Conference papers and proceedings have become a bête noire for bibliographers, since the emergence of the World Wide Web as a publishing medium. In one area at least the Manual makers have taken a backward step, although one can understand their confusion. The seventy-seven examples in the sixth edition have been increased to 114. Chapter 10 (previously Chapter 7 in the sixth edition) has been completely re-structured and is now divided into textual works data sets, software and tests audiovisual media and online media. Given journal limits on the number of words in a paper, saving a couple will no doubt be welcome.īefore consulting the reference examples in Chapter 10, an author should read Chapter 9, which deals with the principles that guide the format of references and which gives detailed instructions on such things as the representation of authors' names, the format of the title element, and so on. One innovation is support for the use of 'they' as a singular pronoun, to avoid the over-use of 'he or she'. This edition has about 200 more pages than the 6th edition, mainly the result of new chapters on journal reporting standards, and bias-free language guidelines. Even if you are not preparing a paper for a journal that uses the APA style, the manual is well worth consulting. Generally, however, the Manual is an excellent source of advice, not only on citation and referencing, but also on effective writing, the design of tables, the use of abbreviations, the presentation of statistics, and other necessary aspects of scholarly writing. The information on group authorship, e.g., by government departments, cites only US examples and, therefore, how to distinguish between organizations of the same name in different countries becomes problematical, especially so now that the place of publication is no longer required. If there are such papers, the authors never received any help from the Manual on how to cite and reference the laws. I would be very surprised if the Journal of Applied Psychology, for example, never had a paper in which reference was made to the laws of some other country. Rather surprisingly, it appears to make no concessions to any other country: the information on legal sources, for example, deals only with the situation in the USA. In all of this, it must be remembered that the Manual is designed for publications by a specific publisher in one academic discipline, and that it is a publication from the USA. Thus, the Manual has chapters on scholarly publishing in general, on the style of papers, the preparation of tables, the 'mechanics of style' (i.e., punctuation, spelling, capitalisation, etc.), grammar and effective writing, as well as on correct forms of citation in texts, the rules for referencing, and examples of the rules. However, the standard is used much more widely by journals in the social and behavioural sciences, and the rules on citation and referencing occupy only a small part of the Manual, which is designed to help authors prepare manuscripts acceptable to the Association. The 'APA Style Manual' as it is generally known is usually referred to for information on the correct modes of reference for different kinds of documents, specifically for journals published by the APA. Publication manual of the American Psychological Association.
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