APA Writing Style

Writing Style

Page Setup

Your word processor should be set so that it produces margins of the main textual material of 1.5 inch on the left and 1 inch on the top, right, and bottom. If you have a running head (such as Writing Style at the top right of this page) and a page number, set up your word processor so that this prints at .5 inch down from the top and the text of the page starts at 1 inch from the top.

Set your line spacing to double space and leave it there. Double spacing has not been done here to conserve space. Your type size should be 10 pitch or pica. Double space after a period, question mark, exclamation mark, and colon. All others only receive one space.

Headings

Major headings and sub-headings in your document should proceed as follows:

TITLE OF DOCUMENT IN ALL CAPS

First Level Sub-Heading in Mixed Case

Second Level Sub-Heading in Underlined Mixed Case

Third Level Sub-Heading in Underlined Mixed Case

Fourth Level Sub-Heading. The fourth level sub-heading is situated at the beginning of a regular indented paragraph. Notice that it is in mixed case underlined. If you are really picky, you don't underline the period at the end of the sub-heading.

References

When you would like to give credit for an author's ideas or any other form of citations, you put the author's name, a comma, and the year of the publication in parentheses. For example:

The State of Utah ranks next to last in the ratio of music teachers to students (Asmus, 1990). Yet, while Utah tends to produce ACT scores higher than the national average, students enrolled in music courses when taking the ACT produce significantly higher scores than other students. Avery Glenn (1989), Utah State Supervisor of Music, has stated that...

Notice the reference to Avery Glenn. Because his name is in the text itself, you only include the year of the reference in parentheses. The actual complete bibliographic reference is typed at the end of the paper as follows:

References

Asmus, E. P. (1990). National music teacher to student ratios. MENC Soundpost, 6(2), 12-13.

Clair, A. A., & Heller, G. N. (1989). Willem van de Wall: organizer and innovator in music education and music therapy. Journal of Research in Music Education, 37, 165-178.

Gordon, E. E. Learning sequences in music: skills, content and patterns (1989 Ed.). Chicago: G.I.A. Publications.

VanDerveer, E. (1989). Stopping discipline problems before they start. Music Educators Journal, 75(9), 23-25.

The above should provide you with the vast majority of types of references you will have. Asmus and VanDerveer are examples of a journal whose numbering starts over with each issue, so the issue number must be included in parentheses after the volume number which is underlined. The Clair and Heller example demonstrates a reference to a journal which uses continuous page numbering for the entire volume. The Gordon provides an example of how to reference a book. All the entries in the reference section are in alphabetical order by author name. If there are more than one entry for an author, place the material in order of date--oldest first.

APA Style

For much greater detail on writing and referencing see the Style Manual of the American Psychological Association (4th ed.). This is the primary style used in music education.