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APA Writing Guide

This guide is based on the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.) and should be used for papers in the Counseling classes at Covenant Theological Seminary.

APA writing style should be organized, accurate, and efficient. Use the information below to help your writing comply with APA standards.

More questions? Visit the APA’s style website (www.apastyle.apa.org) or make an appointment with a Scribe consultant.

Transitions

Use transition words to signal to your reader what you are doing in each point of your paper. For an excellent list of example transition words and their uses, see this APA Writing Guide:

Pronouns

First Person. Use when referring to your own views or experiences, BUT only when necessary. You need first person to write, “I experienced X” as you may in a reflection paper. You do not need it and should not use it to write, “I think X is true.” You can and should simply write, “X is true.”

The Editorial “We” or “One.” Used to refer to a general person or group of people, these pronouns should not be used in an APA paper. Replace the vague “we” or “one” with a specific actor. Your writing and argument will be made stronger for it. Do not write: “We need to understand grace to serve broken people.” Instead write: “Counselors need to understand grace to serve broken people.”

 

Verb Tenses

Paper Section Recommended Tense Example
Literature review
(or whenever discussing other researchers’ work)		 Past Martin (2020) addressed
Present perfect Researchers have studied
Method
Description of procedure		 Past Participants took a survey
Present perfect Others have used similar approaches
Reporting of your own or other researchers’ results Past Results showed
Scores decreased
Hypotheses were not supported
Personal reactions Past I felt surprised
Present perfect I have experienced
Present I believe
Discussion of implications of results or of previous statements Present The results indicate
The findings mean that
Presentation of conclusions, limitations, future directions, and so forth Present We conclude
Limitations of the study are
Future research should explore

Writing Tips

Read your work aloud. Reading a paper aloud takes approximately 2 minutes per page. While doing so, you will likely locate 90% of any typos, grammatical errors, and awkward or run-on sentences. If it is difficult for you to read it aloud, it will be difficult for your audience to read.

Look for the little words and cut them out. Nouns and verbs are the heavy lifter of your sentences. Look for the little words (of, to, at, for, that, there are, it is, etc.) as they are often part of phrases that can be shortened. “At the present time” can become “now;” “for the purpose of” can become “to” or “for;” “there are several scripture passages that refer to” can become “several scripture passages refer to.”

Interrogate your use of first person. It should always have a very good reason for being there. Never write “I believe X is true” when you could write “X is true.”

Refer to one thing one way. Synonyms can be used to add variety, but they can also lead to imprecision.

Vary your sentence length. Too many short sentences in a row come across as choppy. Too many long sentences can be difficult to decipher.

One paragraph equals one idea. Can you condense the topic of each of your paragraphs down to one short phrase? “This paragraph is about (3–6 word phrase).” Everything in the paragraph should be about that phrase. If it isn’t, it may need to be cut or split into another paragraph.

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