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Transcript

Presented March 18th, 2021 

Visual: The webinar begins with a PowerPoint title slide in the large central panel. A captioning pod, Q&A pod, and files pod are stacked on the right side.

The slide says “Housekeeping” and the following: 

  • Recording
    • Will be available online a day or two from now.
  • Interact
    • Polls, files, and links are interactive. 
  • Q&A
  • Help
    • Choose “Help” in the upper right hand corner of the webinar room.

Audio: Anne: Hello everyone, thank you for joining us for APA for Doctoral Capstone Students. I am Anne Shiell, resource manager of student and faculty webinars for the Writing Center. We are glad you're here today. I know you are very busy, so thank you for taking time out of your schedules to join us and learn a little bit about APA style. So glad you are here; I’m excited about the presentation today. 

A few things before we dig in. The webinar is being recorded and will be available in our webinar archive later this week or early next week. You can download the slides from the files pod. If you are joining from a mobile device, the files are not available. You can email if you would like a copy. The polls, files, and links are interactive whether you are here today or are watching the recording. If you have questions, we have a chat pod later on and we also have a Q&A pod throughout the webinar, and you can e-mail us. If you have technical trouble, use the Q&A pod and there's also a help section either in the form of the word help or a question mark icon in the upper right hand corner of the webinar room which is the best placed to go for technical issues. We also have captioning available through a link in the captioning pod. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Presenters and Facilitators 

Presenter: Carey Little Brown, Form and Style Editor and Coordinator of Templates and Formatting Resources, Pronouns: She, her, hers

Facilitator: Facilitator: Jenny Martel, Form and Style Editor

Facilitator: Anne Shiell, Resource Manager of Student and Faculty Webinars, Walden University Writing Center. Pronouns: She, her, hers

Audio: Our presenter is Carey Little Brown, our form and style editor and coordinator of templates in formatting resources, and Jenny Martel, another form and style editor, is facilitating with me, so we will be behind the scenes helping to answer your questions. With that, I will hand it over to Carey. 

Audio: Carey: Thank you so much, and in thank you for coming today. I really enjoy talking about this topic and talking to capstone students generally, so I hope this gives you some new information and things you can use in the capstone process. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Today’s Agenda  

  • APA expectations at Form and Style
  • APA challenges and tips for capstones
  • Resources for doctoral capstone students
  • Q&A

So, here is a roundup of what we will be talking about this hour. We will start off with a quick overview of the form and style review, which is what we do in the office where I work with Jenny, and how APA and APA rules fit into the form and style review process and the kinds of things we look at there. I will talk about capstone specific challenges and tips related to APA style and that will be the bulk of this presentation. I will present some resources we have that are especially useful to students in relation to getting ready for the form and style review, particularly with the APA rules we talked about, and then I'm hoping we have some time for Q & A at the end of the session where I can address some of the questions. You are welcome to ask those throughout the sessions also, and Jenny is in the background answering those. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: APA Expectations at Form and Style 

Audio: So, let's start with the form and style review. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following:  What is the Form and Style Review? 

Audio: If you're wondering what the form and style review is, or want a refresher, this slide deals with that. It is an official step in the capstone approval process. So the review is an official step in the capstone approval process that all final study documents go through in Walden doctoral programs, so in the office where I work, in the office of academic editing, form and style editors see every Walden doctoral document and every project comes to us and what our job is as you come in near the end of the process is to help ensure that document is publication ready because everything is going to go to ProQuest to be openly available after you graduate. So, part of our job is making sure the document is meeting all the requirements for Walden and for APA in terms of formatting, citations, layout, academic writing style, and to be a representation of your best scholarship and as Walden as a university. So towards that end, we try to provide a supportive and collegial review. So, not meant to be a session where we are looking for gotcha scenes or details you missed. We are trying to really mark things that need to be corrected to be APA compliant or Walden compliant in a supportive and helpful way. 

Audio: We make direct edits to show the kinds of things you need to correct, and we directly edit a fair amount of the document typically all the introductory chapter sections and then ten pages or so of each of the subsequent chapters or sections. We provide detailed feedback explaining why we are recommending or asking you to make certain changes and asking any questions about things we don't understand. This is meant to guide the final revisions you do under the supervision of your chair. Again, the point of this is to make sure it's publication ready and is the best representation of all the hard work you have done. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Form and Style Expectations

Form and Style Editors are looking for the following: 

  • inclusion of all major components/sections of capstone document, 
  • compliance with layout formatting guidelines as modeled in the doctoral capstone templates, 
  • correct grammar and spelling, 
  • cohesive paragraphs, 
  • application of APA Style for citations and references, 
  • adherence to other APA editorial rules, and 
  • basic APA structure for tables and figures. 

See the Form and Style Review Checklist for details.

Audio: What are the expectations that foreman style review? We are looking for a few major things. We are not generally looking at the details of content. That is something your faculty and your chair have been looking out for you. We are looking at the document from a broad view and for a more mechanical form and style review. So, in terms of the content, we are making sure typically all the major components and sections are there. If it's missing one of the major chapters, that will be something that might be an issue. If you are missing your abstract, that kind of thing. We are not generally going against the rubric or anything to make sure you have covered all of the content steps. That is not really our area. We are looking at documents across a large number of programs that have varying requirements for that. 

What we are looking at is compliance with layout formatting guidelines; whether the document is consistent and formatted within the template for your program.  There is a link in the slides where you can access all the capstone templates, and I will talk about that in more detail later too. We’re making sure there is correct grammar and spelling. That, in the broad academic writing sense, the paragraphs are cohesive, and the discussion makes sense, and the flow of ideas is understandable to a general academic reader. 

 Then we are looking at APA expectations and whether those have been met because everything at Walden is being formatted according to APA style, so we are making sure all of these citations and references are APA compliant, and we are using APA seventh edition across the board. We are making sure some other APA editorial rules, having to do with APA style, are met and those have to do with some issues we will focus on in this session, ones that are a little bit under the radar for people who have been focusing primarily on APA citation and reference rules. There are some other editorial rules as well. We are also looking at basic APA structure for tables and figures. We’ll be talking about it in some detail in the session as well. 

If you want to see a list of the kinds of things with the form and style review, a great thing to grab is the form and style review checklist on our website. Those are linked from the slide, so if you click on that, you should access that. The checklist is quite long; a list of all the possible things we use, and when we return that at the end of the process, we only have the things we found in the document that you want to look for in final revisions. But when you're preparing work in advance, it can be helpful to see that and other kinds of things we are looking at in the kinds of things you may get feedback on.

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: APA Challenges and Tips for Capstones 

Audio: Let's get into the details of APA challenges and tips specifically for doctoral capstone writers at Walden. 

Visual: Slide changes to following: APA Style: Challenges for Capstone Students 

While mastering APA citation and reference formats, students may overlook APA rules in other areas important to the capstone, including:

Audio: As I said, this session does not focus on citation and reference format in APA mainly because we have limited time in the session, and I wanted to find things that we see a lot in doctoral capstone documents that we don't devote a lot of time to in other sessions, but we consistently provide feedback on in form and style. This section focuses on that. We have great resources for citation and reference format and APA that you can access on the website and past webinars and so forth. We will link to some of those resources as well later in the session. 

Here are the things I will talk about. Some of the details of what is called mechanics of style in the APA manual. And in the seventh edition, you find these in chapter six. These are specific rules having to do with editorial style and APA, details of punctuation, spelling, and capitalization that come up in doctoral capstone work. Rules about abbreviations we deal with quite frequently and some of the rules for numbers which are a little complex in APA style; we will talk about those in detail. I'm going to give a broad overview of heading levels and styles and what the rules are in APA and how it relates to the way the templates are set up and some of those are different in the seventh edition of the manual than the sixth, so if you're making the transition, I will talk about what has changed. I will show rules having to do with tables and figures and the way they are formatted; there are changes in APA seven, and I will address that briefly and give you some concrete examples of what those things should look like in terms of what we are looking for at the form and style review and what is compliant. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Punctuation: Key Tips 

  • The serial or Oxford comma is required (comma before “and” or “or” in a series of three or more items; APA 6.3). 

Example: apples, oranges, and pears 

  • One space after end-of-sentence punctuation (APA 6.1)
  • No back-to-back parentheses. Use semicolons to separate information in the same parentheses (APA 6.8). Use square brackets for parentheses inside parentheses (APA 6.9). 

Example: (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD]; Chen, 2019)

Audio: Let's get into it. I will start with the mechanics. One is punctuation and this slide gives you some key tips. There are more in the manual then we can cover. I want to highlight the top things we see in capstone documents that people are often not aware of when they are looking more for citation and reference format when thinking about APA. 

One is familiar punctuation mark worth mentioning is the serial or oxford comma because this is something that is often different academic writing sales. the serial comma, called the Oxford, is required. It comes before “and” or “or.” That's required in APA as the primary focus is clarity. There is no ambiguity; things are as clear as possible so that is the rationale for the rule that the serial comma is required. You may have worked in other academic styles where it's not used and it's one of those things in English punctuation that's variable. In APA, it's required. 

The seventh edition manual is a change from APA six that you use one space after the end of the sentence as punctuation, and I am happy to see that rule. Something that has changed a little from edition to edition of the manual. Now it is one space between sentences and that's nice because it's a lot easier to standardize when the rule used to be two spaces so just one after end of sentence punctuation. 

Also, you don't have back-to-back parentheses, so you don't have two parenthetical elements right next to each other. Instead, you use semicolons to separate information in the same parentheses and, if you have parentheses inside parentheses, you use square brackets; I know that sounds like a lot of information. The example illustrates it a little better. So, you can see two elements within the same parentheses, something explaining something presumably from the previous sentence. For example, posttraumatic stress and the abbreviation for that. And, there’s a citation too, so rather than having these as two separate parenthetical things, you put a semi-colon between the elements in the parentheses with square brackets around that which is an abbreviation from the term used in the sentence.  You wouldn’t put parenthesis within parenthesis—instead you would use square brackets. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Spelling: Key Tips 

  • Many common prefixes are not hyphenated in APA Style (APA 6.12). See table on p. 164. 

Examples: antisocial, pretest, posttest, nonsignificant 

  • See APA 6.11 for preferred spellings of “common technology words.”

 Examples: email, website, Wi-Fi, database 

  • Add ’s to a proper noun ending in s to indicate possession (APA 6.11). 

Examples: Jones’s, Barthes’s 

Audio: Similarly, there are a number of spelling rules and I want to highlight a few that are particularly relevant for form and style. A lot of common prefixes, and this is probably one of the things I know most often, it’s  a minor detail and I'm never upset that someone has this in their document, but something I will ask you to correct. There are many common prefixes that, for APA, are not hyphenated. It is APA specific another style may have it differently. Prefixes like anti, non, pre, post, do not typically have a hyphen unless there is some reason it's needed to make the word more readable, as addressed in the manual. So, things like antisocial pretest and posttest have no hyphen in the new addition of the manual.

APA seven has preferred spellings for what they call common technology words. I appreciate this because it's something I thought was ambiguous in the previous version of the manual and now there are some canonical APA spellings for things like e-mail, that’s just one word no hyphen, website, lowercase one word, Wi-Fi, database and those are listed in APA section 6:11. We think that's a nice thing to be aware of so if you have those words coming up in describing the online survey methodology and using the website over and over and you wonder, how do I spell this? There is a resource I find helpful. 

Another spelling tip for capstone writers is when you have a proper noun ending in “s” you include an apostrophe, so you have apostrophe “s” which may be handled differently in other styles. In APA, you put that, so Jones’s has the extra apostrophes “s.” 

 If the APA manual does not address one of the hyphenated terms or the technology words with some specific rule in APA and you're trying to figure out what is the best spelling option, you would go to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary online, which is the APA approved reference for variable spelling, and typically you can go with the main listing presented as the main spelling. 

The thing with spelling we’re looking for in form and style is a consistency of spelling of a word throughout the document, so if you have a word that can be spelled two different ways, you want to see that is being spelled the same way and that it's consistent with APA rules or out of Miriam Webster's if it's unclear. So, just be consistent. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Capitalization: Key Tips 

  • Capitalize “nouns followed by letters or numbers that denote a specific place in a series” (APA 6.19).  “nouns followed by letters or numbers that denote a specific place in a series” (APA 6.19). 

Examples: Chapter 3, Section 4, Table 1, Trial 3, Day 12, Appendix C 

  • Do not capitalize (APA 6.16)
  • names of theories, concepts, models (e.g., psychoanalytic theory, health belief model) 
  • names of therapies or treatments (e.g., dialectical behavior therapy)
  • names of diseases or disorders (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder, leukemia)

Audio: Similarly, there a few rules about capitalization. One thing I see a lot is that you want to capitalize nouns that are followed by letters or numbers that indicate something in the series; this is an APA rule. So, things like “Chapter 3, Section 4, Table 1, Trial 3, Day 12, Appendix C”—the first word would be capitalized which is APA complaint. 

Things you do not capitalize, which I are often frequently used in documents, are names of most theories, concepts, and models. These are not capitalized in APA.  So, “psychoanalytic theory, health belief model” are generic descriptive terms for models and are not capitalized. If you have a proper noun, like someone's name or a place name, you retain that capitalization; if you have something that is a trademarked name of some company’s product, that would be capitalized. But, in the vast majority of cases theories, concepts, and models wouldn’t be capitalized. By the same token, therapies and treatments won’t be capitalized unless there is a specific tradename or has a personal or place name attached to it.  So “dialectical therapy” or cognitive therapy, that kind of thing, would be lower-case. Names of diseases and disorders are going to be lowercase, again, with the exceptions of proper nouns, personal and place names. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Abbreviations 

  • An abbreviation is introduced in parentheses after the full term (APA 6.25). 

Example: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is defined as … 

  • After the abbreviation has been introduced following the full term, it is used alone. 
  • See Table 6.4 in the APA manual for abbreviations for units of measurement. 
  • Many statistical abbreviations must be italicized. See Table 6.5 in the APA manual.

Audio: A quick round up of some important abbreviation rules that come up in capstone documents. An abbreviation is always going to be introduced in APA after you present the full term, so this is the same the same example I had earlier of posttraumatic stress disorder, you have PTSD after the full-term in parentheses and once you introduce the term like that, you can present abbreviation by itself and all subsequent instances throughout your document.  

One concern we mention to students in presenting a big document like the capstone is you want to reserve your use of abbreviations for terms you are using frequently enough that the reader will remember what the abbreviation is. So, the rule we most often mentioned is that if you use the term at least three or more times in the document to use an abbreviation, otherwise it's best to write out the full-term. 

There are some canonical abbreviations of APA style for units of measurement. I will not go over those here, but refer you to table 6.4 in the manual that shows those as there are specific ways they should be presented in APA. another abbreviation issue to keep in mind is statistical abbreviations are italicized a lot of the time. There is a big table in the APA manual that I have to refer to all the time to make sure I am remembering the canonical presentation of the abbreviations and which ones are in italics. That’s table 6.5 –it’s a great one to mark in your book if you are doing a dissertation that has a lot of those used and, again they will often be in italics. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Numbers (APA 6.32-6.39) 

General Rules

Use words for numbers under 10. 

Examples: five men, six participants, two groups

Use numerals for numbers 10 and above. 

Examples: 11 participants, 50 states, 1,201 respondents

Audio: Rounding the mechanic section here, I will go over numbers. This is one of the areas where there are general APA rules and a bunch of exceptions, so I will try to make that more straightforward and simpler in a couple slides for you. The general rule, and this is the same as APA six, is you use words for numbers under ten, in the general case, so “five men, six participants, two groups” will all be words, whereas you use numerals for ten and above, so, “11 participants, 50 states, 1201 respondents” are all numerals.

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Numbers 

Notable Exceptions to the General Rules

Regardless of the number, use words for numbers that begin a sentence, and use numerals for those that represent the following: 

Time (3 years, 5 minutes)

A specific place in a series (Grade 4, Chapter 3, Participant 1)

Scores or points on a scale (a score of 7) 

Measurements (3 ft, 2.5 lbs) 

Part of a mathematical expression (the top 9%)

Exact sums of money ($5)

Audio:  But, of course, there are some exceptions to the rules. Regardless of the number, if you have a word at the beginning of the sentence, you would always use the word—you wouldn’t use a number to begin a sentence. You would use numerals for some other cases in all situations thar are shown here on the slid. So, time, even if they seem informal like “3 years, five minutes,” even if under ten, you will use the numeral form for units of time. A specific place in a series, like “Grade 4, Chapter 3, Participant 1,” where the noun is coming first followed by the series marker number, Like Chapter 1, 2, 3, will always be a numeral. Scores or points on the scale—a “score of 7,” those are numerals. “Measurements, parts of mathematical expressions,” and “exact sums of money” would all be numerals. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: APA Style Headings (A P A 2.27) 

  • Centered, Title Case Chapter/Section Heading (APA Level 0; Walden-specific style)
  • Text begins on next line as a new paragraph. 
  • Centered, Boldface, Title Case Heading (APA Level 1)
  • Text begins on next line as a new paragraph. 
  • Flush Left, Boldface, Title Case Heading (APA Level 2)
  • Text begins on next line as a new paragraph. 
  • Flush Left, Boldface, Italicized, Title Case Heading (APA Level 3) 
  • Text begins on next line as a new paragraph.
  • Indented, Boldface, Title Case Heading, Ending With a Period (APA Level 4). Paragraph text begins on the same line.

Audio: We will change focus little and talk about one of the layout elements that has to do with capstone documents as one of the things we see that needs to be corrected the most often during a form and style review and that is correct use of APA style headings. I put an asterisk on that because we have one modification in the Walden templates; I will show you. We have added something specifically for doctoral capstones you will not see in the APA manual that we worked in be consistent with it. That is the APA level zero heading which one of our managers created a long time ago that you will not find in the book. A Walden specific style. That is the chapter or main section heading for your document which is centered and in title case—title case means you capitalize all the major words and any word of four or more letters. That is the main chapter or section heading and then your text would be right under it, indented on the next line. 

Next level, you will find in the manual, APA level one, which is centered and boldface and title case. The next level after that is APA level two—this is so far all the same as it was in APA sixth edition, and this level is flush left, boldface, and title case, APA level three has changed since the sixth edition. In the seventh edition, which I think is an improvement from what used to be, it is flush left, boldface, and italicized, which makes it look different from a level two heading, and it’s in title case. The next level after that, which is usually as many levels as you might have as a maximum. This heading is indented, boldface, title case, and ending with a period and the text would begin on the same line as the heading. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Heading Tips 

  • Use the doctoral capstone template for your program, which is formatted to reflect the required heading styles.
  • Tag each heading with the correct level using the Styles tool in MS Word. Watch this video on Styles. 
  • Update the template Table of Contents to import APA Level 0, 1, and 2 headings, per Walden guidelines. Watch this video on updating the TOC. 
  • Per APA 7 rules, all heading levels use title case: Capitalize all major words and all words of four or more letters.

Audio: What I recommend you do is make sure you are using one of our templates as that is the most effective way to make sure you are using the proper heading style throughout the document. I have a link here in these slides. If you are not already using the doctoral capstone template in your writing, or even getting ready to write it, or thinking about it, I would go and get the template off the website and that will be program specific, although they although follow the same basic layout and that has been formatted to reflect the correct heading styles. The way the document works is that it's formatted so there are style tags which are used with the style tool and Word that you apply to each heading style. It's done already in the example document, but you are adding additional headings and subheadings. Make sure you are applying the correct style so it's properly tagged, so when you generate the table of contents it will contain all the appropriate heading information from your document. 

This presentation does not have time to go into the nitty-gritty of how you do that in MS Word, but one of my colleagues, Joe, with the Academic Skills Center and form and style editors,  made some great videos on how to use the tools in Microsoft Word, so I would refer you to that. All his videos are less than five minutes long and I would recommend going and checking that out. It shows you how to use the template, and if you are not already familiar with that process, it can be extremely useful because it's one of the most important kinds of mechanics, the template document, that will make your life easier going into various steps in the review process and getting your document ready for publication. The template is also set up with the table of contents that is programmed for you to update to reflect everything tagged APA level zero, one, or two, but headings below that level will not be included in the table of contents. It's a Walden rule. If you have tagged all your headings correctly with the correct styles, you should be able to easily update the table of contents. Because of time I won’t be able to tell you how to do that, but it's a pretty easy process and you connect to one of the videos telling you step-by-step how to update table of contents on the link on the slides. 

In APA seven, all heading levels use title case. This is a change from APA six where some headings were in sentence case. As a reminder, you will hear these terms in APA—title and sentence cases. All they mean is what to capitalize. For title case, you capitalize all major words and words with four or more letters.

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Tables in APA Style (Chapter 7 in APA Manual)

• Tables should contain multiple columns and rows of data; do not create a table when a simple list will do. 

• No vertical lines—just horizontal lines above and below header row and at bottom of table

• No color or shading

• Tables must fit within required document margins. Use landscape orientation and/or adjust font size if necessary. 

• Text inside table: 

✓ 8- to 12-point font size—consider readability 

✓ sentence case in all cells, including heading

Audio:  I’m going to show a little bit about tables and figures, which is something we don't go into as much detail in some of the other sessions. I wanted to take this opportunity to address some of the issues and questions that sometimes give people pause when working on their capstone document. There’s a lot of clear and helpful rules on tables and figures in Chapter seven of the manual, so I refer you there for more details of data presentation. What I'm talking about here is more of the broad view of how to format these things to be APA compliant, the level we will be looking at during form and style review. 

One general note thinking about what to put in a table -- it should typically contain more than one column or row of data in most situations, and I mention that because I will see people format something as a table when it is really is a vertical list so make sure if you are taking the time to create an APA compliant table that you have a complex enough layout that it makes sense to create a table and it's not just a vertical list. 

In APA style, you never have a vertical line in a table like a border. You only have horizontal lines and those typically occur above and below the header row and at the bottom, and I will show you an illustration of moment. I know that is more meaningful probably to see it in action than hear me talk about that. 

There's no color or shading in tables in APA style and one important thing, something we see all the time, is that tables need to fit within the document margins and those are the required document margins set up and specified in the templates, so they always need to fit inside the document margins. If you have something that is a large and complex table, you may want to format with landscape orientation and adjust the font size to bring it within the required margins. There's a link in the slide that explain how to do landscape formatting which is certainly doable. This is one of the more complicated procedures in Word, so I will not go into explanation now. You can access that if it's an issue you are dealing with. Often, it's enough to reduce the font size if you have a table with more data in it. You can go as low as eight-point, as Walden specified in the template and our checklist as one of the rules, so take it; you want it to be readable. You use sentence case in all cells which means you capitalize only the first word, proper nouns and that includes headings within the table. 

 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: APA Table Format

Table 1 

A Sample Table Showing Correct Formatting 

 

Stub heading         Column A          Column B           Column C           Column D

 

Row 1                             12                       111                           1                      1,021

Row 2                             14                        75                           1                       898

Row 3                             12                      200                          2                    2, 001 

Row 4                             10                         81                          1                     4,720

 

Note. From “Attitudes Toward Dissertation Editors,” by W. Student, 2020, Journal of Academic Optimism, 98, p.11 (https://doi.org/10.xxxxxxxxxx). Copyright 2020 by Academic Publishing Consortium. Reprinted with permission. 

 

Audio: This illustrates APA table format for APA seven. The table number is bolded, and the title is not, but it’s italicized according to APA seven, and this is what I mean by sentence case, so even this little column heading is in sentence case, so only “Stub” is capitalized and then 
“heading” is lower case, which and helps with readability. You have a table note and not all will have it. This is hypothetical for the sample table, but this is what you would use if you were taking a table from another source and reprinting, so this note contains information on that source and full bibliographic information and copyright information. If you take a table or figure from a source—either you and re-create or reproduce it, you should typically look into requesting permission to reprint or adapt that table or figure. You would include written permission from the copyright holder in an appendix. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Table Captions

  1. Table number (APA 7.10)
  • Bold 12-point type; flush left above table
  • Tables are numbered in the order in which they appear in the document, using whole Arabic numerals (Table 1, Table 2, etc.) 
  • Each table should be mentioned by number in the narrative before it appears (e.g., “As shown in Table 1 …”). 
  1. Table title (APA 7.11) 
  • Italicized, Title Case 12-point type; flush left 
  • Appears one double space below the table number 
  • Double spaced if more than one line long

Audio: So, this covers what I just said about the table caption. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: APA Table Format 

 

Table 1 

A Sample Table Showing Correct Formatting 

 

Stub heading         Column A          Column B           Column C           Column D 

Row 1                             12                       111                           1                      1,021

Row 2                             14                        75                           1                       898

Row 3                             12                      200                          2                    2, 001 

Row 4                             10                         81                          1                     4,720

 

Note. From “Attitudes Toward Dissertation Editors,” by W. Student, 2020, Journal of Academic Optimism, 98, p.11 (https://doi.org/10.xxxxxxxxxx). Copyright 2020 by Academic Publishing Consortium. Reprinted with permission. 

 

 

 

Audio: The table numbers in bold, 12-point type—the number and title are always going to be 12-point. It's the text inside the table that can be as low as eight-point. Again, the number and title are always going to be 12-point, per APA and Walden rules. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Table Captions

  1. Table number (APA 7.10)
  • Bold 12-point type; flush left above table
  • Tables are numbered in the order in which they appear in the document, using whole Arabic numerals (Table 1, Table 2, etc.) 
  • Each table should be mentioned by number in the narrative before it appears (e.g., “As shown in Table 1 …”). 
  1. Table title (APA 7.11) 
  • Italicized, Title Case 12-point type; flush left 
  • Appears one double space below the table number 
  • Double spaced if more than one line long

Audio: The tables are numbered in the order in which they appear in the document. You want to use whole numbers, not by chapter. Just numbered one, two, three, etc., from beginning to end of the document. One detail we also ask people to do is when you mention content of a table in the narrative, do it before you present the table, and you want to call the table out by number. So, you would say, as shown in table, one, rather than in the table below or in the table on the next page. One basic rationale is that you will be doing a lot of editing, revising, reformatting, etc., and what is often a long capstone writing and revisions process, so making sure you just refer to things by number eliminates the kinds of problems of what happens when it is no longer on the next page or it might not immediately be below, etc. You have called out by number and that limits that issue. Again, the table titles are italicized in title case and 12 point. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: APA Table Format  

Table 1 

A Sample Table Showing Correct Formatting                                                                                                                                        

Stub heading         Column A          Column B           Column C           Column D 

                                                                                                                                        

Row 1                             12                       111                           1                      1,021

Row 2                             14                        75                           1                       898

Row 3                             12                      200                          2                    2, 001 

Row 4                             10                         81                          1                     4,720

 

Note. From “Attitudes Toward Dissertation Editors,” by W. Student, 2020, Journal of Academic Optimism, 98, p.11 (https://doi.org/10.xxxxxxxxxx). Copyright 2020 by Academic Publishing Consortium. Reprinted with permission. 

 

Audio: The table title and number are double spaced, which you can see that here. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Table Notes (APA 7.14) 

Notes may appear below tables (double spaced), in this order: 

1. General note: Pertains to the table as a whole. May explain special abbreviations, symbols, etc., and/or credit the source of a reprinted or adapted table (including copyright info and applicable permission). 

2. Specific note: Pertains to a particular column, row, or cell. 

3. Probability note: Explains how symbols are used to signify p values. 

Note. M=Minnesota cohort; N=Nebraska cohort.                    (General note)

ª n=16. b   This participant withdrew from the study.               (Specific notes)

*p <.05. **p <.01.                                                                             (Probability notes)

Audio: A few quick notes about table notes. If I hesitate, it gets a bit complicated. We have a link on this page that I would recommend you go to for more detail.  A lot of excellent detail in the new version of the APA manual, the seventh edition, section 7.14. Having worked in APA style now in three different manuals, as academic editor for 20 years now, I like the new manual because it is so much clearer about the rules for things like table notes and has a lot of helpful examples to a greater extent than past manuals, so if this is something you are dealing with, it's helpful to take time to look at the manual. We have summarized some of the main points on the website, so I would check that out. 

In general, keep in mind different kinds of notes on a table. The way APA formats things, this is also true with figures. You can have some of these notes on figures as well, so a general note is what is going to appear first under the table and that pertains to the table as a whole. That often is going to do things like explain special abbreviations, symbols, terminology, and something that applies to the whole table where you would credit the source of every printed or adapted table including copyright information, permissions you have obtained, and that sort of thing. The general note is proceeded with the word note italicized with a period, so here you can see a general note here—“M equals Minnesota cohort” and “N equals Nebraska cohort,” so that would be in the note section. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: APA Table Format

 

Table 1 

A Sample Table Showing Correct Formatting

 

Stub heading         Column A          Column B           Column C           Column D 

 

Row 1                             12                       111                           1                      1,021

Row 2                             14                        75                           1                       898

Row 3                             12                      200                          2                    2, 001 

Row 4                             10                         81                          1                     4,720

 

Note. From “Attitudes Toward Dissertation Editors,” by W. Student, 2020, Journal of Academic Optimism, 98, p.11 (https://doi.org/10.xxxxxxxxxx). Copyright 2020 by Academic Publishing Consortium. Reprinted with permission. 

 

Audio: I’ll go back to the previous slide just to show you—this is a source note. This is a source note. a general note and this is different in APA seven if you're working in APA six. The table note is double spaced. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Table Notes (APA 7.14) 

Notes may appear below tables (double spaced), in this order: 

1. General note: Pertains to the table as a whole. May explain special abbreviations, symbols, etc., and/or credit the source of a reprinted or adapted table (including copyright info and applicable permission). 

2. Specific note: Pertains to a particular column, row, or cell. 

3. Probability note: Explains how symbols are used to signify p values. 

Note. M=Minnesota cohort; N=Nebraska cohort.                    (General note)

ª n=16. b   This participant withdrew from the study.               (Specific notes)

*p <.05. **p <.01.                                                                             (Probability notes)

Audio: The next note you may have on a table, and not all tables will have them -- some have none at all and some have only one kind present and these are formatted in slightly different ways. In most cases, you would not have all three kinds. Sometimes you will. A specific note is the next one down and that pertains to a particular column, row, or cell within the table. So, inside the table you would have a superscript letter like a little A or little B in the table where it corresponds to the following data within a specific cell in the table. Down in the notes section, you would repeat the superscript letter and the explanation of what the note is intended to mean. So here you can see the example. Here this one data point refers to data point with an “n” of 16 and another data point might correspond to participants who withdrew from the study. In the probability notes, those are proceeded with asterisk and it would be corresponding to an asterisk in the table next to a data point and those are formatted here. You’ll notice the “p” is italicized. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Figures in APA Style (Chapter 7 in APA Manual)

Per APA 7.22, any visual display that is not a table is labeled as a figure (e.g., graph, chart, photo, map, drawing). 

• Figures must fit in required document margins. 

• Figure captions use the same format as table captions and appear above figures (change from APA 6 to 7).

• Figure notes use the same format as table notes and appear below figures.

• Be sure to cite sources for reprinted figures and address copyright and permission status

Audio: A few notes on figures. They have less rigid rules in APA than tables because a figure is anything visual that is not a table so it sounds loose. It is. A figure could be a wide variety of display. In terms of what we are looking at form and style, it's important to keep in mind is the only rule is that it needs to be readable and fit in the required document margin so that's one of the things we see frequently with figures that can be challenging for students to format so I will often see them going outside the margins. ProQuest will possibly take that back to you if it's not fitting within the margins, we are presenting the documents in so you want to make sure the figures fit inside the margins. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: APA Figure Format

Audio: The figure captions use the same format as the table captions, and they appear above the figure. This is the same as the table which is nice. This used to be different in the old edition, but the seventh edition is so much easier, so I'm appreciative of that. Bolded figure number, italicized figure title, and that is in title case, so all major words capitalized in the title case. Figure notes use the same format as the table note, so this figure does not have a note, and this is just an example figure. If it had a note you needed to explain something or came from other source or producing it from somewhere with permission would have that note under here double spaced.

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Figures in APA Style (Chapter 7 in APA Manual)

Per APA 7.22, any visual display that is not a table is labeled as a figure (e.g., graph, chart, photo, map, drawing). 

• Figures must fit in required document margins. 

• Figure captions use the same format as table captions and appear above figures (change from APA 6 to 7).

• Figure notes use the same format as table notes and appear below figures.

• Be sure to cite sources for reprinted figures and address copyright and permission status

Audio: Be sure to cite any sources for reprinted figures. If it's protected under copyright, you should receive permission to reproduce that including the permission in the appendix. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Table and Figure Resources 

 

 

Audio: There's more information about tables and figures, and a lot of the mechanics of creating tables and figures, than we can present in this context, so I refer you to our website resources which are linked. I also refer you to the seventh edition APA template for your program which has table and figure examples and clear instructions. I worked to develop with other staff on how to create tables and figures in the document and use the lists of tables and figures functions to make the document Walden and APA compliant, so I would definitely get those. There's also a link to Academic Skills Centers’ Microsoft resources for table and figure formatting. Some other tutorials are helpful. We also have some document-based PDF tutorials in the form and style review office that you can access on tables and figures as well as specific rules for what you do if you are reproducing or adapting a table or figure from another source. So, those are all linked to give you more details than I'm able to provide in this session. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Chat 

What is one rule or tip you learned today that will help you in your doctoral capstone?

The webinar layout changes to open a chat box for students to type into in response to the chat question.

[Pause as students type.]

Audio: So, I went through that somewhat quickly. Going to cover some resources. If you would like to tell us if you learned anything new, we would love to know what that is or any rules or tips you think would be helpful in your own doctoral capstone. Will have time for some Q&A. If you have questions, feel free to put those in the Q&A and we should have time to answer a few. Feel free to share in the chat what you learned. Before I go into resources, is there anything I should pause for? 

Audio: Anne: I think we are good for now, Carey. We had a couple of questions that we addressed in Q&A.

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Resources for Doctoral Students 

Audio: Carey: This is an information heavy session, so I want to make sure I was not just plowing through. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Key Resources for Doctoral Capstone Students 

Audio: Let's go over some of the resources. I wanted to highlight the form and style checklist that I talked about near the beginning, which is linked here. That shows the things we look at during form and style, and I hesitated because it's a long document. It makes it look like an overwhelming amount of information and it's not meant to be overwhelming. It's helpful, particularly at the later proofreading stages of the editing and reviewing process, because it shows you the things we're looking for. I have never done a review where I did not find things to tell someone to work on. The checklist is helpful to turn to because it will give you less to do. 

One thing I strongly recommend bookmarking, if you have not, is the common reference list examples page. We do not talk about citation reference in this webinar, but there are great tools on the website which I still use all the time, especially since we have gone to a new edition of the manual. We put down the major reference types you will see in capstones and the correct way to format them on the website, so bookmark that. 

A whole section on APA style for capstone writers talking about the rules I talked about today as well as citation and reference rules. Another webinar, if you are interested, working in APA six and transitioning 27 and mastering those rules, you can access and archive webinar called APA 7 at a Glance: Changes in Support for the Switch for Doctoral Capstone Student, so I recommend that which includes citation and referencing that we did not talk about today. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: More Support for Students 

Personalized help for capstone writers:

Audio: Some resources for more personalized help as a capstone writer that I highlight here. The doctoral capstone writing workshops that the Office of Academic Support offers are linked here. I've heard great things as a way to get one-on-one feedback from faculty and connect with other students at a similar point in the writing process, so if you have not looked at those and you think that is something helpful, check those out. 

The Office of Academic Support also offers APA style course if you feel like you would like some guided support and there's a link to their citations and reference course. They also have MS Word support, even one-on-one, if you are having problems or issues. They also have static tutorial resources, videos, things like that, on using the functions of the template in Microsoft Word and you can access that using this link. And you are welcome to contact the form and style editors anytime for questions. You can email us at [email protected] and we will get back to you within one business day. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: 2021 Form and Style Clinic

Tuesday, April 6, 2021, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Central time

  • Attend live 45-minute sessions on a variety of topics, including the Form & Style review, reading and writing for the literature review, and preparing the doctoral capstone as a multilingual writer. 
  • Register for one or more sessions.

Audio: One last thing I’ll mention on the theme of resources is something we are doing next month, which is the form and style clinic.  Live 45-minute sessions on a variety of topics scheduled from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Central time, Tuesday, April 6th next month. We have separate 45-minute sessions and you can come to one or several depending on what's interesting to you. These are on form and style, literature review, and preparing the doctoral capstone. Some sessions are geared specific to multilingual writers and sessions for a general audience of doctoral students. So, if that is interesting to you, use this link and register for however many sessions you would like. It's a nice chance to get to present some of our information and interact with students and answer questions so forth. 

 

Visual: Slide changes to following: Questions? 

Ask now in the chat box or email us anytime at [email protected]. 

Audio: Speaking of questions, we have about nine minutes left, so I would be happy to talk about anything that has come up. 

Jenny: We have a few questions that have come up in the box that may be useful for everyone. First one, about confidentiality and school districts and keeping confidentiality in general with reference to the sites or evidence related to the study sites. 

Carey: That is a great question. I am glad that came up. We obviously did not deal with this in the slides. We deal with it all the time in form and style. One of the things the forms and style review, one of the things I comment on in regard to confidentiality and study sites, is if you’re preserving the confidentiality of your site, you don't want to name it anywhere in your document. You also don't want to name any staff who may be used to identify the site itself so that can be a tricky balance. One of the things that's the point of confusion or gets overlooked is that means you cannot be using formal citations and references for sources that are from the, for instance, study school district or the school building. So, if you pulled information off of the district website, you cannot have the school district in your reference list. You don't use a pseudonym in the reference list either because the point of the reference list is to be practical and have readers retrieve sources. So, if you have something with a pseudonym, it is not retrievable information, so what you would do in that situation, what we see most often in the research office, we have been advising people to describe the source in the narrative so you would say something like “according to the district website” rather than citing the site, or “according to a report generated by the district during 2020.” Rather than trying to create a redacted reference or citation or something with a pseudonym and it. Refer to in the narrative and make sure you have not inadvertently named someone from the district or the site itself in the acknowledgments, dedication, or appendix documents, where we often see it. That has been removed from the document so nobody can identify the source. Jenny, anything you would add? I know that is a big topic. 

Jenny: I think that is very thorough and it's a big topic. I can post something in the chat box with a link to where we address confidentiality issues on our site that may be useful as well. 

Carey: Thank you. That would be great. Were there any other questions? 

Jenny: We do have one question about plagiarism. Do the form and style editors address plagiarism at that stage? 

Carey: I would be happy to talk about that. And I saw a question pop up that I will answer. How do you address the website and the reference section? If you're referring to the school district, hiding the identity, you would not include it in your references in that case. It’s generally the rule that you describe the source in your narrative. You would not include a formal citation or reference list entry and that's only the case for those sources trying to hide participating site in any sources you would need to include in the reference section. 

On the issue of plagiarism and academic integrity, by the time a document comes to form and style, our assumption is that the prior stages in the process it has gone through whatever citation academic integrity software check was required and available in the program at the time. We are assuming your chair or other faculty have already addressed that issue in a general way and we are getting original writing. Sometimes there are situations where someone is inadvertently included—presenting material from a source not properly presented or a potential academic integrity issue if there is something like an obvious change in voice or writing that seems not consistent with the rest of the writing. In rare cases, if there is a question, we may look something up at the level of a Google search to see if there is something that should have been presented as a direct quotation but is presented in a way you think it would the writer's own words. If we see something like that, I would typically note it and point out the issue I’ve seen and remind the student to go through the document carefully to make sure there is not anything there. The document will get published, so anything that isn’t presented directly as a quotation is going to be assumed to be written in your own words. That's not something you will want published if that continues to be an issue. We are not doing a formal plagiarism check by the time it reaches form and style. Anything you would add to that Jenny? 

Jenny: No. That says it all. Not something you need to pass at the form and style review stage. I think that covers it.

Carey: We have a couple minutes left. Any other questions?

Anne: Thanks so much Carey. We have a couple webinar related questions I can address. Reminder that the slides are available from the file box at the bottom right of your screen and those slides have live links within them, and this is true if you are watching the recording as well. You can download those files from that box. 

Questions about whether the webinar would be offered again. As a reminder, this webinar is being recorded and that will be available soon this week or early next week. As for live, I am not sure when it's offered again. Potentially next year. We do not schedule that far in advance, so I would suggest checking out the recording and taking the feedback survey after the webinar, which will pop up when I close the room and you will let us know what webinars you would like us to offer live, so feel free to let us know there if you want us to offer this or something similar again. 

 

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