Recently I said that some some people were feeling "burned" by the latest (6th ed.) release of the
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. I was then asked what people were feeling "burned" about. To this end, I provided the following list:
- The two spaces after a period rule returning definitely ignited the passions of many (http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2009/07/on-two-spaces-following-a-period.html).
- A library director that I have been corresponding with finds much consternation in the heavy emphasis of digital object identifiers (DOIs) for journal citations.
- The sample papers that the APA produced in the 1st printing were often contradictory to the manual’s textual explanations, which were Spartan to begin with.
- Many were upset that the manual was so filled with errors that they would either have to fill their existing copies with red ink to fix the corrections or they would have to carry around several pages of PDF printouts with the corrections and revised sample papers.
- The APA’s nonchalant attitude—constantly emphasizing their “flexibility.” Flexibility is fine, until it encounters an instructor’s rubric. [I am still trying to get a straight answer about margin and header placement—I did get a reply from APA, but the “Style Expert” told me two contradictory things in as many sentences.]
- The information expressed in the publication manual, concise rules book, and workbooks can contradict each other—even though they are all APA publications.
- The lack of good citation examples. The APA released a brilliant companion manual (APA Style Guide to Electronic Citations) in 2007, but many of the examples were not carried over into the new book—which is 100 pages shorter than the 5th ed.
- Some take exception to the poor indexing of the manual.
- My personal beef is the lack of proper scaling in the sample papers—a sentiment that I am not alone in expressing. The APA says that it was not possible, however, this was done in the previous version.
Some comments, discussions, and notes can be found in:
