academic writing and APA

format

Dr. Jools Simner

Dept. Psychology; F17
j.simner@ed.ac.uk
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 overview

• the style of academic writing

• how to word articles
= how to word essays
= how to word theses
• the APA format of academic writing
• punctuate, abbreviate, format headings, cite references,
present statistics, construct tables etc.
• APA (American Psychological Association)

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 style

what to write and how to structure it…

some advice may sound familiar, but …

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 style

proportion of students, before this lecture, who’d lose

marks by not following these guidelines

throwing away marks

100%

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 style

what to write and how to structure it…

some advice may sound familiar, but …

…be careful; don’t just think you do it..

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 structuring your essay

simple rule:
1. say what you’re going to say
2. say it
3. say what you said

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 ‘say what you’re going to say’

• clear introduction
• clear headings
• clear links between paragraphs

– [paragraph about the prevalence of synaesthesia]… Hence

synaesthesia gives rise to a ‘merging of the senses’ in
approximately 4.4% of the population. In the following section, we
will see how non-synaesthetes, too, experience cross-sensory
mappings, for example between visual, tactile, auditory and
taste/smell modalities.

It has been known since the early 1970’s (e.g., Marks, 1974) that
all people make systematic associations across sound and
colour…
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 why bother?
• #1 rule: make life easy for marker (or reviewer)
• ‘lead-ups’ are psycholinguistic necessity
– e.g., Bransford & Johnson 1972
• Ss asked to understand and remember a passage

The procedure is really quite simple. First you arrange things into different
groups depending on their makeup. Of course, one pile may be sufficient
depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else
due to lack of facilities, that is the next step, otherwise you are pretty well set.
It is important not to overdo any particular endeavour. That is, it is better to do
too few things at once than too many. In the short run this may not seem
important, but complications from doing too many can easily arise. A mistake
can be expensive as well. The manipulation of the appropriate mechanisms
should be self-explanatory, and we need not dwell on it here. At first the
whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just
another facet of life. It is difficult to foresee any end to this task in the 8
immediate future, but then one never can tell. (Bransford & Johnson, 1972, p. 722.)
 why bother?
• #1 rule: make life easy for marker (or reviewer)
• ‘lead-ups’ are psycholinguistic necessity
– e.g., Bransford & Johnson 1972
• Ss asked to understand and remember a passage
• ‘lead-in’ title gave superior understanding/recall
• readers could integrate new info into pre-existing knowledge

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 introduction

1. say what you’re going to say

– state aims of essay
• what you’re examining (e.g., synaesthesia)
• define all terms immediately
• AND what you’re showing about it
• a critique of methodology?
• a comparison of 2 approaches?
• a review of the literature? (Boring! lose marks)

– state structure of essay 10

 body of essay

2. Say it
– state exactly what you said you would in the intro
– follow exactly the structure described in your intro

Provide a coherent argument

– make sure the examiner knows your viewpoint
– not just a neutral description
– Evaluate! Compare! Assess!
– if you want a 1st - include your own ideas 11
 body of essay

• For every point you make, state:

– your claim
– your example
– your evidence

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 body eg.

• your claim
– synaesthesia can be triggered by high-order cognition
• your example
– (e.g., during language processing)

• your evidence
– name of study
– task + materials
– results/interpretation

– PLUS! your own interpretation, if different

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» your own ideas will help you get a 1st
 conclusion

3. say what you said

– sum up exactly what was said in essay
– don’t introduce new findings
– include own ideas!

• don’t use ‘undergrad style’ vagaries

– Many questions remain unanswered…
– This is an area of much debate…

Rule: Don’t say anything that could fit into the

conclusion of an entirely different essay 14
 writing style
• scientific writing
– not chatty
• no emotionally-laden terms (this is shocking/amazing…)
• no abbreviations (don’t/won’t/can’t)
• absolutely never use an exclamation mark

• no jokes, no puns
• no amusing titles unless they are informative
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 jokes, puns & amusing titles
• jokes & puns
– neg correl between humour in articles and rated credibility/
persuasiveness (Klein et al., 1982)
• amusing titles
– Sagi & Yachiam (in press).
• 658 articles over 10 yrs; most amusing titles cited 33% less
• “Humorous titles.. harm the credibility of a paper [and] may signal
low quality…” (Sagi & Yachiam, in press).

• So…no amusing titles unless they are informative

– Older is colder: Temperature range and variation in older people.
Gomolin et al. (2005)
– The taste of words on the tip of the tongue. Simner & Ward (2006).
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 plagiarism
• zero tolerance
• plagiarism is easy to do
• plagiarism is easy to spot
• how to avoid it?
– don’t copy phrases
• “..familial condition … extraordinary experiences… mediated by …
putative ‘synaesthesia gene(s)’….failed segregation … carry particular
advantages….been selected for by evolutionary pressures.”
– where difficult:
• close book; walk away, come back and write
• imagine you’re explaining it to a friend at a party

– cite every idea that is not your own

• E.g., “Simner et al. point out that…”
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 non-native english speakers

• marked at (approx) same standard as native speakers

– slight dispensation for spelling errors (e.g., two/too)
– e.g., those overlooked by spell-check (e.g., two/ too)

• ask native speaker to proof-read

– they can comment only on grammar, not content
(BEWARE PLAGERISM)

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 non-native speaker resources

• English language courses via:

– International student office
• http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/international/english (see
‘English Language Courses’ )

– IALS (Institute of applied language studies)

• free course for post grad students
• http://www.ials.ed.ac.uk/EL/English-Academic

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 APA format
• American Psychological Association
– guide for formatting journal articles (+ MSc/PhDs)

• APA guidelines found:

– in detail in:-
• American Psychological Association. (2001).
Publication manual of the American Psychological
Association (5th ed.). Washington, D.C.: Author.

– in brief as follows:- 20
 in brief: overview

• citing others (within the text)

• referencing others (in the ref section)
• punctuating abbreviations
• headings
• other

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 citing

• must cite with surname(s) and year

– Ward and Simner (2003) show blah blah blah …

• If 3 or more authors (up to/incl 5)

– Simner, Glover and Mowat (2005) showed that... 1st mention: in full
– Simner et al. (2005) showed that... 2nd/3rd/4th etc. mention: et al.

• If 6 or more authors
– Simner et al. (2005) showed that... all mentions: et al.

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 citing inside and outside brackets

comma before date no double brackets (Ward & Simner (2003)) X

– Blah blah blah (Ward & Simner, 2003).

– Ward and Simner (2003) show blah blah blah …

and outside brackets; & inside brackets

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 referencing

• If 1 or more authors (up to/incl 7) all authors in full

– Simner, J., Ward, J., Lanz, M., Jansari, A., Noonan, K., Glover,
L., & Oakley, D. A. (2005). Non-random associations of
graphemes to colours in synaesthetic and non-
synaesthetic populations. Cognitive Neuropsychology,
22, 1-17.

• If 8 or more authors 6 authors… Last author

– Simner, J., Mulvenna, C., Sagiv, N., Tsakanikos, E.,
Witherby, S. A., Fraser, C., ... Ward, J. (2006).
Synaesthesia: The prevalence of atypical cross-modal
experiences. Perception. 24
 referencing articles vs. books
• articles Journal title: all words start uppercase
– Simner, J., & Holenstein, E. (2007). Ordinal linguistic
personification as a variant of synaesthesia. Journal of
Cognitive Neuroscience, 19, 694-703.

• books Book title: first word only starts uppercase

– Cytowic, R. E. (1993). The man who tasted shapes. London:
Abacus books.
• chapters within Books Editors: initials precede surname
– Day, S. (2005). Socio-cultural aspects of synesthesia. In L. C.
Robertson & N. Sagiv (Eds.), Synesthesia: Perspectives
from cognitive neuroscience (pp. 11-33). New York:
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Oxford University Press.
 referencing electronic sources
• internet-only journals no full-stop
– Kenneth, I. A. (2000). A Buddhist response to the nature of
human rights. Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 8. Retrieved from
http://www.cac.psu.edu/jbe/twocont.html

• other online documents

– Hung, W., & Simner, J. (2006). Synaesthesia for speakers of
Chinese. Retrieved from http://syn6th.com/english/index.htm

• Important: check for recent changes

• American Psychological Association. (2007). APA style guide
to electronic references. Washington, D.C.: Author.
• http://www.apastyle.org/elecref.html 26
 DOIs
• DOI
– digital object identifier: uniquely identifies an article with alpha-
numeric code.
– APA requires these to be included where possible
– where no DOI is given, APA requires a URL to indicate the
source of your pdf download
– THESE ARE NOT REQUIRED for you MSc submissions
– but keep a copy of DOIs for any future ARTICLE publications

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 direct quotations
always include pg ref for direct quotes
• <40 words
– incorporate into text; double quotation marks.
She stated, “The ‘placebo effect’… disappeared when behaviors
were studied in this manner” (Miele, 1993, p.276).

OR
Miele (1993) found that “the ‘placebo effect’… disappeared when
behaviors were studied in this manner” (p.276).

NB full stops
• 40 words or more
– new line; indented block (1/2 inch); no quotation marks.
Miele (1993) found the following:
The ‘placebo effect’, which had been blah blah blah
blah [total word count = 40 or more] blah. (p.276) 28
 changes to the guide
• APA changes its formatting rules
– must use latest version (Edition 6).

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 other ref details

• either italicise or underline (but be consistent)

• use hanging indents (i.e., all lines after 1st line of each
ref should be indented one-half inch from left margin)

• alphabetize refs by surname of first authors

• where more than one article by (exactly) the same

author(s), list by publication year, starting with earliest

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 punctuating abbreviations
full stop

– Simner et al. (2005) have shown that early

acquired words (e.g., mother) are more ‘tasty’
(i.e., are more likely to trigger tastes, and to
have stronger tastes) than later acquired words
(e.g., office; see also Ward et al., 2005).

full stop + comma full stop + comma

italics

Use ‘e.g.,’ and ‘i.e.,’ only within brackets

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 sections

• title page, abstract, body, references, appendix

• page break after each section

• NB essay title is written twice:

– on title page
– at top of essay body

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 headings
• APA formats headings in 2 ways:
– some headings have consistent formats
– some headings vary in format, depending on your essay structure

• consistently formatted headings

– Abstract; References, Appendix centred; capitalise 1st letter
– title page:-

RUNNING HEAD IS FIRST, FLUSH-LEFT AND ALL CAPITALISED

Title Is Next, Centred with Uppercase and Lowercase

Names and Affiliations Are Next, Centred with

Uppercase and Lowercase 33
 varying format headings
• applies to remaining headings
• format is based on number of ‘heading levels’ in article
• E.g.,
Experiment (1)
• Method (2)
– Participants, Procedure
(3) 3 levels
• Results
• Discussion
(2)
(2)
• different levels have different formatting

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 headings
• APA headings formats
– used in order (from 2009)

Format 1 Is Centred, Boldface with Uppercase and Lowercase

Format 2 Is Flush-left, Boldface Uppercase and Lowercase

Format 3 is indented, boldface: Only first word and words after colons
are capitalized; ends with a full-stop. Text follows immediately.

Format 4 is indented, boldface, italicised: Only first word and words after
colons are capitalized; ends with a full-stop. Text follows immediately.

Format 4 is indented, italicised: Only first word and words after colons
are capitalized; ends with a full-stop. Text follows immediately. 35
 headings: 2 step guide
• count how many levels you need.
– Experiment
• Method
– Participants, Procedure 3 levels
• Results
• Discussion

• apply formatting as follows:-

– 1 level: Format 1
– 2 levels: Formats 1 & 2
– 3 levels: Formats 1, 2 & 3
– 4 levels: Formats 1, 2, 3 & 4
– 5 levels: Formats 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5

• when counting headings, ignore

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– title page; title (as repeated in body); Abstract; References; Appendix
 also…
• passive voice
– APA guideline: use for focus on the object/recipient
• “The speakers were attached to either side of the chair”
• emphasizes the placement of speakers, not who placed them
– appropriate in the Methods section
» we don’t care who placed them there!

• ‘editorial we’
– APA guideline: avoid where possible
• Use I for only one author
• Use We for more than one author

• abbreviations
– APA guideline: use sparingly
• always mention first time in full. E.g.,
– Short term memory (STM)… 37
 also…

• number your pages

• double space
• give page numbers for direct quotations
• and much, much more
– see handbook (or any APA journal)

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 summary

• follow simple guidelines on writing style

– avoid throwing away marks
– aim: make life easy for your reader

• avoid plagiarism at all costs

• always check APA format

– use handbook for reference

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 Good luck

American Psychological Association. (2009). Publication manual of the

American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, D.C.:
Author.

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