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Title of Your Paper Goes Here

Your Name Goes Here

Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Research, The University of Memphis

EDRP 7521: Introduction to Educational Research

Dr. Yasuko Kanamori

Assignment due date goes here (e.g., June 1, 2020)

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Title of Your Paper Goes Here

Begin the body of your text, indenting the first line of each new paragraph by ½ inch, and

double spacing between sentences. Remove any extra space before or after a paragraph. Since

adding an extra space is the default for Microsoft Word, you will need to go into the Paragraph

settings to change it. Highlight all text using CTRL-A, then Format->Paragraph and change

“space after paragraph” to zero (0).

Although other fonts are permitted in the APA 7th edition, for this class, you will use

Times New Roman 12-point font for all written assignments. If that font is too small for you to

see on your screen, do not increase the font. Instead, you should use the View->Zoom tool to

view the document at a different zoom level. Your margin settings should be one inch all around;

that is not the default setting of Microsoft Word, so you will have to change that in Page Setup.

Your section headings need to be formatted as explained later in this document. Make sure

they are truly centered; if you have set your paragraphs to automatically indent ½ on the first line,

it is likely that your centered headings will be indented that much extra as well. In APA 7th edition,

the title of your paper and the “References” heading are also centered, bolded, and in title case.

Level headings are covered on the next page.

Page numbers are included on all pages on the upper right-hand corner of each page. To

line up the page number correctly, add the page number to the header by going to the “Insert”

tab, then selecting “Page Number.” Be sure to select “Top of page (Header)” and “alignment

right.” Note that everything in your paper should be Times New Roman 12, including the page

number.

For more information and examples, please go to Purdue Owl APA Formatting and Style

Guide. This site has just about all of the information you will ever need about APA formatting.

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Other useful resources include: apastyle.org and apastyle.apa.org/blog. If you need more help you

can make an online or in-person appointment at the Center for Writing and Communication at the

McWherter Library.

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The remainder of this document does NOT conform to APA style!

General APA Style Information

Double spacing
 Use double spacing throughout your paper, including the text and references.
 Do not put extra spacing between paragraphs in your text.

Margins & fonts

 Margins should be one (1) inch on all sides.
 Font should only be Times New Roman 12 for this class. This includes page numbers in
the running head.

Other important info

 Numbers smaller than ten (nine and under) are always spelled out, numbers ten and larger
are written in numerals (10 and above).
 Gender-specific pronouns are to be avoided. The singular “they” or “they is now
endorsed as a gender-neutral pronoun in APA 7th. E.g., “A researcher’s career depends on
how often they are cited.”
 Using “I” or “you” should be avoided unless the paper is for qualitative research.
 Write in the active, rather than the passive, voice.
 You may use one or two spaces between sentences, but this must be consistent.

Quotations
 You may use one (1) and only one quotation per written assignment and it must be shorter
than 40 words. Papers with more than one quotation may not be graded.
 Quotations should be incorporated within the text, enclosed in double quotation marks (“ ”),
and should be followed by a proper citation with page number.

She stated, “The placebo effect, which had been verified in previous studies, disappeared
when behaviors were studied in this manner” (Miele, 1993, p. 276).

Miele (1993) found that the placebo effect, “which had been verified in previous studies,
disappeared when behaviors were studied in this manner” (p. 276).

Paraphrasing
 Paraphrasing is taking someone’s ideas and rewording them for your own purposes. When
you paraphrase, you do not need to use quotation marks, but you do need to provide a
citation.

When participants know they are being observed, the placebo effect has little or no
impact on their beliefs (Miele, 1993).

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Comma Usage
 Use a comma between elements in a series of three or more items

The items were measured by height, width, and depth

Level Headings
 The level headings of your paper represent the various levels of your outline. For example,
Level One headers will be the same as your first-level outline items. Level Two headers
should be the same as your second-level outline items, and so forth. There are five standard
level headings, but you are unlikely to need more than three. If you think you need more than
three level headings, email me an outline of your paper first.
 The following examples demonstrate how the headings are formatted.

Level One is Centered, Bold, and in Title Case

Text follows on the next line, with the first word indented ½ inch.

Level Two is Flush Left, Bold, and in Title Case

Text follows on the next line, with the first word indented ½ inch.

Level Three is Flush Left, Bold, Italicized, and in Title Case

Text follows on the next line, with the first word indented ½ inch.

Level Four is Indented, Bold, Title Case, and ending with a Period. Text follows

immediately after the period.

Level Five is Indented, Bold, Italicized, Title Case and ending with a period. Text

follows immediately after the period.

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Citing Your Sources within the Body of the Text

 As a general rule, if you did not create the idea, then you need to give credit for it,
whether you are paraphrasing an idea or quoting an author directly.
 All factual claims require citations.
 See above for citations for printed material that include quotations.
 If in doubt, cite!

Samples of citations within the body of your work (see also the chart below).

One work by one author

Use author last name and year.

Walker (2000) compared reactions times…

In a recent study of reaction times (Walker, 2000), …

In 2000, Walker compared reaction times…

Note how none of these examples include “There is an interesting paper by Jack Walker (2010)
in which many interesting things were found,” or “In The Happiness of Everyday Objects,
Walter (2010) noted….”
Do not provide commentary on the articles, just explain the methodology and what the
researcher(s) found. Similarly, do not include the paper title, journal title, or author first names or
initials. Simply state what you learned from the article, not details about the article.

One work by multiple authors

 When a work has two authors, always cite both names every time the reference occurs in the
text.

White and Jones (2019) reported that…

 When a work has three or more authors, cite only the surname of the first author followed by
et al. and the year everyone time the reference occurs in the text. Note this is “et al.” not “et.
al.” or “et. Al.” or “et Al.” or any other variant. It is a holdover from Latin “et alia” meaning
“and others.”

Wasserstein et al. (1994) found…

 Join the names in a multiple-author citation in running text by the word and. In parenthetical
citation, join the names by an ampersand (&)

As Nightlinger and Littlewood (1993) demonstrated, …

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As has been shown (Nightlinger & Littlewood, 1993), …

Two or more works within the same parentheses

 If a similar idea or finding is presented by more than one source, cite them all within the
same parentheses, separated by semicolons. Put them in alphabetical order within the
parenthesis.

Past research has indicated that socioeconomic status (SES) predicts ACT scores
(Edeline & Weinberger, 1999; Gogel, 1984; Wasserstein et al., 1994).

Electronic sources cited in text

 Note that if you are citing a work only published electronically (e.g., a blog or web page)
then you are likely not following the writing assignment guidelines for this class. Sources
should be from peer-reviewed journals. If your source cannot be found through our
university’s library databases, you do not have an acceptable source.
 For electronic sources that do not provide page numbers, use the paragraph number, if
available, preceded by the paragraph symbol or the abbreviation “para.”
 If neither paragraph nor page numbers are visible, cite the heading and the number of the
paragraph following it to direct the reader to the location of the material.

(Beutler, 2000, Conclusion section, para. 1)

Citation of a work discussed in a secondary source

 Give the secondary source in the reference list, name the original work in the in-
text citation, and give a citation for the secondary source.

Piaget’s (1955) study of conservation (as cited in Berk, 2002) is indicative of many
mid-century psychological studies.

Basic Citation Styles within the Body of the Text

Type of Citation First Citation in Subsequent citations Parenthetical Parenthetical format,

text in text format, first subsequent citations
citation in text in text
One work by one Walker (2007) Walker (2007) (Walker, 2007) (Walker, 2007).
author
One work by two Walker and Allen Walker and Allen (Walker & Allen, (Walker & Allen,
authors (2004) (2004) 2004). 2004).
One work by three Bradley et al. (1999) Bradley et al. (1999) (Bradley et al., (Bradley et al., 1999).
or more authors 1999).
Groups (readily National Institute of NIMH (2003) (National Institute (NIMH, 2003).
identified through Mental Health of Mental Health
abbreviation) as (NIMH, 2003) [NIMH,] 2003).
authors
Groups (no University of University of (University of (University of

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Type of Citation First Citation in Subsequent citations Parenthetical Parenthetical format,

text in text format, first subsequent citations
citation in text in text
abbreviation) as Pittsburgh (2005) Pittsburgh (2005) Pittsburgh, 2005) Pittsburgh, 2005).
authors
th
(adapted from the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7 ed.)

References
References start on a new page. Use the word “References” as the title for your reference
page. It should be centered, bolded, and in title case.

You will double space between references, and you will use a hanging indent (i.e., the first
line is flush left, and subsequent lines will be indented ½ inch). You can do this in the
Paragraph tool under the Special drop-down option.

Alphabetizing Names
 Alphabetize references by author’s last name first, followed by first initial.
 If an author has more than one reference, site them in date of publication order.

o If the publications are in the same year, follow the year by a, b, c., etc. (e.g., Walker,
2008a; Walker, 2008b)

 If an author has more than one reference that include articles written with others in which the
author is the lead (i.e., first listed) author, list any single-author publications first, followed
by the publications with multiple articles. Alphabetize those according to the second (or third
or fourth) authors.
 In APA 7th, last names and first initials for up to 20 authors (instead of 7 as was the case in
APA 6th) should be provided in the reference list. If a source is authored by more than 20
authors, only the first 19 authors and the last author are included. In between the 19th and the
last author you place an ellipses to indicate names are omitted.

Miller, T. C., Brown, M. J., Wilson, G. L., Evans, B. B., Kelly, R. S., Turner, S. T.,
Lewis, F., Lee, L. H., Cox, G., Harris, H. L., Martin, P., Gonzalez, W. L., Hughes,
W., Carter, D., Campbell, C., Baker, A. B., Flores, T., Gray, W. E., Green, G., …
Nelson, T. P. (2018).

Sentence Case
Journal article titles are written in sentence case. That means the first letter in the article
title is capitalized. All other parts of the title are not, unless there is a colon in the title, then
the letter following the colon is capitalized. Proper nouns are always capitalized. This
includes “the Internet.”

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Critical issues: A survey of topic popularity among university students.

Title Case
Journal Names are written in title case and are italicized. This means the first letter of most
words is capitalized. Prepositions (e.g., in, over, between, on, above, through), definite and
indefinite articles (e.g., a, an, the), and conjunctions (e.g., and, or, but, for, nor) are left in lower
case unless they are the first word in the title, or the first word after a colon.

The Journal of Educational Research

General formatting for journals

Italicize the journal name and the volume number. Use title case for the journal name. Include
issue number if available. Use only author last names and first and middle initials. Include dois
(Digital Object Identifiers) formatted as URLs.

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (year). Title of article: Capitalize if colon is

present. Title of Journal, volume(issue), ppp-ppp. https://doi.org/ xx.xxxxxxxxxxxx

Haraway, D. J. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege

of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575-599. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066

Hofer, B. K., & Sinatra, G. M. (2010). Epistemology, metacognition, and self-regulation:

Musings on an emerging field. Metacognition Learning, 5(1), 113-120.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-009-9051-7

General formatting for books

Book titles are italicized and in sentence case. Use only author last names and first and middle
initials. No longer need to include publisher location.

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (year). Book title. Publisher.

Covey, S. R. (2013). The 7 habits of highly effective people: Powerful lessons in personal
change. Simon & Schuster.

General formatting for webpages

Webpage titles are italicized and in sentence case. Include publication date following author
name. Include website name (unless it’s the same as the author). Use only author last names and
first and middle initials. URLs are no preceded by “Retrieved from,” unless a retrieval date is
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needed (e.g., for Wikipedia articles where content frequently changes. However, you should not
be citing Wikipedia in this class).

Walker, A. (2019, November 14). Germany avoids recession but growth remain weak. BBC
News. httpts://www.bbc.com/news/business-50419127

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APA checklist
General
 Margins set at 1 inch.
 Times New Roman 12-point is the only font.
 Paper is double spaced with no additional spacing at beginning or ending of paragraphs.
 The title page includes a descriptive paper title (not the name of the assignment), full
author name, and the name of the school only.
 All cover page information is centered with the title approximately 1/3 of the way down
the page.
 The paper does not include the words “I” or “you” unless it is for qualitative research.
 There is always only one space between sentences or only two spaces between sentences.
 Numbers nine and under are written in words and numbers 10 and above are in numerals.
 Either the Oxford (serial) comma is always used or it is never used.
Citations
 Citations are used for all information (e.g., ideas, theories, findings) which belongs to
someone other than the paper’s author.
 Page numbers are only used in citations if a direct quote is used.
 Citations include only author last names, year of publication, and page number (if
quoting).
 Citations for three or more authors are abbreviated with “et al.”
 Direct quotes must be in quotation marks, followed by the citation and sentence
punctuation.
 No more than one quote is used.
 The punctuation marks which ends sentences are after citations, not before.
References
 References start on new page with “References” centered and bold.
 References are double spaced with a ½ inch hanging indent.
 References are listed alphabetically by first author last name.
 Journal titles and volume numbers are italicized.
 Journal titles are in title case.
 Article titles are in sentence case.

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 References include full author last names and only first and middle initials.
 The DOI is included in all references formatted as URLs.
Level Headings
 Level one headings are centered, bold, and in title case.
 Text following level one headings starts on a new line and the first line is indented ½
inch.
 Level two headings are flush left, bold, and in title case.
 Text following level two headings starts on a next line and the first line is indented ½
inch.
 Level three headings are flush left, bold, italicized, and in title case.
 Text following level three headings starts on a next line and the first line is indented ½
inch.
 No more than three level headings are used.

**Note that this APA Primer is not Comprehensive. You are responsible for looking up
information not covered in this primer (utilizing the resources provided above as well as other
reputable online sources) as needed throughout the semester so that you are following APA
format for all written work in this class.

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