About the Book
This clear and concise book is designed to demystify the process of writing in APA style and format.
With precise examples (both writing examples and Microsoft Word screenshots), An EasyGuide to APA Style 2e points out common APA style and formatting mistakes and how to avoid them. The book also provides an overview of the style and formatting changes for the 6th edition of the APA Publication Manual, providing detailed examples and complete sample student papers written to conform to APA format. The authors illustrate not only how to write using APA style, but also what writing in APA style really looks like when your paper is complete. Written in a conversational and clear style, this guide will help anyone find their way through the maze of rules in the APA Publication Manual and become proficient in learning the fine points of APA style.
The second edition of the EasyGuide contains additional writing tips and expanded discussions in each chapter. In particular, chapter 5 on plagiarism has been expanded to include more detail on topics like when and how to paraphrase appropriately and when to quote directly from a source. Also, the new edition provides examples from the latest version of Microsoft Word, Word 2010.
Table of Contents:
Section I. Overview
Ch1. Style Versus Format: Why It Matters to Your Audience and Why It Should Matter to You
Ch2. Your Visual Table of Contents QuickFinder
Section II. Writing With (APA) Style: Big-Picture Items
Ch3. Bare-Bones Fundamentals: General Writing Tips Specific to APA Style
Ch4. A Quick Grammer Summary for APA-Style Writing
Ch5. Thou Shalt Not Steal (or Be Lazy): Plagiarism and How to Avoid It
Ch6. Avoiding Biased Language
Section III. Writing With (APA) Style: Getting Down to Business
Ch7. Whodunit (or Said It)? Citing Sources in Text
Ch8. How, What, When, Who, and Where? A step-by-Step Playbook of Your Method
Ch9. How Did It All Turn Out? Writing About Statistics and Associated Fun
Ch10. Everybody Needs References
Section IV. Presenting Your Work In APA Format
Ch11. The Numbers Game: How to Write Numbers (and When the Rules Change)
Ch12. Formatting: Organizing, Headings, and Making Your Work Look Good to Print
Ch13. Table That Motion: The Special Challenges of Tables and Figures
Ch14. Make Microsoft Word 2010 Work for You: APA Formatting
Section V. Some Nitty-Gritty Details
Ch15. Making a List, No Apps Required: Enumeration and Seriation
Ch16. The Devil Is in the Details: Abbreviations, Signs, Symbols, and Punctuation
Section VI. In Closing: Important Considerations
Ch17. Using Rubrics: Knowing What It Means to Write a Good Paper
Ch18. Get It Right! Proofreading the Entire Paper
Ch19. Complete Sample of an Experimental (Research) Paper: Samples, Anyone?
Chapter 20. All Together Now: How to Avoid the Most Common Mistakes
About the Author :
Beth M. Schwartz is the Provost and Professor of Psychology at Endicott College. Previously she served as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost and Professor of Psychology at Heidelberg University, in Tiffin, Ohio. Dr. Schwartz started her career on the faculty at Randolph College (founded as Randolph-Macon Woman's College) in Lynchburg, VA, where she served for 24 years. At Randolph she was the William E. and Catherine Ehrman Thoresen ‘23 Professor of Psychology and Assistant Dean of the College. She received a BA at Colby College (Maine) and a PhD in cognitive psychology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her scholarship focuses on the scholarship of teaching and learning/pedagogical research, in particular the issues surrounding academic integrity and honor systems. In addition to numerous professional presentations at conferences, she has published many book chapters and articles in a variety of scholarly journals, including the Journal of Higher Education, Ethics and Behavior, Law and Human Behavior, and Applied Developmental Science. She has also edited and coauthored books, including Child Abuse: A Global View(Schwartz, McCauley, & Epstein, 2001), Optimizing Teaching and Learning (Gurung & Schwartz, 2012), and Evidence-Based Teaching for Higher Education (Schwartz & Gurung, 2012). She is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the American Psychological Society and is a Fellow of Division 2 of APA (Society for the Teaching of Psychology). She was an award-winning teacher at Randolph College, where she taught Introduction to Psychology, Research Methods, Cognitive Psychology, and the capstone course. She received the Award for Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring from the American Psych-Law Society, the Gillie A. Larew Award for Distinguished Teaching at Randolph College, the Katherine Graves Davidson Excellence in Scholarship Award from Randolph College, and the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Certificate from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.
R. Eric Landrum is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Psychological Science at Boise State University, receiving his PhD in cognitive psychology from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. He is a research generalist, broadly addressing the improvement of teaching and learning, including the long-term retention of introductory psychology content, skills assessment, improving help-seeking behavior, advising innovations, understanding student career paths, the psychology workforce, successful graduate school applications, and more. Eric has 425+ presentations, 23 books/textbooks, and published 85 peer-reviewed journal articles. He has collaborated with 300+ research assistants and taught 18,000+ students in 28 years at Boise State. During Summer 2008, he led an American Psychological Association (APA) working group at the National Conference for Undergraduate Education in Psychology studying the desired results of an undergraduate psychology education, and at the 2014 APA Educational Leadership Conference, Eric was presented with a Presidential Citation for outstanding contributions to the teaching of psychology. With the 2015 launch of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology journal, he served as inaugural co-editor. He is a member of APA, a fellow of Division Two (Society for the Teaching of Psychology/STP), a fellow of Division One (General Psychology), and served as STP President (2014). He is a charter member of the Association for Psychological Science (named fellow in 2018). During 2016-2017, Eric was President of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association and was President of Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology in 2017-2018. In August 2019, he received the American Psychological Foundation’s Charles L. Brewer Distinguished Teaching of Psychology Award, the highest award given to teachers of psychology in America. will serve as the 2015–2016 president of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association.
REGAN A. R. GURUNG is Professor of Psychology and the Associate Vice Provost and Executive Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Oregon State University.
Born and raised in Bombay, India, Dr. Gurung received a Bachelor of Arts in psychology at Carleton College (Minnesota) and Master of Science (MS) and doctoral (PhD) degrees in social and personality psychology at the University of Washington (Washington State). He followed with 3 years at the University of California, Los Angeles, as a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) research fellow.
His early work focused on social support and close relationships; he studied how perceptions of support from close others influence relationship satisfaction. His later work investigated cultural differences in coping with stressors such as HIV infection, pregnancy, and smoking cessation. He continues to explore cultural differences in health and is heavily involved in pedagogical research directed toward improving teaching and student learning.
He has received numerous local, state, and national grants for his research in health psychology and social psychology regarding cultural differences in stress, social support, smoking cessation, body image, and impression formation. He has published articles in a variety of scholarly journals, including the American Psychologist, Psychological Review, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and is a frequent presenter at national and international conferences. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of fifteen other books including Study Like a Champ (with John Dunlosky), the Handbook of Health Psychology (2019, with Tracey Revenson), a two-volume Multicultural Approaches to Health and Wellness in America (2014), Easyguide to APA [American Psychological Association] Style (2017, with Eric Landrum and Beth Schwartz), and Everyday Applications of Psychological Science (with Eric Landrum, Dana Dunn, Maureen McCarthy, and Susan Nolan). Dr. Gurung is also a dedicated teacher and has interests in enhancing faculty development and student understanding. In 2017 he won the American Psychological Foundation’s prestigious Charles L. Brewer Award for Distinguished Teaching in Psychology. He also has won the Carnegie Association’s Wisconsin Professor of the Year (2010), the UW System Regent’s Teaching Award (2011), the UW–Green Bay Founder’s Award for Excellence in Teaching Excellence in Scholarship, and the UW Teaching at Its Best, Creative Teaching, and Featured Faculty awards. He has organized statewide and national teaching conferences and is an active member and past president of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (American Psychological Association [APA]-Division 2). He is an elected fellow of the American Psychological Association and Association for Psychological Science and past president of the Psi Chi International Honor Society in Psychology.
When not reading, writing, or helping people stay calm, Regan enjoys culinary explorations, travel, and immersing himself in his son’s and daughter’s latest pursuits.
Review :
Throughout the book the authors have made good use of tables and other visual stimuli (where appropriate) to make it easier to understand what the APA format should look like. The text is on the whole clearly written and easy to read. The book is never going to provide the depth required for a postgraduate or professional writer but it should be a great resource for undergraduate students. This is one of the best ‘summaries’ of APA style that I have seen. It will indeed be a book that I will recommend to my own undergraduate students.
This book is written in a conversational style which provides a nice relief from consulting the rather dry text of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association . The aim of the book is essentially to simplify or demystify some of the complexities of writing using APA style and format. It does this particularly well by providing precise examples of common mistakes and how these can be avoided. I particularly like the fact that, as well as describing correct APA style and format, the book also contains screenshots of sample papers, which provide quick visual guides on correct formatting, referencing and writing style.
