still, errors sneak by, the slippery buggers.

A step or two up in the publication hierarchy, once an article has been published in a journal (i.e., once the publisher hits print), fixing mistakes becomes a lot trickier. Sometimes, if a small or easily described error is involved, an erratum or correction notice, published in a later issue of the same journal, is printed and linked to the e-version of the original article. Other times, the problems are so great that the entire article is retracted, either by the article author(s) or by the publisher. Whatever the reason for the retraction (e.g., belatedly discovered calculation or measurement errors, plagiarism, falsification of data), the intent is to remove the information from the scientific literature and thus avoid wasting the time and resources of other scientists who may attempt to replicate or rely on the already undermined results.

Yet, a retracted article can still be found, both in print and online. (The silver lining to the retraction cloud may be that there can be usefulness in serving as a bad example. However, if you are not writing specifically about the retraction, consider whether the retracted article is your best resource.) And if it can be found, it can be used as a reference, although readers should be alerted to the article’s retracted status. All of this begs the question, How should a retracted article be formatted for the reference list?

To create a reference for a retracted article, you can repurpose the parentheses found after a reference that includes original publication information, as can be seen in Examples 21 and 26 on pages 203–204 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, sixth edition. Instead, provide the information on the article’s retraction notice in the parentheses. Examples:

Joly, J. F., Stapel, D. A., & Lindenberg, S. M. (2008). Silence and table manners: When environments activate norms. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1047–1056. (Retraction published 2012, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, p. 1378)

Ricaurte, G. A., Yuan, J., Hatzidimitriou, G., Cord, B. J., & McCann, U.D. (2002, September 27). Severe dopaminergic neurotoxicity in primates after a common recreational dose regimen of MDMA. Science, 297, 2260-2263. (Retraction published September 12, 2003, Science, 301, p. 1454)

Additional questions? E-mail us at [email protected] or leave a comment!