New OTRP Resource: A Template Paper with Comments for Illustrating the 6th Edition of APA Style

If you've followed the PsychTeacher list, you know that many instructors tried to use the first printing of the 6^th edition of the APA Publication Manual (American Psychological Association, 2009) and encountered mismatches between what the guide prescribed and what the sample papers illustrated. Although APA has posted corrections on their website and made available a new printing that corrects the mistakes, I think you will find a new OTRP resource will be quite helpful both in teaching students about APA style and in using it in your own writing. That new resource is A Template Paper with Comments for Illustrating the 6th Edition of APA Style (2010) by Jordan Buess and Rick Froman of John Brown University. You can find it under the "research and teaching" tab, at


http://teachpsych.org/otrp/resources/resources.php?category=Research and Teaching


 

Jordan Buess wrote a research paper using the 5^th edition guidelines for a class with Rick Froman and gave permission for him both to modify the paper to be consistent with the 6^th edition and to attach comments in the margin. Buess's paper is nearly the same length as the Publication Manual's sample one-experiment paper, but Froman has included many more comments, both in the main body of the paper and especially in the reference section. By not overlapping the pages as the Publication Manual does, Buess and Froman enable students to make sense of the paper's content, not just its style. I think this will be especially helpful for students learning to write about research because the paper is written at their level of sophistication. Even when instructors assign published journal articles that are relatively simple for students to understand, such articles do not show what a manuscript looks like prepublication. An added bonus is that the topic should appeal to many student readers: "Factors Correlated With a Tendency Toward Eating Disorders in a Nonclinical Setting."


 

As Froman wrote in the introductory material, this sample paper is an example "worthy of emulation." He (and I) suggest that you share it with your students. As a reminder, OTRP's copyright policy is as follows: "You may reproduce multiple copies of this material for your own personal use, including use in your classes and/or sharing with individual colleagues as long as the author’s name and institution and the Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology heading or other identifying information appear on the copied document. No other permission is implied or granted to print, copy, reproduce, or distribute additional copies of this material. Anyone who wishes to produce copies for purposes other than those specified above must obtain the permission of the author."