Masters of Environmental Studies in Nature-Based Recreation & Tourism (MES)

APA Formatting For MES Assignments

Margins

The left margin should be 4 cm (1 1/2 in.) to allow for any form of binding. The top, bottom, and right margins should be at least 2.5 cm (1 in.). Set these margins as your default setting for your page using the Page Setup function of your word processor.

Page Numbering

Pages are numbered consecutively beginning with the title page. The numbers, in Arabic numerals, appear in the upper right hand corner 1.3 cm (1/2 in.) from the top of the page and 2.5 cm (1 in.) from the right side of the page. Use the automatic header function of your word processor to enter the page numbers; do not type them in manually on each page.

Manuscript Header

A manuscript header (the running head) must appear at the top of every page of your document; it identifies each page of your document if, for some reason, the pages become separated from one another. The manuscript header is a shortened version, no more than 50 characters, of your title. It appears left justified and in all uppercase letters. Use the automatic header function of your word processor to enter the manuscript header; do not type it in manually on each page.

Referencing

Many of the papers you will write for ORPT (and other departments) will borrow the ideas of other authors. It is against Lakehead University policy for you to present those ideas as if they were your own. You are, therefore, required to acknowledge those ideas from other authors through referencing.

Reference List at the End of Your Manuscript

Your list of references will appear under the level 1 style of heading, "References". All references, no matter what formatting style is used, have four parts to the basic form. Those four parts, listed in the order of appearance, are as follows.

Author(s). Year of publication. Title of the work. Source of publication

The details and appearance of those four parts will vary slightly depending upon the type of resource you are referencing. Since ORPT follows the APA formatting guidelines, learn APA's referencing details.

What follows here is a synopsis of the APA rules for reference format.

The bold letters in the examples below are ONLY for illustration.

Refer to section 6.22-6.32 (pp. 180-192) and chapter 7 of the APA Manual for further details.

Note: The author line is left justified; all subsequent lines of the reference are indented (use a hanging indent).

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

A Note About Italics. In your reference, the title of your principal source is what gets italicised. Typically, that is either a book title or a journal name and its volume number.

Author(s)

McGuire, F., Boyd, R., & Tedrick, R. (1996). Leisure and aging: Ulyssean living in later life. Champaign, IL: Sagamore.

Note: Title replaces author names if no author or agency is available.

Year of Publication

Bass, B. M. (Ed.). (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. London United Kingdom: Sage.

Note: Use (n.d.) if no date is provided.

Title of the Work

Salkind, N. J. (2004). Statistics for people who (think they) hate statistics. (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Cloutier, R. (1999). Should there be rescue free wilderness areas? In S.D. Wurdinger & T. G. Potter (Eds.), Controversial issues in adventure education: A critical examination (pp. 21-27). Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.

Source of Publication

Book

Bass, B. M. (Ed.). (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. London, United Kingdom: Sage.

Journal

Grant, B., Thompson, S., & Boyes, M. (1996). Risk and responsibility in outdoor recreation. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance, 67(7), 34-35.

Note: Journals require the Journal Name, volume number (edition number), pages

Journal with digital object identifier (DOI) [i.e. electronic versions]

Herbst-Damm, K. L., & Kulik, J. A. (2005). Volunteer support, marital status, and the survival times of terminally ill patients. Health Psychology, 24, 225-229. doi: 10.1037/0278-6133.24.2.225

Note: The DOI, like an ISBN, is given to documents that can now be found electronically. The URL of the site is not needed.

Website

Fernie, D. (n.d.). The nature of children's play. Retrieved August 8, 2003, from http://www.
kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/nature.of.childs.play.html

United States Sentencing Commission. (n.d.). 1997 sourcebook of federal sentencing statistics. Retrieved December 8, 1999, from http://www.ussc.gov/annrpt/1997/sbtoc97.htm

Note: If the URL is very long and will wrap around onto more than one line, insert a space into the URL so that a large gap is not left in the preceding line. In Fernie (n.d.), a space was inserted after "http://www." in the URL. Without that space (inserted by you), that reference would look like the following:

Fernie, D. (n.d.). The nature of children's play. Retrieved August 8, 2003, from http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/nature.of.childs.play.html

Citing Your References Within the Text

The following are some basic things to remember when citing sources within the text. Please refer to section 6.11-6.21, p.174-179 of the APA Manual for more details on citing sources within the text.

To acknowledge the source of an idea or a concept you are discussing but not quoted word for word, put the author's last name (no initials) and the year of the work, separated by a comma, in parentheses at the end of the sentence. For example,

Research shows that a regular exercise program can reduce stress and anxiety and enhance self-concept (Morgan & Goldioston, 1987; Sachs, 1984).

If you choose to use the author's name as part of the narrative, the year of the work appears in parentheses immediately following the author's name. For example,

Research by Morgan and Goldioston (1987) and Sachs (1984) shows that a regular exercise program can reduce stress and anxiety and enhance self-concept.

You'll find many times when sources have many authors so APA has some rules specifying how many of those names need to be included in the Author, Date citation. The following examples show references and how they are to be cited within your text.

Works with one author

Bergmann, P. G. (1993). Relativity. In The new encyclopedia Britannica (Vol. 26, pp. 501-508). Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica.

United States Sentencing Commission. (n.d.). 1997 sourcebook of federal sentencing statistics. Retrieved December 8, 1999, from http://www.ussc.gov/annrpt/1997/ sbtoc97.htm

Works with two authors

List both authors every time.

Kraus, R., & Allen, L.R. (1998). Research and evaluation in recreation, parks & leisure studies (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Works with 3-5 authors

List all author names the first time the reference occurs. For subsequent citations, list only the principal author followed by "et al".

Saywitz, K. J., Mannarino, A. P., Berliner, L., & Cohen, J. A. (2000). Treatment for sexually abused children and adolescents. American Psychologist, 55, 1040-1049

then,

Works with 6 or more authors

Use the principal author and et al every time.

Wolchik, S. A., West, S. G., Sandler, I. N., Tein, J., Coatsworth, D., Lengua, L. et al. (2000). An experimental evaluation of theory based mother and mother-child programs for children of divorce. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 68, 843-856.

Note: Separate the author names with "and" if the names appear in the running text (e.g. "Kraus and Allen (1998) stated that …"). Separate the author names with "&" if the names appear in parentheses (e.g. "Time frames impose a delimitation on research (Kraus & Allen, 1998)".). Use the ampersand, &, in your reference list, too.

Direct quotes

If you are quoting directly from a source (section 6.03 – 6.10 of the APA Manual), put the quotation in quotation marks and include a page number with the author's last name and year of the work at the end of the quote. For example,

"For goal setting to be effective, a systematic approach to the goal setting process must be taken and a number of important factors considered" (Gould, 1983, p. 7).

Or, put the author and the year before the quotation and include a page number in parentheses at the end of the quote. For example,

According to Gould (1983), when setting goals, "a systematic approach to the goal setting process must be taken and a number of factors considered" (p. 7).

If you have a direct quote of forty (40) words or more, indent the quoted section, omit the quotation marks, and follow the block quote with the page number(s) in parentheses. For example,

According to Kelly (1991),

Leisure is time beyond that which is required for existence, the things we must do, biologically, to stay alive and subsist, the things we must do to make a living. It is discretionary time, the time to be used according to our own judgement or choice. (p. 34)

Citing secondary sources

If you want to use an idea or concept from an author you didn't read (a secondary source) but cited in the work that you did read, put the idea into your own words and cite the text you read preceded by "as cited in". For example,

One such example of using art as leisure in prison is the work of Eames (as cited in Lynch & Veal, 1996) who described how the visual arts have been a positive factor in the rehabilitation process.

If you are citing material that provides non-recoverable data (i.e. data that is not readily recoverable by anyone else), you would be citing personal communication. Section 6.20 of the 6th edition of the APA Manual provides examples of such material. Citations of personal communications appear only in the text and have the following formats.

Two things to remember about references and citations:

• All the references cited within the body of your report must appear in your reference list (and visa versa!).
• The author(s) and date(s) cited in your report must match those in your reference list

On Writing Style

Cite every idea that is not your own, but this often leads to citing every line. DO NOT stick a citation at the end of a paragraph unless you are simply citing that last line. Instead, cite a reference at the first opportunity. Then, word your sentences such that it is clear if your are referring to details in a previous sentence. If you use the name(s) of the author(s) of the same reference within the same paragraph, you do not need to include the date in the citation The following excerpt from Blackadder (2002) is an example of those ideas.

Different groups also have different motivations. For example men and women have different motivations to climb. However, Morgan (1993) found that as the experience level increased in both groups, the differences in climbing motivations decreased. He found that the biggest differences were between beginner males and beginner females. The males were much more motivated by the challenge, risk, and accomplishment [than] the females. The females, however, were often motivated by the wilderness aspect of climbing and the men were not. When both groups became more advanced Morgan found that the motivations between the two groups became very similar. Both male and female experienced climbers were influenced by self-sufficiency, self understanding, challenge, and escape. (p. 9)

Blackadder, S. (2002). Activity profile: Rock climbing. Unpublished undergraduate report for OUTD 1110 FA, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.

Headings

Headings may not be required by all ORPT professors. A report or paper must read and flow properly with no headings at all. Headings are simply the section names that would appear in an outline or table of contents. Headings are used to visually break up a large mass of words for the reader (and the writer, too) and help them "see" the organization of the document.

If you use headings, ORPT requires you to follow the APA heading format. Details and examples of their use can be found in the APA Manual (pp. 62-63), but their format and use is outlined here.

Selecting Levels of Headings

Each section starts with the highest level of heading. The introduction is not labeled as such. Do not number or letter your headings.

Title Page

Not every professor in ORPT will ask you for a title page with each assignment; confirm with your professor to see if they want you to include one. If you include a title page, the following information, in the order listed, should appear centred (vertically and horizontally) and double-spaced on the page: a title appropriate for the report, your name, your student number, the professor's name, the course number, and the due date. The title page is counted as page 1 and so both the manuscript header and page number will appear on it.

Acknowledgment

This document was inspired by a similar one created by the University of Waikato in New Zealand. Over the years, this document has been transformed into what it is now, but some of the material seen here is from that original Waikato paper document.

Additional APA Resource Links

The provided links listed below connect to external APA resources.  This listing is by no means complete and will be updated as new informative links are found.  Please be aware that the content of these links are NOT maintained by and thus, are not the responsibility of Lakehead University or the School of Outdoor Recreation, Parks & Tourism.  If you are concerned about, or find inappropriate information in any of the links below, please inform the School of Outdoor Recreation, Parks & Tourism to address the situation promptly.