Language Guidelines of APA Style

When we speak about APA, the first thing we think about is citation and formatting requirements. However, the American Psychological Association (APA) has also developed guidelines that regulate the use of language to present your ideas correctly.

The 7th edition of the manual was released in 2019. Since then, the renovated rules and recommendations for the use of grammar, punctuation, and unbiased language have been widely applied to the academic environment. You are not supposed to remember all the rules and insignificant points. You will always be able to look them up in the manual.

However, there are certain things that you need to consider first if you want to be consistent in using APA. Let’s have a closer look at them.

Use of Active and Passive Voice

Passive voice often makes the meaning of sentences too vague and sophisticated. Academic writers tend to overuse it, focusing on the object by not on the doer of the action, so the APA does not recommend using it too much.

• ❌ The task was done. (The agent is not known in this passive voice sentence).
• ❌ The task was done by many students. (The passive sentence is too sophisticated).
• ✔️ Many students did the task. (Active voice clarifies things).

Therefore, the most essential APA recommendation is to use active voice wherever it is possible. However, when you do not need to tell readers who particularly did the action, you may use passive voice.

• ✔️ My father and I painted the wall. (Active - it is important who did that)
• ✔️ The wall was painted. (Passive - it is not important who did that)

Be Careful About the Choice of Personal Pronouns

The academic format of writing needs a specific tone. When you need to tell the readers about your personal participation in the research, use ‘I’ or ‘we.’ The third person is not appropriate here:

• ❌ The researcher(s) conducted the survey last month.
• ✔️ I/We conducted the survey last month.

Nevertheless, you cannot use the generalized ‘we’ when you speak about the common phenomena or group of people:

• ❌ We are interested in new discoveries in the field of natural sciences.
• ✔️ Researchers are interested in new discoveries in the field of natural sciences.

Never use the second-person ‘you’ in your academic paper if it is not a direct citation of someone’s words. The impersonal pronoun ‘one’ is a better choice:

• ❌ As a researcher, you should be interested in new discoveries.
• ✔️ As a researcher, one should be interested in new discoveries.
• ✔️ Researchers should be interested in new discoveries.

As for the third-person ‘they,’ use it only when you refer to someone’s words with ‘they,’ a group of people, or when you need to speak about one person whose gender is not important to the content. Avoid using ‘he’ or ‘she’ if you do not refer to a concrete person with the full name indicated in the previous sentence:

• ❌ When a teacher evaluates students’ work, he or she has to be objective.
• ✔️ When a teacher evaluates students’ work, they have to be objective.
• ✔️ When teachers evaluate students’ work, they have to be objective.

Can You Use Anthropomorphism?

In general, academic papers are not figurative, so metaphors and similes that use attributing some actions or functions to non-living objects are not appropriate here. Don’t do it if such anthropomorphism does not provide a clear meaning. Though, you can use such personification when you are sure that the meaning is clear.

• ❌ The research wanted to know whether the teachers at this school were always objective.
• ✔️ The researcher wanted to know whether the teachers at this school were always objective.
• ✔️ The charts present the results of the research on the teachers’ objectivity.
• ✔️ The results show that the teachers at this high school were almost always objective.

How to Use Punctuation Properly

Of course, you need to follow the general punctuation rules in your academic paper. They refer to using commas, colons, semi-colons, periods, quotation marks, dashes, and hyphens. However, there are some specific ones that refer to the APA style.

How to Insert Abbreviations and Acronyms Correctly

Your writing will look concise when you use acronyms and abbreviations correctly, but they can look confusing if they are not explained properly.

1. When you use the acronym or abbreviation for the first time, provide its definition. However, you do not need to explain the widely used acronyms, such as ‘AC’ or ‘TV,’ and the abbreviations of measurement units, for instance, ‘sec’ standing for ‘seconds.’
2. Nevertheless, you need to redefine the abbreviations if you use them in graphs, tables, or figures, even if you explained their meaning in the paper. You need to do that because other researchers can use your table as a source of their data.
3. Do not use acronyms or abbreviations in your paper’s title, apart from the cases where the acronym is used more frequently than the full concept, for instance, ‘HVAC’ or ‘iOS.’ Headings of chapters can contain acronyms if you provided their explanation in the previous text.
4. You can start your sentence or paragraph with an acronym but never do that if it is in lowercase or is just a sole symbol.
5. You need periods in such abbreviations as ‘U.K.’ or ‘U.S.’ only if they are attributive. When they are used as nouns, they do not need periods. When you use the short names of provinces, states, or areas, never use periods, for instance, ‘Washington DC.’
6. You can use Latin abbreviations ‘etc.,’ ‘i.e.,’ and ‘e.g.’ only in the lists and parentheses. You cannot utilize them in the main text because they sound too informal.

How to Write Numbers?

The general rule says that you need to write the numbers from zero to nine in words and those starting from 10 in figures. However, there are some exceptions. You should always utilize numerals when:

1. You use the number with the following name of a measurement unit, for example, ‘7 miles.’
2. The numbers indicate equations, percentages, statistics, fractions, ratios, or decimals.
3. The number stands for the age, time, score, date, points on the scale, amount of money, or examples of numerals. Howeverm, if you speak about the approximate/average number of days, weeks, or years, use words, for example, ‘the 25th of May’ but ‘ten days in May.’
4. You need to indicate a specific location that is part of a series or a row.
5. You are writing the numerals in an abstract to save space.

You should always use words for:

1. The number which is the beginning of the title, heading, or sentence. (Or you may paraphrase the sentence to avoid it).
2. The common fraction, for instance, ‘three-fifths.’
3. The numbers whose use is universally accepted, for example, ‘Seven Keys to Heaven.’

When we need a back-to-back modifier, we use a combination of words and numbers, for example, ‘seven 3-point rounds.’ You will make your idea clearer and avoid unnecessary confusion.

If you speak about any numbered element of your paper, capitalize the common name and then write the number, for example, ‘Page 6,’ ‘Chapter 3.’

Using Hyphens with Prefixes and Suffixes

Prefixes and suffixes change the meaning of the words. Prefixes are added at the beginning of the words, and suffixes are characteristic of their end, for instance, helpful, dissatisfied. However, it is not sometimes clear whether to add these parts of words with hyphens or write them as a part of the word.

The APA instructions have indicated a list of prefixes and suffixes that are written as a whole with words that change and do not need hyphenation. They are:
-able, after-, anti-, bi-, -cede/-sede/-ceed, co-, cyber-, equi-, extra-, -gram, infra-, inter-, -like, macro-, mega-, micro-. -meter, mini-, mid-, multi-, non-, over-, -phobia, post-, pre-, pseudo-, quasi-, re-, semi-, socio-, sub-, super-. supra-, un-, and under-.

For example, we use: workable, aftershock, cybersecurity, bilingual, international, homelike, pseudoscientific, sociopathic, macroeconomics, overused, preresearched, etc.

Nevertheless, you need to hyphenate prefixes in the following cases:

• ‘self’: ‘self-education,’ ‘self-development’;
• ‘quasi’ in the word ‘quasi-experimental’;
• prefixes that end in ‘o,’ ‘a,’ ‘i’ if the next word starts with the vowel letter, for instance, ‘meta-analysis’ or ‘anti-eclectic’;
• when the prefix is added to a number, capital letter, or abbreviation, for instance, ‘post-Renaissance,’ ‘pre-2022’;
• to avoid confusion, as in ‘re-late’ = ‘be late repeatedly’ instead of ‘relate’ = ‘refer to.’

There may be other examples when we need a hyphen, so you should always consult a dictionary if you have doubts.

How to Make the Academic Language Bias-Free in APA?

Bias-free language is important in academic papers. The main idea is that any cultural, economic, social, structural, and sociobiological identification of individuals should be avoided. All examples of such identification lead to inequality. Such language is also called inclusive, and it relates to:

1. Replacing gendered terms with sexist connotations with neutral ones; for example, ‘sportsman,’ ‘sportswoman’ can be replaced by ‘athlete.’
2. ‘They’ is recommended instead of ‘he’ and ‘she.’
3. Avoiding colors if we speak about races. If it is necessary to speak about ‘Blacks’ and ‘Whites,’ capitalize them. ‘Native Americans’ or ‘Aboriginal’ should also be capitalized.
4. Such terms as ‘African American’ or ‘Asian American’ do not need hyphens.
5. Avoiding adjectives as nouns for indicating groups of people, for example, ‘people with poor sight’ instead of ‘the blind.’ Remember that this is about the problem certain groups can experience but not about their inherent qualities.
6. Avoiding improper age references by using more specific age categories instead of general ones, for example, ‘older people’ instead of ‘elderly’ or ‘the aged.’
7. Indicating the exact part of people who were involved in the research, such as ‘patients,’ ‘clients,’ ‘college students,’ ‘sample,’ etc. Don’t generalize them by saying ‘people,’ ‘males,’ or ‘females.’

You need to be attentive to the sexual orientation of people and never use labels instead of socially accepted definitions. The same concerns social status. Avoid indicating people as ‘the poor,’ ‘poorly educated,’ ’the homeless,’ etc. If you are speaking about people with health problems, issues with the law, or those who are outsiders or have a kind of marginal status, never use the attributives that demonstrate their social, economic, or medical status directly.

Final Thoughts

The APA requirements and recommendations are not too difficult to follow. However, you need to be aware of them when it concerns the language and style you are using in your academic paper. You need to remember that using grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation properly will add much to the quality of your paper. It will demonstrate your accuracy, persistence, and professionalism as a researcher.

APA is commonly used in humanities, so if you are a psychology or literature student, learning how to use the APA recommendations properly is essential.

Apart from grammar, style, and vocabulary, you need to consider formatting and citation. So, you may need to have the APA requirements handy to follow them or seek help from someone who knows how to format papers appropriately in this style.