Style Sheet

Style Information for the Preparation of Manuscripts for EPAA/AAPE

Once a manuscript is accepted, one responsibility of the author(s) is to make sure that a final version of the manuscript conforms with APA style, described completely in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). Errors in conforming with APA style will unnecessarily delay publication. 

A final version of the manuscript must be inserted into the EPAA/AAPE template. When submitting the final version, label the file using your last name and the number assigned to your manuscript. Please pay attention to the following matters of formatting and style:

• Check the manuscript for anything imported from other programs. Anything imported as a dynamic link (e.g., Excel charts in Microsoft Word documents), will not be usable. It is better to cut and paste directly.
• Be especially careful with citation software and formatting. You should make sure that the citations are readable when citation software is not running.
• Please note the following fonts and sizes
• All text should be Garamond.
• 18-point for Title
• 16-point for name of the author/s
• 14-point for author’s institutional affiliation.
• 14-point type for center heads APA Level-1 headings
• 12-point Garamond for abstracts, side heads, the text, bibliography, table titles, figure captions, and about-the-author notes
• 11-point Garamond for notes (including superscripted reference notes).
• Pages should have 1" (2.5 cm) margins on all sides.
• Centered headings (APA Level 1) should have 12-point clearance before and after.
• All other headings (APA Level 2 and above) should have 6-point clearance before and after, except where side headings come immediately after centered headings, in which case there should only be 12 points of space between the two headings.
• Body paragraphs should have a first-line indentation of 0.5" (1.3 cm) with no line between paragraphs for the most part.
• Indentation through automatic formatting is preferred to using tabs.
• Reference-list paragraphs should have hanging indentations (0.5", 1.3 cm). Note: this is the reverse of APA style for the submission of manuscripts to journal editors.
• Excerpts (long quotations) should be indented 0.5" (1.3 cm) on both sides. There should be no extra space between excerpts and regular body paragraphs.
• As per APA style, the second and subsequent paragraphs of an excerpt should have a first-line indentation.
• There should be no numbered or bulleted paragraphs in the text.
• Numbers and number words, including percentages, follow APA style.
• Please note the typographical distinctions between hyphens (in hyphenated words like “test-taking”), short en dashes (in dates such as “1955–1956”), and longer em dashes—those that carve out parenthetical remarks (like the end of this sentence).
• Single and double quotation marks should be “smart quotes” not inch marks, unless they are, in fact, inch marks. To do this in Word, go to Preferences > AutoCorrect > (see checked boxes below) and make sure that the following box is checked: “Straight quotation marks” with “smart quotation marks”.
• There should be only one space after each period (or full stop).
• Make sure to include a brief (2–3 sentences) biosketch for each author, and relevant keywords drawn from the ERIC Thesaurus

On figures:

• Figures should generally be reserved for information that can only be presented in a data-rich manner through a visual medium. Please note that figures imported into your word processor will often be shrunken from the apparent size in the original application. Check that the final font size as it appears on the page is no smaller than 8-points.
• Pay attention to the advice on figure captions in the Publication Guide of the APA. Figure numbers and titles appear above the figure, with other details below the figure. Captions should be 12-point Garamond.

On tables:

• Pay careful attention to the table-formatting guidelines in the Publication Guide of the APA. These guidelines have useful advice regarding efficient use of stubs and column heads as well as issues such as spacing and when and how to use rules (lines)—especially where not to use rules.
• Formatting of tables must be done within the table-handling device of your word processor. We will return manuscripts that attempt to use tabs or spaces to format tables.
• Please do not split up tables in any special way to fit on the page or match the flow of your text. The page breaks may be different in publication, and manual breaks may be extremely problematic. Awkwardly sized tables may be better presented in landscape (sideways on the page).
• Please make sure the table margins are flush with the text.