Writing With Style: APA Style Made Easy, Third Edition

I am not sure whether learning or teaching scientific writing in general, and APA style in particular, is more difficult. Fortunately for students and teachers alike, Lenore Szuchman has written a text that has the potential to ease the process. Szuchman's book begins with a chapter that encourages students to see themselves as psychologists-in-training rather than lay people who find psychology interesting. She briefly addresses why not all professionals can use the Modern Language Association (MLA) or Chicago Manual of Style rules. Szuchman emphasizes the importance of looking details of APA style up in the Publication of Manual of the American Psychological Association, thus removing the idea that her book is meant to replace the APA manual. The strength of the opening chapter, however, resides in the cogent and concise discussion of plagiarism, including practical suggestions such as " Never try to paraphrase one sentence at a time. Instead, first read through the whole section you wish to paraphrase, then write your paraphrase, but without looking at the original " (p. 8). In the second chapter, Some Generalizations About How Psychologists Write, Szuchman introduces workbook exercises. As Szuchman explains that researchers rather than studies are the ones who do things, she encourages students to collect useful phrases from articles they have been assigned to read or from InfoTrac (access to which is included with the book). For example, in Exercise 1 students record verbs that work with " someone's study, work, experiment, research " (p.15). Szuchman started the list with examples such as demonstrates and provides evidence and included blanks for students to record additional examples. In Exercise 4 students record verbs that work with researchers. Szuchman listed have shown, found, replicated, and reported as starters and included blanks for additional examples (p. 17). The final section of this chapter includes examples that should not be used in scientific writing (e.g., one-sentence paragraphs, addressing the reader as you). In chapters 3-9 Szuchman takes each part of a manuscript in turn (literature review, methods, results, discussion, abstract, references, title page and other formatting). She explains what each section should contain and includes more workbook exercises. In chapter 10, Grooming Tips for Psychology Papers, Szuchman covers basic grammatical rules (e.g., assuring agreement between subjects and verbs, avoiding half-empty comparisons and run-on sentences) and includes numerous exercises to help students learn those rules. One of the most valuable chapters is the Appendix, which …