Main -> In the Classroom: APA Style -> APA Assignment

The following assignment is taken directly from my syllabus for the Orientation to the Major course that I offer at Utah State University. 

For part 1, I use one of my published papers, modified to have a lot of errors. In part 2, I have found that having students develop their own "Cheat Sheets" is really a good way to encourage manual reviewing and having students get a sense of what's "in there" and what's "relevant."

Now, I will not lie: this is not the most *popular* of assignments. This is one of those "I'm glad I did it, but I didn't like it" sort of tasks. I *think* that it does get students to use the book, to figure out what is important in the book, and (with Madigan et al) to think about why psychologists could care about such a thing.

The APA Assignment has three parts. It is worth 65 points, evaluated on quality and comprehensiveness of the submission. 

1. First, given a document (available on Blackboard), identify at least thirty errors (of at least 15 types) and then list:

• the APA manual number that corresponds to the issue, and

• how to correct the issue.

2. Second, students are to create their own ‘cheat sheets’ for APA style. The document should be typed, should fill at least one page, and may include regular text, bullets, diagrams, examples, etc.  The document should include, at least, the following sections: 

• document formatting / typing
• citation of various types of sources in the text;
• reference page, and;
• quotations

3. Finally, students are to read Madigan, Johnson, & Linton (1995) paper titled  The language of psychology: APA style as epistemology and write an essay that accomplishes the following:

• Describe each of the 5 characteristics of APA style as described by Madigan et al.

• Describe how each of these 5 characteristics of APA style represent the "core values and epistemology of the discipline" (p. 428).

• Given Madigan et al and your discussion of the article, discuss how reducing bias in language (APA, pp. 46-60) represents one of the "core values and epistemology of the discipline" (p. 428).