APA Formatting for Academic and Professional Writing 1

APA Formatting for Academic and Professional Writing

John Doe

Department of Psychology, University of Xyz, Pakistan

PSYC255: Introduction to Psychology

Dr. Xyz

April 20, 2023

APA Formatting for Academic and Professional Writing 2

APA Formatting for Academic and Professional Writing

A professional writing style is a basic tool to convey any knowledge accurately and
precisely to the outer word, also to give a scholarly impression to it. APA writing style is one of
the credible and reliable styles for academic writings, which is used worldwide. It helps to
provide proper information about the source of knowledge and to generate genuine data with
minimal plagiarism. It also has user and reader friendly fonts and formatting styles, that allows
smooth delivery of knowledge from writers to readers (Crawford, 2019).

Citation guidelines for Personal Communication

Personal communication is that cited work in any piece of writing which lacks a proper
source element and thus cannot be recovered by reader. Guidelines regarding citation of personal
communication are given in chapter eight of APA publication manual. Following sources of
information could be considered as personal commination; emails, text messages, phone calls,
online chats, letters memos, live speeches, online video messages, classroom lectures and
discussions etc.

Personal communication citation should only be used when proper source of knowledge
is unavailable. For instance, if a topic is learned in a classroom discussion use reference of the
source based on which the instructor has made the lecture, but if the discussion includes personal
views or original work that has not been published anywhere, one should cite it under personal
communication.

Personal communication is only cited in text but not included in the reference list because
of the reasons that readers could not track it back or retrieve the original source. Thus, it is cited
by giving the initials and surname of the communicator and the exact date, and written as
following.

Narrative citation: John, D. (personal communication, April 20, 2023)

Parenthetical Citation: (John, D., personal communication, April 20, 2023)

(APA, 2020).
APA Formatting for Academic and Professional Writing 3

Importance of levels of headings

Different levels of headings are used to distinguish between different type of content also
some headings are more important than other so they are used categorically to indicate the
significance of the given information.

There are five levels of headings in APA style, Level 1 headings are used for main
sections of different chapter names in case of research paper of thesis. Level 2 headings are
subdivision of level 1 heading, similarly Level 3 heading is subsection of level 2. Level 4 and 5
are also subset of level 3 and 4 respectively. The headings sequence will always be in top-down
progression, regardless of how many levels of subheadings are present in a section.

Following example will provide much clarity regarding levels of heading. In a student
paper level 1 heading are used for introduction, methods and discussion headings. Level 2
heading is used to write any variable or topic name, within that introduction. In methods, heading
of measures is given in level 2, whereas name of measure is written in level three, usually in
student paper headings till level three are used, but if that section is divided into further parts,
level 4 and 5 are used respectively (APA, 2020).

DOI and its importance

DOI stands for digital object identifier. It is a unique set of numbers and characters
generated against online articles, books, journals or any other work. DOI is exclusive for each
document and it never gets changed. It is provided on the first page of the article, its contains
different alphanumeric variables, usually starts with 10 and has a prefix and suffix separated by
slash. DOI is provided by different online registration agencies at time of publication of your
work (Crawford,2019).

Using DOI is important because it helps readers to retrieve the data to its original source,
thus helps to make sure the It gives authenticity to the work as well, because once a DOI is
generated for one document it neither could be used for any other file, nor it could be changed or
mixed. Providing a DOI at end of each reference has also made cross-referencing easy as readers
just click on the link and thus it can take back to the original sources of the cited work (APA,
2020).
APA Formatting for Academic and Professional Writing 4

Jerry Falwell Library

The Jerry Falwell Library at Liberty University serves as a resource for both on-campus
and online students. It contains over 390,000 online resources, ranging from writing instructions
and tutorials to a massive database of journals, papers, eBooks, video, and other scholarly works,
as well as 365,000 print materials

Furthermore, the Jerry Falwell Library offers resources to both online and residential
students that might help them succeed in their academic efforts. Among these facilities are
research and citation guides, research tutorials, an online writing center, study room bookings,
and an Interlibrary Lending System that allows students to have certain articles and books mailed
directly to them.

Finding Scholarly Sources

A peer-reviewed source is another term for a scholarly source. If one source is

insufficient, there are various more to consider. If your local or university library does not have
the information you need on a particular issue, there are other resources available to researchers.
PsycINFO and Piscaries are two of the most regularly used tools in psychology. Both databases
contain millions of scientific abstracts, journals, books, and dissertations.

Searching the internet, in addition to libraries and databases, may be a useful tool while
seeking academic materials. In his book, Introduction to Research: Less Fear, More
Understanding, Ray Crawford discusses the usage of the internet. Crawford advises care while
surfing the internet since material discovered there is not necessarily verifiable. "Simply put,
people's access to information on the internet is not always restricted" (Crawford, 2019).

Formatting and referencing of different works

The examples below show how to correctly reference several types of scholarly
publications that may be used in papers

Religious and Classical Works

Religious works include holy writings and literature from different civilizations and
nations, that include information from Quran, Bible, Torah, Bhagavad Gita etc. classical works
and literature includes ancient Greek and Roman work, writings of Shakespeare and Homer etc.
APA Formatting for Academic and Professional Writing 5

APA has given proper guidelines for citation of referencing of such work and are cited as Books,
it is mentioned on Page no 302 and 324 On APA manual.

Example of citation of a verse, from bible is as follow “Trust in the Lord with all your
heart and lean not on your own understanding” (King James bible, 1769/2017). The narrative
citation would be as, King James bible, (1769/2017).

Textbook citation

Appropriate citation structure for published works may be found on page 262 of the APA
Publishing Manual. In general, the format should look like this: Authors name, (date) The title of
the book. (edition). Name of the publisher. DOI As an example, consider the following.

Crawford, A.R. (2019). Introduction to Research: Less Fright, More Insight (3rd ed.).
Kendel Hunt Publishing company. https://doi.org/10.1077/0000167-000

Unpublished student’s Paper or Thesis

Guidelines for citation of unpublished work are given on 335 of APA publication manual.
It follows this order, Surname and initial(s) of the author (Date). Work Title [Unpublished
Manuscript]. Name of the department, and the name of the university.

Example: Myers, M. (2020). Effectively Molding Jesus as a Life Counselor [Unpublished

Master’s Thesis]. Department of Psychology, University of Liberty.

APA Publication Manual

The APA manual gives guidelines to cite manuals in chapter 10 and on page 494 from e-
book. Its Citation and referencing are as follow.

Narrative citation: American Psychological Association (APA, 2020).

Parenthetical Citation: (American Psychological Association, {APA}2020).

Reference: The American Psychological Association (APA) (2020). The American Psychological
Association's publication manual (7th ed.) https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
APA Formatting for Academic and Professional Writing 6

Journal Article with DOI

Guidelines regarding the citation of Journal article is mentioned on page 316 of the APA
Publishing Manual, it contains the following elements, Surname and initial(s) of the author
(Date). Article title. Periodical title, volume number, issue number, and page range.
http://doi.org/xx , For example:

Narrative citation: Tehrani (2003)

Parenthetical Citation: (Tehrani, 2003).

Reference: Tehrani (2003). The impact of workplace bullying on individual wellbeing: The
moderating role of coping. SA Journal of Human Resource Management, 14 (1).
https://doi.org/10.4102/sajhrm.v14i1.792
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References

The American Psychological Association (APA) (2020). The American Psychological

Association's publication manual (7th ed.) https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Crawford, A.R. (2019). Introduction to Research: Less Fright, More Insight (3rd ed.). Kendel
Hunt Publishing company. (add Doi).