10 General Rules Of Writing A Dissertation In The APA Style

When you are writing a dissertation in the APA style there are some strict rules that you have to go by. It takes some patience and time to make your dissertation perfect, if you are doing it in APA style, but luckily there is a clear set of rules that you just have to follow to make it perfect. Here are 10 general rules on how to write a dissertation in the APA style.

• Watch what you capitalize

Words are not capitalized the same in the reference list of an APA style dissertation, and other kinds of papers. Remember to capitalize only the first word and proper nouns in the title of your cited books and published papers

• Difference between electronic and print examples

Note that there are slight differences when you are citing a paper or a book that has been published in electronic and paper format.

• Same terminology

Use always the same name for your paper. It can be thesis, dissertation or paper, but it should always be the same one.

• Don’t forget the location, even if it’s obvious

Always remember to cite the location of the publication, even if it’s in your own country or city. The place where the work was published should be after the name of the university.

• You can use unpublished work

You can quote a master or PhD thesis that hasn’t been published online or in a scientific paper. You just need to note in your citation that it is unpublished work.

• “According to”

Don’t forget to mention in the text that you borrowed an idea or sentence from a published paper, because it can easily be seen as plagiarism. Just note an author that you quote and that in the citation part, detail explain from which book you took the idea. It is OK to be inspired by someone else’s work, but not to steal their ideas.

• Free books are allowed

Do not shy away from books that are free to use, just because you don’t know how to cite them. Just write which site provides that free book that you want to use, and that is the same as citing a publisher.

• Secondary source

You can always cite something that has been cited. You just need to write in the footnote exactly from which book you took the quoted text, and what it refers to.

• Government papers

You can quote government documents too; you just need to be precise what year it was published, especially if there is a similar document published every single year. It is same with private organization.

• Conferences

Quote a paper that you found on a conference, because there are usually booklets or books that sum up all the papers that were presented there.

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