Dr. Gwen’s Top 10 Signs Your APA Style Needs Help
- Misspelled words and poor grammar. Use the newfangled contraptions that are available (spell check/grammar check) and most important PROOFREAD!
- When you don’t use level headings to outline your paper (to match assignment criterion).
- When you use 3rd person (avoid personal pronouns and only use in opinion papers) or check with faculty. First person use went out of style in 1994!
- When you single space or triple space lines, all lines are double-spaced equally.
- When you don’t include a formal introduction (with a thesis statement) and a conclusion. Also, DO NOT use a level heading titled “Introduction" and be sure that the first line of text is the same as the title on the title page.
- When you don’t use the ampersand correctly in parenthetical citations and in the references with multiple authors.
- When you use incorrect seriation (lists) format.
- When you don’t use the correct font type or case for book titles and article titles in references.
- When you don’t use the header/footer feature in Microsoft Word, come-on this is easy!
- When you don’t check to see if all citations are in the references and vice versa.