O nas - Mowa

Key APA Guidelines by Grupa Mowa

The basis for these guidelines is:

the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), 7th edition;
plain language principles, for example, those promoted by the European Association of Science Editors (EASE).

The objective of these guidelines is to help you submit an article that looks clear and reads well. When in doubt, please consult the APA Manual.

Table of Contents

Text Formatting
Writing Style
Tables and Figures
References and In-Text Citation

Text Formatting

Line spacing: 1.5. Table bodies may be single-spaced; see the section “Tables” below.
Indent each paragraph in the article by 0.5 in (1.25 cm).
Lists: Use a numbered list if the items are complete sentences; end each item with a period. Use a bulleted or lettered list if the items are phrases; end each item with a comma or semi-colon.
Use italics for foreign words not yet assimilated into English, and for emphasis (sparingly).
Use boldface only for article headings.
Do not use underlining at all.
Avoid excessive use of round brackets (parentheses). Wherever possible, use them only for in-text citations. If you need to separate a part of the sentence, use en dashes (–).
Use square brackets only to signal your changes inside a direct quotation. However, you can make minor adjustments in a direct quotation without signaling them: this includes changing single quotes to double quotes and changing the capitalization of the first letter.
Use an ellipsis to indicate omissions in direct quotations. Do not use brackets around the ellipsis. Example: “The study implies that simply constructing a grid … does not automatically translate to access and usage.”
Separate direct quotations of 40 or more words, thus creating block quotations. Indent the whole block quotation by 0.5 in (1.25 cm). Do not put block quotations in quotation marks. Do not insert a space above or below such quotations. For quotations within block quotations, use double quotation marks.
Avoid footnotes because they distract readers from your main argument. Think whether a given piece of information is really necessary and adds to the readers’ understanding of your text. If so, try to incorporate that information into the main body of text.
Use title case for all headings. Important: APA-style title case capitalizes most words, including four-letter function words such as “from” or “with.” APA uses five levels of headings; please see the table below.
Do not use the heading “Introduction”; APA assumes that the article’s first part after the title, abstract, and author details is the introductory part.
Do not number the headings.

Writing Style

Please use American English (AmE), including spelling and punctuation. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary is the preferred authority on spelling.

The above requirement means, among other things, that you should:

use “z” instead of “s” in the endings of certain verbs and their nouns and gerunds. Examples: analyze, organize, organizing, organization but: analysis;
use double quotation marks for quotations;
use single quotation marks for quotations within quotations (exception: use double quotes within block quotations);
type punctuation inside the quotation mark, not after it. Example: “The students performed well at their exams.”

Make sure that you write in a clear and concise manner. This entails several aspects:

Avoid wordiness. Example: “In this context, it is important to note that the consumers are willing to protect the climate.” -> “Importantly, the consumers are willing to protect the climate.”
Use the active voice to make the text clear and engaging. Avoid the passive voice where possible. Example: “A survey questionnaire was used for the research” -> “I used a survey questionnaire for the research.” / “The research employed a survey questionnaire.”
Write in first person and do not use “We” if you are the only author. Examples: 1. “The authors believe that…” -> “We believe that…” 2. “In the author’s opinion” -> “In my opinion.”
Avoid excessive hedging. Example: “may possibly suggest” -> “may suggest,” “possibly suggests,” or even simply “suggests” (depending on the context).
Avoid unnecessarily long or complex sentences. Try to divide such sentences into shorter ones. Clarity is crucial from the readers’ point of view.
Never use “both” with “as well as.” Instead, use the “both … and” construction.
Use “that” for restrictive clauses and “which” for nonrestrictive clauses.
When using an abbreviation, please provide the full term on its first occurrence, followed by the abbreviation in round brackets. Afterwards, you can use just the abbreviation, especially for long names. Please be consistent with this to avoid making your readers feel confused.
Avoid beginning a sentence with an abbreviation. Example: “IT is an important sector in numerous economies” -> “Information technology is an important sector in numerous economies.”
Avoid excessive use of the verb “to be,” especially in the neighboring sentences or phrases. Try to replace “to be” with other verbs – this will make your text more engaging and scholarly at the same time. Examples of verbs to use: appear, arise, attend, ensue, exist, happen, mean, occur, prove, remain, seem, serve as, take place (depending on the context).

APA stresses the importance of addressing people (chapter 5 in APA Manual). Therefore, please follow these principles:

Use gender-neutral language. This includes singular they instead of forms like the generic he, s/he, or he/she, and terms such as “homemaker” instead of “housewife.”
Use neutral phrases like “older people,” “people with disabilities,” or “person with a disease,” rather than certain traditional phrases like “the elderly.”
Be careful with names of ethnic groups, e.g., use “Alaska Natives,” not “Eskimos.”

Miscellaneous:

Use the serial comma. Example: “France, Italy, and Spain” instead of “France, Italy and Spain.”
Use a comma after the abbreviations: e.g., i.e., and viz.
If the clause following the colon is a complete sentence, begin it with a capital letter.
Spell out numbers from zero to nine, and use digits for numbers from 10 upwards.
Use commas between groups of three digits in most figures of 1,000 or more. Examples: USD 3,456,789; 5,647 participants.
When quoting an author cited in another source, use the phrase “as cited in.”
When referring to your text, use “article,” not “paper.” Example: “The objective of this article is…”
Make sure that your quotation marks and apostrophes are correct – that is, curved and not straight.
Use en dashes (–) for number ranges, including page ranges. Examples: pp. 321–322; in the years 1999–2001.
Cases in which to always use words for numbers even for 10 and above: beginning of a sentence, title or heading; common fractions (e.g. “one fifth” instead of ⅕), certain universally accepted phrases like “Twelve Apostles.”

Tables and Figures

Please adhere to APA’s table style. The main rules are as follows:

Type the table number on the top, to the left, and in bold.
Type the table title below the table number. The title should be in italics and title case. Keep the title clear and concise.
Do not add a period after the table number or table title.
Use only horizontal lines in the table, and only to separate major parts of the table – not after each row of data.
Do not use boldface in the table body.
Put source information or other notes below the table. Make sure all such notes are in the same style and font.
The table body can be single-spaced if this produces a better presentation of data.

The same rules apply to figure titles and notes. Moreover, please remember about the following:
Use the full word “Figure” instead of abbreviations like “Fig.”
Capitalize figure legends.

References and In-Text Citation

Please adhere to APA’s reference style. The main rules are as follows:

Indent each entry except its first line. We recommend indenting by 0.5 in (1.25 cm) for consistency with the indentation of article paragraphs.
Author names: use initials, not full first names. Use an ampersand (&) before the last author’s name, even if there are only two authors.
Use sentence case for article and book titles.
Use title case for journal titles.
Use italics for book and journal titles.
Capitalize the first letter after a colon in all titles.
Do not provide place of publication.
For Internet links, please remove the hyperlinks: right-click on the link and choose “Remove Hyperlink” or “Usuń hiperłącze.”

Please avoid footnotes and use in-text citation instead. Examples:

narrative citation: Jones, Nowak, and Cooper (2023) argue that…
in-text citation: (Jones, Nowak, & Cooper, 2023)
with a direct quotation: (Jones, Nowak, & Cooper, 2023, pp. 101–102); (Ashton & Swales, 1990, p. 23)