Required Texts

American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.).

Washington, DC: Author.

There are two sections in the APA Manual that are required reading. These are chapter 6, "Material Other Than Journal Articles," and a section in chapter 2, "Guidelines to Reduce Bias in Language." These total just 18 pages, so you need not purchase the APA Manual as long as a library copy is available for reference.

Brewer, B. W., Scherzer, C. B., Van Raalte, J. L., Petitpas, A. J., & Andersen, M. B. (2001). The elements of (APA) style:

A survey of psychology journal editors. American Psychologist, 56, 266-267.

The survey reports that about 40% of editors have rejected papers solely because they do not conform to APA style. This paper is impeccably formatted, as might be expected given its subject. It helps why APA style must be mastered if you expect to write professionally. APA101 makes repeated reference to the paper; it should be available online. You will need a copy for the final lesson.

Taylor, B. N. (1995). Guide for the Use of the International System of Units (SI) (NIST Special Publication 811,

1995 Edition). Gaithersburg, MD: National Institute of Standards and Technology. Available from the NIST Web site, http://physics.nist.gov

The NIST Guide by Barry Taylor is the standard reference for using the International System of Units by the government of the United States.

Optional Reading

Gopen, G. D., & Swan, J. A. (1990, November-December). The science of scientific writing [Electronic version].

American Scientist. Available from the American Scientist Online Web site, http://www.americanscientist.org

"If the reader is to grasp what the writer means, the writer must understand what the reader needs." Read how to compose clear scientific English. About 10 pages. APA 101 is about style as presentation (see lesson 1). This paper is about style as expression.

Fifth Edition!   The APA Publication Manual is the commanding guide in psychology, and found in other fields ranging from education to literature. The new edition shows how to format papers (40 pp., 15 with diagrams), expands coverage of tables and figures (50 pp.), adds Web sources to the 95 references sources covered (75 pp.), and refines the best section on avoiding bias found anywhere (15 pp.). The spiral bound edition lies open to the page you select, not a trivial convenience!

Free Style Guide for Numbers. The NIST is the official representative of the United States before the Convention du Metre which in turn is the body that defines the International System of Units (SI) for the world scientific community. A free 80 page style guide is available from their website. This link (click on the title above) is directly to the document which is in Adobe PDF format. To download rather than display the document click the right mouse button on the link and select "Save Target As."

APA Easy? This handbook is a quick and simplified guide to the APA writing style. It was developed as a condensed version of the official APA Publication Manual and designed to be utilized as a supplement to the actual guide. One reviewer at Amazon.com writes: "APA The Easy Way is a godsend. It takes the pain of dealing with the APA Manual, cuts through the BS and tells you the 'meat' of what you really need to know to conform to this style of writing. All-in-all a very simple and easy-to-use guide that helps take the sting out of writing APA style" (Fronckowiak, 2005).