Appendix D - APA writing

Clarity and brevity are kings. In a chess match, clarity would win, but only barely.

Clarity in professional writing typically means proper words and simple sentence structure.

Brevity in professional writing typically means saying exactly what one needs to say and nothing superfluous. Cut the fat off the steak.

Common problems:

1. Sexist words like man instead of people or he instead of they
2. Data is plural. The data are...not the data is.
3. Amount vs. number...The number of participants...not the amount of participants
4. i.e. vs. e.g. i.e. = "that is", e.g. = "for example"
5. Inanimate objects have human characteristics like "the experiment concluded that..."
6. Use words to express numbers below 10 except time, dates, and ages.
7. If a sentence begins with a number, it is written as a word.

APA style

1. Title page
2. Abstract (typically no more than 120 words)
   
3. Introduction
4. Method
5. Results
6. Discussion
7. References
8. Appendices (Rarely used)
   
9. Author notes (Contains acknowledgment of financial support)
   
10. Footnotes (Rarely used)
    
11. Tables
12. Figure Captions
13. Figures