On Sun, 15 May 2011 07:28:26 -0700, Blaine Peden wrote: >I am in the process of scoring research reports and reviewed the >Publication Manual first. I could find little guidance on key words >that appear on the abstract page. I am curious as to what other >advise their students to do on key words. Any comments or >suggestions welcomed.
A few points: (1) I assume that the "geniuses" who put together the 6th edition of the APA Publication Manual assumed that one would be using the official APA Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms (currently in the 11th edition) which the APA will happily sell to you for $90 if you are not an APA member and $80 if you are; see: http://www.apa.org/pubs/books/3100084.aspx Presumably you'll find websites which will provide some of the keywords but, because I assume that the keywords are part of a publication that APA holds the copyright to, will only contain lists that are allowable under "fair use" provisions. I am open to correction on any of these points. Otherwise one might have to spend some time in the reference room of the library to check out which terms should be used (assuming your library has a copy of the thesaurus). (2) Whether one should use keywords or other features of APA style that is appropriate only for manuscripts that are actually going to be submitted for publication (in contrast to students papers) really depends upon how much of a fetish one has made of APA style and/or one is anal-retentive or suffers from an obsessive-compulsive disorder concerning APA style. When I cover APA style in a lab course, I point out that there is a keywords section on the Abstract page, I point out why it is there (i.e., to aid in locating related publications in PsycInfo), and how one would find appropriate keywords (i.e., the APA thesaurus). And then I tell them not to bother with keywords because they really won't know enough about the topics they'll be writing about to select the correct keywords (NOTE: has anyone ever conducted an empirical study to determine the accuracy of keywords used by students for a papers in APA style and compared it to the keywords selected by a professional librarian that specialized in the social sciences?). Anyone remember when access to PsycInfo was restricted only to librarians because one had to access it on a mainframe computer or on early versions of Sliverplatter -- access by a librarian was in part due to the possibility that a librarian would be more familiar with the keywords and produce more efficient (i.e., less time/less cost) searches? The problem today is that people may use keywords that appear to be relevant and intuitive given the content of the paper but inconsistent with the "official" keywords used by APA. (3) Some time back I had suggested on the Psychteacher list that the STP or another group develop guidelines for using APA style in student papers. There are certain things that have to be in a manuscript that will be submitted for publication but make no sense in the context of a student paper. For example, consider the role of the "Running head", quoting from p229 6th ed, 4th printing, APA Publication Manual: |The running head is an abbreviated title that is printed at the top of |the pages of a manuscript or published article to identify the article for |readers. In the 5th Ed, 2nd printing, of the APA Publication Manual, there is this additional information (p12): |The running head is an abbreviated title that is printed at the top |of the pages of a published article to identify the article for readers. Now, why would one want a running head on every page in a student paper? Wouldn't the old convention of typing a few descriptive words or from the title in front of the page number be more appropriate (as was done in the 5th ed)? I put keywords into a similar category: if you're going to publish, use them otherwise don't bother. Similarly, given the power of word processing programs, why should tables and figures be put at the end of the paper instead of at an appropriate location within the text? And so on. The unofficial response I got was that that wasn't something that the STP was concerned with but if I came up with a proposal for "APA style for student papers", they'd look at it. I have declined the honor. But maybe someone else or a group of people might consider doing something in this area. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=10587 or send a blank email to leave-10587-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
