APA (American Psychological Association) Style

Nursing Research 2
Instructor: ARVIE E. ARRIETA, MAN, RN

TEXT RULES (THE MECHANICS OF STYLE)

This section explains: the use of abbreviations, required capitalization, adding emphasis to
words and phrases, and the presentation of quotations.

1. ABBREVIATIONS
ACRONYMS are abbreviations that are sounded as words (e.g., AIDS, NASA),
INITIALISMS are abbreviations sounded as letters (e.g., ATM, FBI).
- The term acronym usually suffices for both. Use acronyms to avoid repeating long familiar terms
(e.g., APA, MMPI), and use sparingly, only for terms frequently repeated throughout your text.
• Explain what an acronym means the first time it occurs: American Psychological Association (APA).
• If an abbreviation is commonly used as a word, it does not require explanation (IQ, LSD, REM, ESP).
• To form plurals of abbreviations, add s alone, without an apostrophe (PhDs, IQs, vols., Eds).
Use periods when presenting an abbreviation within a reference (Vol. 3, p. 6, pp. 121-125, 2nd ed.)
• Use two-letter postal codes for U.S. states (e.g., GA for Georgia) in references (write the state name
out in text).
• Use the abbreviation pp. (plain text) in references to newspaper articles, chapters in edited volumes,
and text citations only, not in references to articles in journals and magazines.
• Use hr for hour or hours, min for minutes, s for seconds, m for meter or meters (all in plain text, no
period, no bold font).
• When using abbreviations for measurements (e.g., m for meter) do not add an s to make it plural
(100 seconds is 100 s), do not add a period (see APA Lite, 2009, sec. 4.2).
Do not use Latin abbreviations in the text unless they are inside parentheses. An exception is made for
et al. when citing a source. For example, "Smith et al. (2009) found monkeys measured higher in IQ
tests than grad students."
Instead, write out the equivalent word or phrase:
cf. [use compare]
e.g. [use for example]
etc. [use and so forth]
i.e. [use that is]
viz. [use namely]
vs. [use versus]
• Do not use the traditional abbreviations for subject, experimenter, and observer (S, E, O).
• Do not use periods within degree titles and organization titles (PhD, APA).
• Do not use periods within measurements (ft, s, kg, km, lb) except inches (in.).

2. CAPITALIZATION
The general rule is to capitalize terms if they are highly specific--in effect, used as proper nouns.
For example, write the nineteen twenties (1920s), but also write the Roaring Twenties. Write the Great
Plains, but also write the central plains, and the plains of Nebraska (but the Nebraska Plains).
• Capitalize formal names of tests, conditions, groups, effects, and variables only when definite and
specific (e.g.,
Stroop Color-Word Interference Test, Group A was the control group). But do not capitalize names of
laws, theories, and hypotheses (e.g., the law of effect, the test groups).
• Capitalize nouns before numbers or letters that indicate a specific place in a numbered series, but not
before variables (Chapter 4, Table 3, Trial 2, but not trial x).
APA (American Psychological Association) Style
Nursing Research 2
Instructor: ARVIE E. ARRIETA, MAN, RN

• Capitalize specific course and department titles (GSU Department of Psychology, Psych 150). But do
not capitalize the term when referring to generalities (any department, any introductory course).
• Capitalize the first word after colon in all titles in references and in the text and in headings. In the
text, if the phrase following a colon is a complete sentence capitalize the first word.
• When capitalizing a compound word capitalize all words in the compound (e.g., Double-Blind
Trial).
Exception! “Do not capitalize nouns that denote common parts of books or tables followed by
numerals or letters— page iv, row 3, column 5” (APA, 2009, p. 103).
Heading caps capitalize all major words and all words of four letters or more in headings, titles, and
subtitles outside reference lists, for example, chapter 6 in the APA Manual (2001) is titled "Material
Other Than Journal Articles."
Sentence caps capitalize the first word and the first word after a comma or colon when the phrase is a
complete sentence. For example, "This is a complete sentence, so this is capitalized."

3. ITALICS (EMPHASIS) & QUOTATION MARKS

Use italics for the titles of books, species names, novel or technical terms and labels (the first
time only), words and phrases used as linguistic examples, letters used as statistical symbols, and the
volume numbers in references to journal articles.
• Add emphasis to a word or short phrase by putting it in italics (the first time only). Use this sparingly!
 Add emphasis to a word or phrase in a quotation with italics, followed by the note [italics
added] in brackets.
• Note a word used as a word, or a foreign term, with italics, for example, hutte means hut in
German.
• Introduce a keyword or technical term (the neoquasipsychoanalytic theory), or identify endpoints on
a scale (poor to excellent) with italics.
• Do not italicize foreign words that have entered common usage (e.g., et al., a priori, laissez-faire,
arroyo).
Use quotation marks for:
• Odd or ironic usage the first time--the “outrageous” use of social security funds to finance the deficit.
These are known as scare quotes.
• Article and chapter titles cited in the text but not in the reference list. For example, in Smith’s (1992)
article, "APA style and Personal Computers," computers were described as "here to stay" (p. 311).
Do not use quotes to hedge, cast doubt, or apologize (e.g., he was "cured"). Leave off the quotes.

4. QUOTATIONS
Reproduce a quote exactly. If there are errors, introduce the word sic italicized and bracketed—
for example, “the speaker stttutured [sic] terribly”—immediately after the error to indicate it was in the
original.
Block quotes, quotations of 40 words or longer, are double-spaced from the text, single-spaced within.
Indent the entire block five spaces (one-half inch, 1.25 cm).
• The first line of the first paragraph in a block quote is not additionally Indented; the first line of each
paragraph after the first is indented (see Figure 5). Add the citation to the end of the block quote after
the final punctuation.
• Block quotes may be single-spaced in research papers, but must be double-spaced in copy
manuscripts submitted for publication or review.
APA (American Psychological Association) Style
Nursing Research 2
Instructor: ARVIE E. ARRIETA, MAN, RN

Shorter quotes, less than 40 words, are placed in the text in quotation marks. Longer quotes, 40
words or more, are indented and single spaced as block quotes, without quotation marks.¶
• Reproduce a quote exactly. If there are errors, introduce the word sic (thus) italicized and
bracketed—for example, “the speaker stttutured [sic] terribly”—immediately after the error to indicate
it was in the original.
• When the author is introduced in the text the page number follows the quotation, but the date
follows the author’s name. Smith (1999) reported that “the creature walked like a duck and quacked
like a duck” (p. 23). The abbreviation “p.” for page (“pp.” for pages) is lower cased.
• Without an introductory phrase, the author, date, and page are placed together. For example, It was
reported that “the creature walked like a duck and quacked like a duck” (Smith, 1999, p. 23).
Edit quotes. Effective writing seeks to merge quotations into the flow of the text. Edit a quotation
according to the following rules (see APA, 2009, pp. 170–171):
• Change case/punctuation. Double quotation marks may be changed to single quotes, and the
reverse, without indicating the change. The case of the letter beginning the quote, and punctuation
ending it, may be changed to fit the syntax. For example, drawing on the sentence above, write:
"Merge quotations into the flow of the text!"
Do Not write "[M]erge quotations . . . ." in APA style (but see Chicago Manual of Style, 2003, p.462).
• Omit . . . Words. Words may be omitted from a quote as long as the original meaning is not altered.
The omission is an ellipsis, and is indicated by inserting three ellipsis points, three periods with a space
before the first, after the last, and between each period; between two sentences, four points are used.
"Do not use ellipsis points at the beginning or end of any quotation unless, in order to prevent
misinterpretation, you need to emphasize the quotation begins or ends in midsentence" (APA, 2009, p.
173).
• [sic]. Obvious errors in a quotation may be corrected without making a special notation. But for an
unusual word choice, concept, term, or spelling, it may be appropriate to emphasize that the original is
being quoted faithfully by inserting the Latin term sic (thus), in italics or underlined, and in brackets,
immediately following the term (see
APA, 2009, p. 172). For example, "the hapless students in the study sttutttered [sic] unbearably."
• [Add note]. A clarification may be inserted in a quote. This is added in brackets at the appropriate
place. For example, the local authority reported "they [the Irish Republican Army] called for a cease-
fire."
• [Italics added]. Emphasis may be added to a quote with italics. When this is done a note must be
appended to the quote in brackets immediately after the change [italics added] to the quotation.