At 7:20 PM -0500 10/27/99, Jim Clark wrote:
>I think this is a good time to suggest to students that there is
>not always a "correct" answer and to suggest "who would really
>care?" My experience in publishing papers is that the editors
>don't really care all that much about the minutiae of APA style
>and that it is the content that is more important. Perhaps we
>should try to communicate the importance of content and effective
>communication to students.
Let me second Jim Clark's comment here. It is not so revolutionary
to suggest that APA style should serve the purpose of communication
rather than be an end in itself. Actually, what APA style does is
balance the needs of communication with the needs of editors,
reviewers, and copy editors.
It is important for APA style to be followed with enough faithfulness
that it does not get in the way of communicating the IDEAS, METHODS,
AND PATTERN OF THE DATA in the paper. I have both reviewed and
published papers with some places in tables single spaced, some
statistics formats not followed, incorrect title page formats, header
styles not followed, etc. etc.
There is some fun in tracking down the minutiae of APA format, but I
encourage my students to care most religiously about COMMUNICATION
rather than format. In some places (particularly in tables), double
spacing obscures the meaning rather than enlightens it. As long as
you leave enough white space for a copy editor and reviewers to mark
up the paper, you have followed the spirit of APA's
double-space-everything rule.
-Chuck
- Chuck Huff; 507.646.3169; http://www.stolaf.edu/people/huff/
- Psychology Department, St.Olaf College, Northfield, MN 55057
