APA Style Blog: What Were They Thinking? Now We Know.

By Amber Cook, Senior Writing Specialist

Have you ever looked in the index of your APA manual, feverishly trying to find information on a topic that just does not seem to be there? Have you stared at an APA rule, wondering how to interpret it for use in your paper? Ever wish you could have a word with the fine people who wrote this sometimes frustrating manual?

There’s hope! The APA Style Blog, “the official companion to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition” (APA, 2009, About Us section, para. 1), is written and maintained by the same APA style experts who contributed to the manual itself. It is a searchable, reliable source of information that clarifies and supplements the manual. The authors post approximately once a week, addressing topics ranging from elements of a reference to details about hyphenation. Interested readers can follow the blog on Facebook or by visiting http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/.

Here in the Writing Center, we’ve found this blog tremendously useful when faced with questions that are not sufficiently covered in the manual. When the manual came up short on guidance for citing a Kindle, we found this handy post. To settle a Writing Center debate about how to handle references for works with no DOI and no journal home page, we came across a post that addressed this very issue. The search feature on the APA Style Blog makes these kinds of quests quick and painless, and it’s often the first place I go when faced with a question from a student or colleague.

On some matters, however, we in the Walden community will have to continue to scratch our heads. As mentioned in this post from the APA Style Blog, there are some issues that are outside the scope of APA guidance, such as annotated bibliography format or content requirements. Your instructor is your best source of help in these areas. I encourage you, however, to make the APA Style Blog your first stop for APA questions that may have you stumped; I think you’ll find yourself returning quite often!