APA Format – Simple Facts about Its History, Purpose, and Features

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APA format is one of the most common referencing styles scholarly institutions use for academic writing. Students are most likely to use this style to complete their academic research writing tasks. The same case applies to academic writers preparing scholarly material for publication. Learning about the academic style should therefore be on top of the list for anyone interested in the basics of academic writing.

Our discussion is based on the lesson on APA format in our Academic Writing Basics course. As part of our continuation on the introduction to academic writing formats, we explore the history, purpose, and features of the referencing style. We also identify the types of academic writing assignments students may receive, which apply the style. (We will discuss MLA format in the next academic writing lesson).

Introduction to APA Format

History

APA style is associated with a scholarly organization bearing the same name, the American Psychological Association. The format is a product of the desire to enhance effective communication in the scholarly community through censuring clarity, precision, and inclusivity. 1929 marked the year of its formation by a group of business managers, anthropologists, and psychologists in Washington, DC. The group aimed at developing a system to define the procedures to inform the different elements of scientific writing in Psychology for an easier reading and comprehension experience.

The rules defined a publication manual to observe for students, educators, and researchers in healthcare, social and behavioural sciences, humanities, natural sciences, and other fields. The Psychological Bulletin journal the APA organization published captured the rules that began the APA writing style.

Purpose

The APA format serves two main purposes, which include:

• Uniformity and consistency
• Standardization of style guidelines

The two provide a further breakdown of the utility each purpose provides as follows:

1. Provide uniformity and consistency for readers to focus on scholarly ideas rather than the presentation.
2. Define a uniform and consistent way to scan written information quickly to find the main points, findings, and sources.
3. To provide style guidelines, which would constrict authors to provide full information disclosure of relevant details.
4. To systemize information dissemination to reduce distractions readers may face such as inconsistent punctuation and statistics presentation, citations, and references.

Many disciplines prefer APA style for scholarly writing because:

• Its format offers clarity
• It emphasizes a preference for newer sources of information

APA Format Features

Five features served as the defining hallmark of an APA format scholarly document structure.

1. Be brief.
2. Use headings
3. Subdivide the paper to have an introduction, statement of results, and discussion.
4. Rules for citation material and citation methods
5. Instructions about how to use tables and figures.

The purpose of the features was to enable publishers to save time and money by eradicating the following problems:

• Reducing the length of manuscripts authors submitted
• Removing inconsistencies in formatting
• Preventing authors from wandering in their information presentation

Distinguishing APA features now include:

• Paper format and structure
• Citation methods of authors within the paper
• Reference compilation at the end of a document

The features have evolved over time, which lead to the development of editions. Guidelines are available in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. The current edition the APA style follows is the 7^th edition published in 2020. The defining characteristics of the 7^th edition cover:

1. Document setup for margins, spacing, indentation, alignment, font and font size, headers, and page numbers.
2. Alphabetization in different areas of the paper
3. Structure of headings and subheadings
4. Document components such as the outline, title page, abstract, table of contents, and reference page
5. Order of pages
6. Referencing sources of information
7. Use of graphics (tables and figures)

Additional factors the guidelines cover include writing styles concerning:

The guidelines apply to manuscripts for publishing in a journal and to student assignments. They can also apply when authors create a different kind of work but the format would change considerably to optimize presentation. Such tasks may include:

•  Website
• Conference poster
• PowerPoint presentation

A publisher or institution would provide the guidelines to follow for such tasks.

APA Format Assignments

APA format proves to be useful for writing subject content related to scientific disciplines. Such include behavioural and social sciences. Behavioural sciences cover human and animal mannerisms and include:

• Psychology
• Cognitive science
• Neuroscience

Social sciences target a specific component of human behavior, especially cultural and social associations. They include:

Other disciplines that use the APA style include:

The types of assignments in each discipline would use the APA style. Such tasks include:

Information Sources

We have cross-checked our learning material about the APA format against other academic publications to ascertain the quality of our information. Doing so has allowed us to ensure the descriptions and illustrations we provide for concepts the lessons discuss are accurate and up-to-date. Some of the methods we use may be inaccessible in other publicly-available academic literature because they are our inventions. However, any other approach we have not developed is accessible through academic literature available for public use. Academic publications we have used to cross-check the academic writing concepts we have captured include:

• American Psychological Association. (2019). About APA Style. Retrieved from https://apastyle.apa.org/about-apa-style
• American Psychological Association. (2019). Paper Format. Retrieved from https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format
• Bartlett, C. & Derrington, K. (n.d.). Types of Assignments. Retrieved from https://usq.pressbooks.pub/academicsuccess/chapter/types-of-assignments/
• Breitenbach, A. (2016). The Origins of APA Style. Retrieved from https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2016/07/the-origins-of-apa-style.html
• Fitchburg State University. (2021). What Citation Style Should I Use? Retrieved from https://fitchburgstate.libguides.com/citingyoursources/choosestyle
• Kirschenbaum, M. & Barbeau, E. (2020). APA Format for Students and Researchers. Retrieved from https://www.easybib.com/guides/citation-guides/apa-format/
• Reynoso, R. (2019). APA Format: A How-To Style Guide with Examples. Retrieved from https://learn.g2.com/apa-format
• Streefkerk, R. (2022). APA Formatting and Citation (7^th ed.) | Generator, Template, Examples. Retrieved from https://www.scribbr.com/apa-pstyle/format/