As chaotic as life may seem at times, there is an order to the universe that is reflected in everything that exists. This order means that things don’t generally happen in a random sequence; instead they tend to start at the beginning, progress through the middle, and finish at the ending. Along the way, each step prepares for the next and each builds on the one that preceded it, so that what is happening flows smoothly from its beginning through to its ending. It’s good that this is how it works; otherwise we’d all be insane.

Imagine how confused you would be if days came in random order. What if you woke up next week expecting it to be Sunday, but found that it was actually Wednesday? And what if Wednesday was followed by Monday, then Friday, Sunday, Tuesday, and Saturday, until finally your week ended on Thursday? On any given day you might have homework due that hadn’t been assigned yet, or an exam over material you hadn’t learned. A friend might be angry for something you hadn’t said yet, and you might have a bruise in a place where you hadn’t been bumped.

“Obviously,” you’re probably thinking, “nobody could live that way. Things have to happen in the right sequence to make sense.” Of course they do. It’s a ridiculous example, and I know that. In fact it’s no less preposterous than what I’m going to say next: When you write a paper, you should always start it at the beginning, and finish it at the ending.

I realize that movies and stories don’t always begin at the beginning. Some of them, like Pulp Fiction and Memento, happen pretty much like the crazy mixed-up week I just talked about. But those are movies, and the characters in them don’t know any better, so they seem to take it in stride. We’re talking about real life, though, and real life always happens in order. For our purposes, the beginning really is the best place to start. From there you should progress smoothly and in sequence through the middle parts, with each part preparing the way for the next and each building on what came before. And finally, you should finish at the end. This makes things much less confusing for your readers, who in this case happen to be your instructors. Trust me — you really don’t want to confuse your instructors.

The Beginning: Tell Them What You’re Going to Tell Them

In accordance with my own advice, let’s begin at the beginning. In speech writing, there is an old adage that says:

Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.

It works just as well for papers as for speeches. The beginning is the introduction, and is where you “tell them what you’re going to tell them.”

Don’t label your introduction. APA style doesn’t allow the word Introduction as a level heading, because it’s assumed that what comes first is the introduction. Besides, if the reader can’t figure out from its content that it’s the introduction, then you haven’t done it right. Also, unless you’re writing a really monster-sized paper, you should be able to fit your introduction into a single paragraph. If you have to start a new paragraph before you’ve finished introducing your topic, something has probably gone wrong.

The introduction is where you lay the groundwork for the rest of the paper, telling the reader what your paper is about, why your topic is relevant and to whom (you and your reader, most likely), and what territory you’re going to cover. The trouble with this, obviously, is that it means you actually have to know at the outset what it is you plan to write; you can’t just dive in and figure it out as you go along. This really cramps the style of those spontaneous souls (myself included) who detest planning ahead, but it’s a necessary evil if you want to write good papers. It’s the very hardest part of the paper to write, too — once you’ve got the introduction written, the rest is all downhill. Well, except for a slight bump at the conclusion, but we’ll get to that later.

The Middle: Tell Them

When you’ve got your introduction figured out, you can progress on into the body of your paper. This is the “tell them” part, and it will usually contain multiple paragraphs. This is where flow is important. Each thought should progress smoothly into the next; each paragraph building on what came before and laying the groundwork for what is to follow. The first sentence of a paragraph is important to this flow, and generally should take one of two forms. It may be a topic sentence, sort of mini-introduction to the paragraph, preparing the reader for what is to follow, or it may serve as a transition, easing the reader smoothly from one paragraph to the next.

One slight variant on this theme is a paper which compares two or more things. In this type of paper you might choose to describe each thing in its own paragraph, and the order of the comparing paragraphs may not matter. There is still a flow here, though, because the paragraphs should be constructed similarly, and each should do its describing in the same way, examining the same attributes of each thing in the same ways. So while the order is less important, since it doesn’t matter which thing is examined first, there is still a flow, with a sense of smoothness and harmony as the reader moves from one paragraph to the next.

As you write each paragraph in the body of your paper, keep checking back to the beginning. Does what you are writing conform to what you promised in your introduction? If not, you either need to pull your paragraph back on course, or rethink whether your introduction really said what you meant it to say. Have you covered all the territory that your introduction said you were going to cover? If not, you’ve got more paragraphs to write, or again, you need to rework your introduction. If you do this continual checking and tweaking as you go along, keeping your paper on track as you go, you’ll still know where you are when you reach the end.

The Ending: Tell Them What You Told Them

Once you’ve said all that you planned to say, it’s time to finish. The last part of the paper is the conclusion, and for our purposes, it also consists of a single paragraph. This is where you “tell them what you told them.” It’s pretty much your introduction, turned around and stuck on the bottom so it’s looking back instead of forward. The hard part here is not so much figuring out what to say; you’ve said it all twice at this point, so it’s pretty much spelled out for you. The difficulty usually comes in finding a way to say it again without sounding redundant, and in a conclusive sort of way that wraps up the paper and leaves the reader feeling satisfied that all the loose ends have been caught up and woven in.

The conclusion will be a final check that your paper has said what it promised to say. It should contain each of the elements that you put into the introduction, only in a “now you see what I meant” sort of way, as it succinctly reviews the topic and the territory that was covered, making sure the reader now sees their relevance. And it should never, ever (pay attention!) ever contain anything new. If it wasn’t in the rest of the paper, it doesn’t belong here either. If you cite a reference in your conclusion, you are almost certainly breaking this rule. This bears repeating, so I will repeat it: Don’t introduce new material in your conclusion! And another thing: don’t start off your conclusion by saying “In conclusion…” That’s a cop-out. If the reader can’t tell by reading your conclusion that it’s a conclusion, you’ve mucked it up. Labeling it as the conclusion isn’t going to un-muck it, so forget the label and build yourself a conclusion worthy of the name.

You Can Do It!

It’s really not hard to learn how to build this framework. Get comfortable with how a paper should flow from beginning to end. Look for it in the sample papers that are available. Try to pick out the important elements in the introduction, and check them off as they are addressed in the body of the paper, while also watching for anything in the body that wasn’t covered in the introduction. Look at the conclusion. Are the elements you picked out of the introduction all accounted for? See how the writer moves from one paragraph to the next. Are the transitions smooth and seamless? Do the paragraphs have topic sentences or transitions?

Writing papers doesn’t have to be scary or exceedingly difficult. You just have to approach the process in a logical and methodical way. Begin at the beginning. Know what your topic is, and why it is important. Progress through the middle. Spell out the details in a logical order, flowing smoothly from one thought to the next, letting each element build on the last, until you’ve supplied the information you promised your reader. Finish at the ending, reviewing the goals set by your introduction and how they were met. Work at mastering this structure. It will give you a framework for writing that you can use for any paper you are assigned, a “plan of attack” that will make the process much less random and frustrating, both for you and for your readers.

Page 250 of the APA guide (5th edition) tells how this should be done. The reference given is for the DSM-IV, however. For the TR, you need to change the date of publication to 2000 and add the word Revised in the parentheses before 4th ed.. Leave the rest just like it is. And yes, the word Author goes after the location of publishing, because the author is APA and the publisher is APA. Here’s what you’ll end up with:

• American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (Revised 4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

When you cite it in your text, the first time you’ll cite it like this:

(American Psychiatric Association [DSM-IV-TR], 2000)

or

According to the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV-TR), blah blah blah (2000).

Any subsequent citations will then look like this:

(DSM-IV-TR, 2000)

Note that DSM-IV-TR should be in Italics in both citations, because it’s a title.

A modifier is a word or phrase that clarifies, explains, or gives more detail about a subject. Here’s an example:

Having failed an anatomy test, I resolved to spend more time studying.

The real “meat” of this sentence is I resolved to spend more time studying. The modifier, having failed my anatomy test, gives the reader some additional information about the subject (I) that makes the sentence more meaningful. You resolved to spend more time studying. Why? Because you failed an anatomy test.

A modifier dangles when there is no subject in the sentence for it to actually modify. Here’s an example:

Having failed an anatomy test, studying has become more of a priority.

The main part of the sentence, studying has become more of a priority, has the subject studying, but that’s not what is being modified. The modifier is dangling because there’s actually nothing in the sentence as written for it to modify. Who failed the test? Who is going to work harder at studying? There’s nobody in the sentence to fail the anatomy test! Much as you would probably like for that to be true, you can’t alter reality by using incorrect grammar. (Sorry!)

How do you spot a modifier? Modifiers often start with an -ing word, or with the word to, and you’ll usually find them at the beginning of a sentence, although they can also come at the end. When you find one, ask yourself who or what it describes, and then check to make sure the subject being described actually appears in the sentence.

For additional reading about dangling modifiers, see the Grammar section in our list of links.

I find it highly annoying when software acts as though it knows what I want better than I do. One such quirk of WORD is its insistence on changing the font and color and underlining when I type in a URL (website address). As if that’s not insult enough, it’s so sure it knows how I want my text that when I attempt to remove the underlining or change the font and color in the usual ways it refuses to acknowlege my changes. The audacity!

It’s a battle you can win, however. There are two ways — one is temporary; you have to repeat it for each URL you type. The other is permanent, and is a great solution if you aren’t in the habit of writing documents that need to be hyperlinked.

To change a single URL that WORD has reformatted, right-click on the URL.In the pop-up menu this produces, select Hyperlink… and then Edit Hyperlink. This will bring up a dialogue box which, in its lower left-hand corner, contains a button that says remove link. Contrary to how it sounds, this will not erase your link; it will simply remove the formatting that was applied to it without your permission.

To eliminate this annoyance altogether, go to the Tools menu at the top of the WORD window, pull it down, and select “AutoCorrect.” Select the AutoFormat As You Type tab, and in the Replace as you type section find the checkbox for Internet and network paths with hyperlinks. Remove the checkmark from that box. For good measure, click on the tab that says AutoFormat and do the same thing there. Now click OK. WORD will no longer attempt to second-guess you when you try to enter a URL in your APA-formatted reference list.

There is only one type of list that is acceptable for use in an APA style paper (see Lists in APA Style). You can’t have bulleted lists, but numbered lists can be used. Look for it on page 116 of the APA manual (5th ed.).

The number for each item in the list goes at the position where a paragraph indentation would be (a half inch from the margin). The list is double spaced, just like everything else.

To make this happen in Word, type the first item in your list as you normally would. Leave the cursor in the paragraph and go up to the menu bar, click on the Format menu, and select Bullets and Numbering.

In the window that opens, choose the tab that says Numbered and click the style that has 1., 2., 3., … Click the Customize button at the bottom of the window.

In the slot for Aligned at enter 0.5″; for Tab space after and Indent at put 0.75″ in both places. Click OK.

Now your numbered items will line up properly.

To start a new page, instead of hitting the ENTER key repeatedly until you get to the right spot, just use CTRL-ENTER. The advantage of this is that not only is it quicker and easier, but if the length of the preceding text changes, your page break will stay where it belongs.

With your document open, click on the View menu and select Header and Footer.

Any text you’ve typed in the body of your document will become greyed out, and a dotted boundary will appear around the header area of the page (or the footer, if you’re closer to the bottom of the page), and a toolbar will open with header and footer options on it.

Right-justify the header text by clicking the right-justify button on the formatting toolbar — it’s the one with a bunch of little horizontal lines that are lined up evenly on the right side. (Or you can go to the Format menu and select Paragraph… to pull up a dialog box that will let you select the alignment.)

Now you’re ready to type your header. Use two or three words of your paper’s title, followed by five spaces. Then click on the page number icon (#) in the Header and Footer toolbar. Word will automatically insert the correct page number for each page of your document in that spot.

When you’re finished, click Close on the Header and Footer toolbar. The text in your page header will be greyed out, and you’ll be able to go back to editing the body of your paper.

Here are some things to remember about appendixes in APA format:

• The plural of appendix, as far as APA is concerned, is appendixes, NOT appendices.
• If there’s only one appendix, it doesn’t get a letter label. The text should say “see Appendix,” not “see Appendix A.”
• Multiple appendixes should be lettered beginning with “A,” in the order in which they are cited in the text.
• The appendix follows the references, and doesn’t have a cover sheet.
• Begin each appendix on a separate page, and label it at the top with the word “Appendix” and its identifying letter, if any. The label is centered and uses uppercase and lowercase letters.
• Each appendix must have a title. Double-space down from the label and type the title, also centered, using title case (the first word, proper nouns, and words four or more letters long are capitalized).
• See pages 205-206 and 299 of the APA Guide 5th edition for more information on appendixes.

Example:

Client Interview 8

Appendix

Client Demographic Information

Client Initials: DM
Age: 34
Gender: M
Educational Level: High School

etc.

Once in a while you’ll find yourself in the position of using information from a secondary source. A secondary source is when you read an article that cites information from another source, and you use that information in your paper. In this case, you need to credit the original author without claiming to have read that author’s actual article. You do this by using a secondary citation.

The APA manual (5th ed., p. 247) says to do this by naming the original work in the text, then giving a citation for the secondary source; ie:

Smith’s article (as cited in Johnson, 2004) says…

List the Johnson, 2004 work in your reference list just as you would if it were the primary source. The Smith reference does not appear in your reference list.

When are APA citations supposed to include page numbers?

According to the APA guide (5th ed., pp. 120-121), when you are using a direct quote you need to provide the location in its original source of the text you are quoting.

If you are paraphrasing the content of a source publication, you’re not required to include the location. However, you are encouraged to do so, especially when citing a long or complex publication, so that readers of your paper can easily look up the reference information.

Here are some specific examples:

For direct quotes, your citation should include author, date, AND page number:

According to Harold Leavitt, “Hierarchical organizations seduce us with psychological rewards like feelings of power and status” (2003, p. 102).

For paraphrased information, the page number is optional:

One of the appeals of hierarchies is the sense of power and status enjoyed by their members (Leavitt, 2003).

If the publication you are quoting does not have page numbers but has numbered paragraphs, the next best option is to give the paragraph number:

(Parkenfarker, 2005, ¶ 6)

If the document doesn’t have numbered paragraphs but contains headings, you can cite the heading of the section, and the number of the source paragraph within that section:

(Carver, 2002, Methods, ¶ 3)

If there are no page or paragraph numbers visible, and headings either are not available or would make your text confusing or unwieldy, you may omit the location reference:

(Jacobs & Jingleheimer-Smith, 1997)