A Pocket Style Manual, APA Version, 2020 Update

Writing Papers in APA Style
1. Writing college papers in APA style

1a. Research paper: Literature review
1b. Research paper: Original empirical research
1c. Laboratory report
1d. Analytical essay
1e. Annotated bibliography
1f. Administrative report
1g. Case study
1h. Clinical paper
1i. Professional memo
1j. Reflective essay
1k. Social issue paper

2. Understanding APA conventions

2a. Privileging current sources
2b. Using appropriate tone and language
2c. Avoiding stereotypes, bias, and offensive language
2d. Understanding intellectual property
2e. Collecting and reporting data
2f. Protecting research participants

3. Posing questions to start a paper

3a. Choosing a narrow question
3b. Choosing a challenging question
3c. Choosing a grounded question

4. Finding appropriate sources

4a. Locating reference works
4b. Locating articles
4c. Locating books
4d. Locating other sources online

5. Evaluating sources

5a. Selecting sources
5b. Reading with an open mind and a critical eye
5c. Assessing Web sources with special care

6. Managing information; avoiding plagiarism

6a. Maintaining a working bibliography
6b. Keeping track of source materials
6c. Avoiding unintentional plagiarism as you take notes

7. Supporting a thesis

7a. Forming a working thesis
7b. Testing your thesis
7c. Organizing your ideas
7d. Using sources to inform and support your argument

8. Avoiding plagiarism

8a. Citing quotations and borrowed ideas
8b. Enclosing borrowed language in quotation marks
8c. Putting summaries and paraphrases in your own words
8d. Avoiding self-plagiarism

9. Integrating sources

9a. Using quotations appropriately
9b. Using signal phrases to integrate sources
9c. Synthesizing sources

Formatting Papers in APA Style
10. Parts of a paper in APA style

10a. Title page
10b. Abstract
10c. Introduction
10d. Method
10e. Results
10f. Discussion
10g. References
10h. Footnotes
10i. Headings
10j. Appendices
10k. Visuals

11. APA paper format

11a. Formatting the paper
11b. Preparing the list of references

12. Sample pages from papers in APA style

12a. Research paper: Literature review (education)
12b. Research paper: Empirical research (psychology)
12c. Analytical essay (sociology)
12d. Annotated bibliography (economics)
12e. Laboratory report (psychology)
12f. Administrative report (criminology/criminal justice)
12g. Clinical practice paper (nursing)
12h. Reflective essay (education)
12i. Business report
12j. Professional memo (business)
12k. Social issue paper (composition)

Documenting Sources in APA Style
13. APA in-text citations

14. APA list of references

14a. General guidelines for listing authors
14b. Articles and other short works
14c. Books and other long works
14d. Web sites and parts of Web sites
14e. Audio, visual, and multimedia sources
14f. Personal communication and social media

15. APA notes

15a. Footnotes in the text
15b. Notes in tables and figures

Clarity
16. Tighten wordy sentences.

16a. Redundancies
16b. Empty or inflated phrases
16c. Needlessly complex structures

17. Prefer active verbs.

17a. When to replace be verbs
17b. When to replace passive verbs

18. Balance parallel ideas.

18a. Items in a series
18b. Paired ideas

19. Add needed words.

19a. Words in compound structures
19b. The word that
19c. Words in comparisons

20. Eliminate confusing shifts.
20a. Shifts in point of view
20b. Shifts in tense

21. Untangle mixed constructions.

21a. Mixed grammar
21b. Illogical connections
21c. Is when, is where, and reason . . . is because constructions

22. Repair misplaced and dangling modifiers.

22a. Misplaced words
22b. Misplaced phrases and clauses
22c. Dangling modifiers
22d. Split infinitives
23. Provide sentence variety.
 23a. Combining choppy sentences
 23b. Varying sentence openings
24. Find an appropriate voice.
 24a. Jargon
 24b. Clichés
 24c. Slang
 24d. Sexist language

Grammar
25. Make subjects and verbs agree.

25a. Words between subject and verb
25b. Subjects joined with and
25c. Subjects joined with or or nor
25d. Indefinite pronouns such as someone
25e. Collective nouns such as jury
25f. Subject after verb
25g. Who, which, and that
25h. Plural form, singular meaning
25i. Titles, company names, and words mentioned as words

26. Be alert to other problems with verbs.

26a. Irregular verbs
26b. Tense
26c. Mood

27. Use pronouns with care.

27a. Pronoun-antecedent agreement
27b. Pronoun reference
27c. Case of personal pronouns (I vs. me etc.)
27d. Who vs. whom

28. Use adjectives and adverbs appropriately.

28a. Adjectives
28b. Adverbs
28c. Comparatives and superlatives

29. Repair sentence fragments.

29a. Fragmented clauses
29b. Fragmented phrases
29c. Acceptable fragments

30. Revise run-on sentences.

30a. Revision with a comma and a coordinating conjunction
30b. Revision with a semicolon (or a colon or a dash)
30c. Revision by separating sentences
30d. Revision by restructuring the sentence

31. Consider grammar topics for multilingual writers.

31a. Verbs
31b. Articles (a, an, the)
31c. Sentence structure
31d. Prepositions showing time and place

Punctuation
32. The comma

32a. Before a coordinating conjunction joining independent clauses
32b. After an introductory word group
32c. Between items in a series
32d. Between coordinate adjectives
32e. To set off a nonrestrictive element, but not a restrictive element
32f. To set off transitional and parenthetical expressions, absolute phrases, and contrasted elements
32g. To set off nouns of direct address, the words yes and no, interrogative tags, and mild interjections
32h. To set off direct quotations introduced with expression such as he argued
32i. With dates, addresses, and titles
32j. Misuses of the comma

33. The semicolon and the colon

33a. The semicolon
33b. The colon

34. The apostrophe

34a. To indicate possession
34b. To mark contractions
34c. Conventional uses
34d. Misuses of the apostrophe

35. Quotation marks

35a. To enclose direct quotations
35b. Around titles of short works
35c. Other punctuation with quotation marks
35d. Misuses of quotation marks

36. Other marks

36a. The period
36b. The question mark
36c. The exclamation point
36d. The dash
36e. Parentheses
36f. Brackets
36g. The ellipsis mark
36h. The slash

Mechanics
37. Capitalization

37a. Proper vs. common nouns
37b. Titles with proper names
37c. Titles of works
37d. Special terms
37e. First word of a sentence or quoted sentence
37f. First word following a colon
37g. Abbreviations

38. Abbreviations

38a. Before and after a name
38b. Organizations, companies, countries
38c. Units of measurement and time
38d. Latin abbreviations
38e. Plural of abbreviations
38f. Other uses of abbreviations
38g. Inappropriate abbreviations

39. Numbers

39a. Using numerals
39b. Using words for numbers

40. Italics

40a. Titles of works
40b. Words as words and other uses
40c. Ships, aircraft, spacecraft
40d. Foreign words

41. Spelling

41a. Major spelling rules
41b. Spelling variations

42. Hyphenation

42a. Compound words
42b. Words functioning together as an adjective
42c. Suffixes and prefixes
42d. Hyphenation at ends of lines

Glossaries
Glossary of usage
Glossary of grammatical terms

Index
Documentation directories
Charts and lists for quick reference
List of sample pages from student papers
Revision symbols