Information Literacy - Research Project

Part II: Writing in APA Format

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to:

  • Compose an appropriate formatted Title Page and citations (in-text and References page) for a peer-reviewed research article in APA Format.

An Introduction to APA Formatted References

When we are using other people's work in our own writing we need to give credit to our sources. The most common way to do this is to tell your reader right in the document where you got the information. There are numerous ways to do this but the most common way (in all of social science and in most other fields) is to format your writing using the publication standards of the American Psychological Association, or better known as APA Format.

If you click HERE you will be taken to the site of the American Psychological Association's Publication Manual. This manual is designed to give researchers all of the information they need to assure that the manuscripts they submit for publication are formatted correctly. This is a highly detailed and highly exclusive format for writing that is part of the field of Psychology. Most of the content of this Manual are beyond the scope of this particular class, but if you are interested in pursuing a career in social sciences, it is worth buying this Manual.

For the time being we are going to be focusing on some specific elements of the format.

  • Title Page
  • In-text citations (to be covered in Part III)
  • References
TITLE PAGE

Below is a video that very well explains the expectations of a title page using APA Format.

 

Click HERE to review the OWL Website regarding Running Heads
Click HERE to learn how to construct a Running Head in APA format in MS Word
Click HERE to learn how to construct a Running Head in APA format in Open Office

For the purposes of this class, your title page should include the following:

Running head (at the top of the page...formatted as in the video)
Your name
Title of your paper
The title of the assignment
The name of the college (Kennebec Valley Community College)
The course number and name name of the class (PSY 101: Introduction to Psychology)
Your professor's name

REFERENCES

In APA Format we are required to provide detailed information related to all of the sources we have used in our writing in a section that is simply called "References"

Please note that other formats use the term "Works Cited" or "Bibliography" for this section, but APA Format uses "References"

This is probably one of the more complex aspects of writing in APA Format because there are different rules for how to cite different kinds of resources.

Please note that this video examples does NOT cover how to format a JOURNAL ARTICLE...which is going to be what we are expecting you to cite. For specifics on citing articles you will need to refer to the OWL Website below and click the
"Reference List: Articles in Periodicals" option.  

Below you will find a video that specifically outlines how to cite a peer reviewed article in your paper.

 

Click HERE to revisit the Purdue OWL Website...notice on the left menu there are numerous links that relate to "Reference List" and different kinds of sources. Use these resources to figure out how to cite the sources YOU use in your papers.

YOU ARE NOW READY TO WRITE YOUR PAPER

Research Project - Part II -Writing in APA Format

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE CHECKLIST YOU ARE TO USE AS YOU WRITE YOUR PAPER

Title Page - this is the first page in your submitted document and it contains information that identifies the following:

Follow the expectations outlined in the section on Title Pages above. The name of this assignment is "Research Project - Part II - Writing in APA Format"
10 pts

References - insert a page break right after your research question (yes, you will have one whole page with JUST your research question on it.) Title the new page "References" with the term "References" in centered at the top of the page.

Utilizing APA Format, list your articles and other sources. Follow these expectations:

  • Standard APA format
  • Hanging indent paragraph format
  • Double-spaced WITHOUT an extra space between each reference
  • No bullets or numbers
80 pts
Mechanics - spelling, syntax, grammar, punctuation, etc.
10 pts.
Please note that your paper should be 2 pages long...the first page is the title page and the second page should be your references.