APA Black & White Blues

Very few people enjoy compiling their list of references according to the conventions set down in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, known simply as the 'APA manual'. Writing a well researched paper is a great way to learn deeply, but following strict documentation rules...? That task, often left to the last minute, gets a lot of students, graduate and undergraduate, singing the blues.

Frustrated students make all kinds of claims about APA documentation style. That the guidelines found in print and web handbooks all say different things, making it impossible to know, let alone adhere to, APA rules. That the APA manual is out of date so there's no need to follow it, really. That the APA manual is too expensive, which means that students who can't afford it are plain out of luck.

More often than not, the biggest gripe students have--and it's the only one that isn't easily refuted--is that APA rules seem arbitrary and are especially hard to follow when it comes to citing electronic sources, today's norm for college students.

Like heartbreak and taxes, APA documentation style is here to stay. The APA manual squeezes all the traditional practices and patterns of documentation style used by researchers in the social sciences into its 275-odd pages of final-say-so to forestall debate, not to encourage it. Sure, the punctuation of reference entries is arbitrary but so is driving on the right side of the road or using the sound sequence [kætʰ] for 'domesticated feline' in English. Shared conventions have their uses even while as individuals we might want to defy them.

Ultimately, it is more efficient to apply the rules in all their byzantine glory and get on to the next writing task. You don't so much have to 'learn APA'--although this will happen if you write a lot of documented essays--as learn to adjust your writing process and schedule to include plenty of time for formatting references and making citations match the references. Here are the very best, up-to-date, free or nearly so resources to keep on hand while writing a paper or thesis with APA-style documentation:

è Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th ed. Available in paperback for $25.00 or less. Buy a used copy or find one in the reference section of your local library. Chapters 6 & 7 focus on crediting sources through in-text citations and the reference list. 

è Use citation software such as RefWorks to guide you to collect, organize, and punctuate your references as you select them. Ask a PC librarian how to get a free RefWorks account for all your research-based writing.

è Bookmark reliable websites and articles so you can find them easily when you start your research. We recommend the Purdue OWL, PC Library Resources, and Bedford/St. Martin's Research and Documentation Online.

Two other bits of advice. As you are finalizing your references list, always check each entry one at a time, getting each one correct before moving onto the next. This means identifying what type of source you have (book, article, website, etc.) and checking your entry against the samples for that type of source in the APA manual or guide. Approximations aren't good enough because the APA rules do speak to every possible circumstance, if you look hard enough.

Also, since most students find their sources electronically, many cling to the belief that providing a url is all that is required in a citation or reference entry. Instead, read Sections 6.31-6.32 (pp. 187-192) of the APA manual on electronic sources before you start saving source information. Take particular note of this statement on electronic sources on p. 187:

"In general, we recommend that you include the same elements, in the same order, as you would for a reference to a fixed-media source..."

There's no escaping it: APA traditions are black and white and 'read' all over. If you are required to use APA documentation style, the tools are available to you to get the job done right.