For what it is worth, it seems to me that the main problem with APA
style is not the content of the manual (pedestrian and confining as it
is) but the people APA seems to contract out their copy editing to.
Almost every time I have had to deal with APA journals or books, the
copy editor has introduced more errors that they have corrected. They
have problems with grammar that is the least bit complicated (making me
wonder whether they are native English speakers). They don't seem to
know much about psychology, consistently undoing allusions that they
don't understand (even though my readers would without effort). I once
had a copyeditor decapitalize every German noun in a peice (about German
psychology). I had another change a direct quote because s/he ddn't like
a word in te passage. Yet still they intervene wherever they can (as
though their very job depends on finding "errors," even where none
exist). I regularly find myself writing "Please let the author write the
article" in the margin while I simultaneously have them restore passages
they have failed to grasp correctly. It is so bad that I have actually
turned to other publishers so that I do not have to go through the
rigmarole yet again.
Regards,
--
Christopher D. Green
Department of Psychology
York University
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Canada
416-736-5115 ex. 66164
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.yorku.ca/christo
=========================
Robin Abrahams wrote:
On Thu, 22 Feb 2007, Harzem Peter went:
> Papers in Psychology journals, shackled by the demand to follow the
> APA style, are so very, very boring. From none of them would one
> get the sense of excitement that may arise from and finding.
David Epstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<snip>
That seems like articulate, thoughtful writing--not flashy, but also
not suggestive of any sort of stylistic shackling. For pleasure
reading, I'll choose it over most of the research articles published
in _Science_.
Of course you would, you're a psychologist; why wouldn't you
rather read about psychology than about, say, advances in
cloning. But would you choose the modern writing in the typical
APA journal over the clear, vigorous prose of Sigmund Freud (say
what you will about his ideas, his writing was excellent), Alfred
Adler, or William James?
A very, very good writer can navigate the demands of APA style and
still write prose that is interesting, entertaining, and of
interest even to people who don't have to read it for their jobs.
But it is extraordinarily difficult to do so. APA style is
"writer-proof"--that is both its virtue and its viciousness.
My dislike of writing in APA style, and of the epistemological
assumptions that it is based on (the subject of Madigan et al's
article), is a major reason that I am not an academic
psychologist. Learning to write in APA style made me feel like the
Little Mermaid (Hans Christian Anderson version, not Disney
version), giving up my voice for the dubious privilege of walking
on dry land. Very dry land, at times.
R.
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