Both in the Reference List and in the in-text citations, the principal purpose of all referencing in an academic paper is to enable the reader to easily locate source material and check not only its accuracy but also its context; in the best of all cases, this becomes the basis for further research as your readers build on the work you have done.

With the exponential growth of online sources in recent years, the ways of dealing with web-based resources have received a great deal of attention in the newest version of the APA Manual. In some cases, this has meant a reversal of earlier APA policies, as time and experience have shown that there are better ways to handle these resources than what had been prescribed in APA-5.

Such is the case with the policy on retrieval dates (called “access dates” in Chicago, Turabian, and MLA styles). This is the date on which a particular resource was consulted by the author, with the recognition that online resources can change over time. The 5^th edition of the APA Manual required that retrieval dates be provided for online sources, and it built this information into the format of all Reference List entries for online material. In stark contrast, APA-6 now eschews the provision of retrieval (access) dates, except in very specific circumstances:

For those who write in multiple styles, it may be worth noting that, in this regard, APA-5 was more like MLA style than like Chicago/Turabian style, and APA-6 is more like Chicago/Turabian style than like MLA style.

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If you’ve been working in APA-5 and now must switch to using APA-6, certainly one of the most obvious changes will be the formatting of headers. Both editions of the APA Manual of Style provide for up to five levels of headings and subheadings, and both direct that numbers and letters should not be used. But the details of each of those levels have changed.

APA-6 boasts a more streamlined explanation of the formatting of headings, replacing the four separate sections provided in APA-5 (one for each scenario: articles with two levels of headings, articles with three levels of headings, articles with four levels of headings, and articles with five levels of headings). In APA-6, the same material is handled with a simple description:

Regardless of the number of levels of subheading within a section, the heading structure for all sections follows the same top-down progression. Each section starts with the highest level of heading, even if one section may have fewer levels of subheading than another section.

-APA-6, §3.03

As with the earlier edition, APA-6 directs that the label “Introduction” should not be used at the beginning of the manuscript, as it is presumed that the first part of the manuscript is an introduction.

While not as important to the substance of documents as some of the other new features of APA-6, the changes in heading format will likely produce the most readily apparent differences from documents written in APA-5 style. Get this part wrong, therefore, and it will be pretty clear that you didn’t follow the newest version of the APA Manual of Style. That alone makes it a change worth mastering!

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If you’re old enough to have learned to type on an actual typewriter, as I did, then you undoubtedly learned to use two character spaces (i.e., two taps of the space bar) in between sentences. There was a reason for this: Typewriter type was not proportionally spaced. Since all letters occupied the same amount of space on the page (i.e., an “i” took just as much space as a “w”), placing an extra space after the final punctuation in sentences made the breaks between sentences more readily apparent.

Then came computers—and with them, proportionally spaced type. With the advent of proportional type, extra space between sentences is automatic, making the old double-character-space rule obsolete. And with fully justified texts, the old rule becomes completely irrelevant, since flexible spacing between sentences is one of the vehicles for achieving right justification. Most major style sheets—including APA, MLA, Chicago, and Turabian—took the position that one space (not two) should be used after final punctuation in sentences.

Until now.

THE NEW RULE IN APA-6 IS

TWO SPACES BETWEEN SENTENCES IN DRAFT MANUSCRIPTS.

Making it clear that this change of rules applies to “draft manuscripts,” the new edition of the APA Manual of Style does not intend to suggest rules for typesetters of journals and books. What about writers of dissertations, theses, and academic papers? Technically, such documents are in final form, not draft. Of course, the best advice is to seek direction from the institution, program, or individual instructor. If these specify APA as the style sheet of choice, though, you should return to the old practice of using two spaces between sentences.

Using the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (16) or the MLA Handbook (7)? Then you’ll likely be sticking with the practice of one space between sentences … But more on that in future posts.

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Although originally conceived for the use of the Psychology community, APA is now the style sheet of choice for a number of disciplines, including Education, Social Work, Nursing, and Business. Many of our clients, therefore, are using APA style in their academic writing. Since the Fall of 2009, when APA released the 6^th edition of its Manual of Style, EME clients have been asking us “WHAT’S NEW?”

APA-6 is the result of a thorough re-working of the widely used style manual. The entire structure of the book has been reorganized with the intention of more closely following the process writers actually follow in their writing. Since the last edition, online research has grown by leaps and bounds, and changes in both computer technology and the publication process have had profound effects on academic writing. With modifications of the guidelines in earlier versions, and with the addition of entirely new sections, APA-6 addresses these changes.

To help users navigate the modifications and new additions in APA-6, the American Psychological Association has prepared a helpful tutorial, available at http://flash1r.apa.org/apastyle/whatsnew/index.htm. So that our clients will have a convenient listing of these changes, we have summarized them here, drawing them from the APA tutorial. What follows here is simply a summary of the changes as presented in the APA tutorial. In the weeks ahead, we will examine some of the more significant changes to the APA Manual of Style with new blog articles devoted to each of these topics.

In the meantime, if you have questions about APA-6 or want to share some of the insights you’ve garnered through your own use of the new edition, please feel free to post them as comments to this blog. We’d love to hear from you!

SUMMARY OF CHANGES

·         CHAPTER 1: Ethical Issues

o   NEW: Data retention and sharing (1.08)

o   NEW: Self-plagiarism (1.10)

o   NEW: Publication credit (1.13)

o   NEW: Protecting the rights of research participants (1.11)

o   EXPANDED: Duplicate and piecemeal publication (1.09)

o   EXPANDED: Confidentiality of research participants (1.11)

o   EXPANDED: Conflict of interest (1.12)

·         CHAPTER 2: Journal Article Reporting Standards

o   JARS in the Abstract (2.04)

o   JARS in the Method section (2.06)

o   JARS in the Results section (2.07)

o   JARS in the Discussion section (2.08)

o   NEW: Meta-analyses (2.10)

o   NEW: Using supplemental materials in online supplemental archives (2.13)

o   NEW: Sample papers using the revised rules of style

·         CHAPTER 3: Headings and Reducing Bias in Language

o   MODIFIED: Five levels of headings, simplified (3.02-3.03)

o   NEW: Using heading levels consecutively (3.02-3.03)

o   NEW: historical language that is no longer appropriate (3.17)

o   MODIFIED: Gender (3.12)

o   MODIFIED: Sexual orientation (3.13)

o   MODIFIED: Racial and ethnic identity (3.14)

o   MODIFIED: Disabilities (3.15)

o   MODIFIED: Age (3.16)

o   NEW: Table of recommended changes to language usage available at www.apastyle.org

o    

·         CHAPTER 4: Mechanics of Style

o   MODIFIED: Two spaces instead of one after periods in draft manuscripts (4.01)

o   NEW: Numbers expressing approximate lengths of time written as words (4.31-4.32)

o   NEW: When to use a zero before a decimal fraction (4.35)

o   NEW: Reporting p values to two or three decimal places (4.35)

o   NEW: Reporting effect sizes and confidence intervals with statistics (4.44)

o   NEW: Format for reporting confidence levels (4.44)

·         CHAPTER 5: Displaying Results

o   NEW: Determining the purpose of data displays and designing tables (5.01)

o   NEW: Guidelines on reporting statistical significance in tables (5.15)

o   NEW: New tables, structured according to the kinds of data being displayed

o   NEW: New table examples to illustrate hierarchical multiple regression and multilevel models

o   NEW: Principles of figure use and construction (5.20)

o   NEW:  Presenting electrophysiological, radiological, and biological data (5.26-5.29)

o   NEW: Ethical ramifications of manipulating data in photographic images (5.29)

·         CHAPTER 6: Crediting Sources

o   Definition of “plagiarism” (6.01)

o   Rules for direct quotation of material in text (6.03)

o   Guidance on getting permission to reprint or adapt (6.10)

o   How to construct in-text citations (6.11-6.21)

o   How to construct the reference list

o   NEW: What to cite and recommended level of citation (6.01)

o   NEW: Citing passages from electronic text with no page numbers (6.05)

o   NEW: Citing the archival version or version of record (6.24)

o   EXPANDED: Electronic sources and locator information, with expanded emphasis on DOI (6.31)

o   NEW: What to include as publication information, with focus on electronic sources (6.32)

·         CHAPTER 7: Reference Examples (NEW: Showing electronic and print formats side-by-side within each category of source material, and drawing examples from a wide range of fields)

o   NEW: Data sets and software (7.08)

o   NEW: Internet message boards (7.11)

o   NEW: Archival documents and collections (7.10)

o   NEW: Podcasts (7.07)

·         CHAPTER 8: Publication Process

o   NEW: Peer review (8.01)

o   NEW: Editorial decision-making (8.02)

o   NEW: Getting assistance with scientific writing in English (8.03)

o   CONDENSED: Complying with ethical, legal, and policy requirements (8.04)

This is a brief overview of what’s new in APA-6. Stay tuned in the weeks ahead for new posts offering detailed discussions of many of the key changes.

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