If you often asked yourself how scientists, large legal corporations, companies to communicate formally with their environment or simply if your question is how papers should be presented in a university thesis so that they are regulated in accordance to common sense. The answers are APA standards.
These standards, were first developed by the American Psychological Association come to answer all these questions to manifest and establish standard forms for the presentation of written documents and thus comply with all the specifications that are needed so that it is not rejected by formal arguments.
In this post, we will expose everything you need to know so you can present your documents according to the most demanding standards that exist today in matters of regulation of written documents.
Index:
History of APA rules, why is it set as standard for presentation of written works?
In order to facilitate the understanding of the different writings, a group of people whose professions were anthropologists, psychologists and business administration science professionals created in 1929 standards to meet this requirement . Its objective was to find a set of precepts that can be fulfilled in all writings and can be broad and can be adapted to any subject.
That is why emphasized issues related to the margins and formats that the document must have , they also observed their punctuation and abbreviations that they should possess.
They established rules for citing references or “citations” when reading the text, they thought about how to construct figures and tables in an orderly manner and also worked on the specification of the font sizes that would be necessary to align in this matter of presentation of written documents.
In this way they observed that APA standards would be a guide in the presentation of different allegations or written communications , because it would help to have a consistent and solid style in the articles that would be presented in the future , encouraging a writing style that eliminates confusion about punctuation, number writing, many other important topics.
Thus arises, one of the most accepted rules worldwide .
What are the most important elements of the APA style?
Within the latest version provided by the APA standards, in its sixth edition it states that in order to comply with these parameters required by the standards, it is necessary to realize or keep in mind that the concepts that we will name you then have to comply with these requirements:
Margins
The sheet must be 1 inch or 2.54 cm , at each edge that is to say its upper, lower, right and left margin cannot be of another measure other than these, the ones we mentioned. In the case of bleeding, five spaces must be established in order to start writing.
Typeface
With regard to the Font or typeface we can name as established the “ Times New Roman “, which is present in all the softwares that exist today. Its size must be number 12 . Its alignment has to be to the left and its line spacing of 2 .
Abbreviations
This point is one of the most important and they make a rationale for the APA standards , since when you talk about these standards it is known in advance that you are talking about a writing that is written and displayed with respect to your references or quotes very clearly.
There are many abbreviations, we recommend the most important and used ones, some of them are:
- Supplement: “ Suppl. ”
- Translator: “ Trad. accoun
- Part: “ Pte. ”
- Editor: “ Ed. ”
- Chapter: “ chap. ”
- Undated: “ sf ”
- Page: “ p. †
- Volume: “ Vol. ”
- Number: “ No. ”
- Revised edition: “ ed. rev. ”
- Edition:“ ed. ”
Within these and many other abbreviations we suggest that you be moderated when using them, since for the reader some are not familiar thus generating some controversy at the time of reading. We present only the most familiar ones, so it would be nice to tell you not to add to your list more than these.
Page numbering
For this topic the rules have very specific considerations and are detailed, since the writings must be submitted with the page that begins with the title or on the front page of the document and must be located in the upper right corner.
When there are written dedications or preface, they must also be numbered, but with one condition, they must have Roman numerals, that is, start with I, II, III, IV , etc. The numbers that are used for the rest of the writing have to be Arabic numerals, that is, start with 1 , continue with 2 and so on.
Paper size
Although it may not appear, this point is necessary so that there are no doubts when you can print or save the documents in a computer file. They must have the size of «Letter» on some computers we can find it as «Letter» , that is to say that the paper must have a size of 21.59 cm x 27.94 cm or expressed in inches of 8 1/2 ”x 11”.
What are the main advantages of using APA standards in your work?
As you have already realized through this reading, submitting a document that meets APA standards has its advantages . Some of them you will discover with the use and adaptation of texts, but we want to point out which are the most important:
Uniformity
Complying with these norms results in having a writing and writing style in which all writers can organize and present their ideas in a clear, simple and concise manner. Thus presenting a clear basis for the comparison between the works, being able to qualify them in a more objective way.
Comprehension
Users acquire an easy understanding of reading when they are governed under the same type of norm or parameter , thus providing a reality known by their reader avoiding surprises and wasted time when deepening on specific topics.
Aid for scientific exposure h3>
As the name implies, APA standards have an advantage in which scientific writing can be easily done since abbreviations and other drafting points are solved and can be compared with other publications. It also provides ease of reading for those who do not exhaustively handle a topic.
Appointments correctly expressed
When you need to make a writing in which you need to reference ideas from other authors, with the APA standards you can gather and ensure that the understanding of both the reader and the writer and the copyright are guaranteed strong>. It is also possible to clearly extract where the fundamentals on which they are talking at that time of the appointment were produced or based.
Advantages over other formats
APA standards have a great advantage over other formats. For example, the Chicago-style format in which ideas and writings are expressed in a broader way thus causing a cumbersome reading when it comes to understanding the writings.
Steps to cite your works written in perfect APA standard according to the type of source
In this part of our research work, we will detail how you should cite in your written works to each of the sources from which you obtained the ideas or information on which you are based:
Based on a book
You should write as follows: «Author. Year of publication. Title of the book. Publication place. Editorial. »
Based on a magazine
You will write the quotation as follows: «Author. Date. Article title. Name of the magazine. Volume. Pages. »
Based on a newspaper
Your appointment will look like this: «Author. Year of publication. Article title. Newspaper title. Pages. »
Based on an encyclopedia
The call of your appointment will have to show the following: «Author. Year of publication. Article title. Encyclopedia Name Volume. Pages. Place of encyclopedia publication. Editorial. »
Based on a book
When you have obtained your quotation from a book, really expose it like this: «Author. Year of publication. Chapter Title Name of the book. Pages. Place of publication of the book. Editorial . »
Internet based
When you obtained an Internet source you have to express it as follows: «Author. Year of publication. Article title. Document recovery date. Association that publishes the article. URL. »
Classification of appointments
Once we know how to expose our appointments according to the source or place where we obtained it, we need to know what kinds of appointments exist. Next, we will name the most important ones so you know what each one is about:
Direct appointment
It is to faithfully transcribe every word of the text in which we got the idea in a textual way. We can also classify it in short or long direct or textual quotation. Many authors emphasize the expression of the emphasis on their content , which is why we can also classify them according to this point.
Indirect appointment
All calls made in writing are so called when information is obtained based on a brief summary of an idea that has been established in a specific place. That is, with this we paraphrase the author.
Appointment appointment
This is called the r references that are made to citations that already exist somewhere and that can be textual or non-textual , with or without the author’s emphasis, as long as it is respected the original idea of the first date.
Place to write the references of a writing. h2>
As we mentioned earlier , quotes cannot be written anywhere in the document, they must be expressed in a specific way .
You must organize them at the end of each article and they must be written down according to an alphabetical order by last name of the author and must provide accurate and complete information to identify and locate each of the sources to which it is cited in the reference text.