PSYC 497 -- Sample APA-style Manuscript

The following MS is based on an article that appeared in the journal Nature (Andrew J. Waters, Martin J. Jarvis, & Stephen R. Sutton (1998). Nicotine withdrawal and accident rates. Nature, 394, 9 Jul, 137). This journal does not use APA style for manuscripts. However, I have reformatted it using the original authors' text. On the following MS pages, the text is typed in courier-12 black. Comments and annotations that ARE NOT PART OF THE MS but are only there to point out features of APA style are typed in times-12 red. A copy of the original Nature article was handed out in class or can be picked up in my office.
the page header is typed flush right in the top margin one-half inch from the top of the page, consists of the first two or three words of the title, and ends with the page no. typed at the right margin 4 or 5 spaces to the right of the page header; this occurs on every page of text

Nicotine Withdrawal    1

type the entire MS in times or courier 12-pt font; the truly clever person will use courier

Running head: NICOTINE WITHDRAWAL AND ACCIDENTS

the running head is an abbreviated title no longer than 50 characters, typed in all caps, and appears only at the top of the title page; notice it is labeled with the words "Running head"; it should be typed flush left (which is to say, beginning at the lefthand margin)









Nicotine Withdrawal and Accident Rates

Andrew J. Waters

National Addiction Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, London

Martin J. Jarvis and Simon R. Sutton

University College London

the title and byline are roughly centered on the title page or are somewhat above center; only the first letters of words are capitalized; type the entire MS double spaced






























 
use one-inch margins on all sides of every page; the page header goes in the top margin of every page of text, includes the page no., and is typed flush right

Nicotine Withdrawal    2



Abstract

We used archival data obtained from the Health and Safety

Executive in Great Britain to investigate the hypothesis that

nicotine withdrawal causes deficits in real-world psychomotor

performance. The average rate of reported accidents on No Smoking

Day (the second Wednesday of March annually in the United Kingdom)

was compared to that from the preceding and following Wednesdays

for the period 1987 through 1996. We found that the rate of

reported accidents was significantly higher on NSD than on either

of the other two days. Our data suggest that the effects of

nicotine withdrawal can be detected in daily activities.


the abstract appears on page 2; notice the page header; the word Abstract appears on the first line of the page under the top margin, centered, with the first letter only capitalized; the abstract is then typed double spaced; the abstract is typed as a single paragraph, no longer than 120 words, and summarizes the paper; it is the only thing that appears on page 2





























 


Nicotine Withdrawal    3

the introduction begins on page 3; label it by typing the title centered at the top of the page

Nicotine Withdrawal and Accident Rates

     It is well known that when regular smokers quit smoking,
indent paragraphs 5 spaces
their mood and cognitive performance typically deteriorate within

a few hours of abstaining (Snyder, Davis, & Henningfield, 1989;

West, Jarvis, Russell, Carruthers, & Feyerabend, 1984). But do
see the APA style manual for the details of how to cite references
these psychological deficits, readily measured in the laboratory,

cause major disruption in everyday activities, such as
don't hypenate anything, even if it looks ugly not to
performance at work? Here we use a new method to address this

question.

     Since 1984, the second Wednesday of March has been known as
things that are common knowledge (such as the existence of NSD) do not need to be referenced
No Smoking Day (NSD) in the United Kingdom. There is evidence

(McGuire, 1992; West, 1997) that a large number of smokers (up to
cite references to back up every technical fact stated in the text
2 million) make an attempt to abstain from smoking, or smoke

less, on this day. We therefore decided to test the hypothesis

that nicotine withdrawal causes deficits in real-world

psychomotor performance by comparing a measure of performance on

NSD itself with performance on Wednesdays before and after NSD.

Method
center and capitalize the label for the Method section; notice - no page break here!
Materials
subsections are labeled with sideheads, capitalized, and typed in italics
     Our measure was the number of nonfatal accidents at work

reported to the Health and Safety Executive in Great Britain in

industries in which the executive is the enforcing authority.

Workplace accidents resulting in a major injury, or in a person

having to take more than three days off work, have, by law, to be

reported to this body in Great Britain. The National Health and



once again, use one-inch margins on all sides of the page



 


Nicotine Withdrawal    4



Safety Executive statistics are based on reports under the

Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences (Health

and Safety Executive, 1986).

Procedure
subsections within Method most often include Participants, Materials, and Procedure
     Our assumptions were as follows: first, there will be many

more people in the working population suffering from nicotine

withdrawal on NSD itself than on Wednesdays before and after; and

second, deterioration in psychological function as a result of

nicotine withdrawal causes an increased chance of an accident at

work.

     We compared the average number of reported accidents

occurring during NSD week with the average for the two weeks

before (our 'before' measure) and the average for the two weeks

after NSD week (our 'after' measure).

Results
use a centered section heading for Results; and still NO page break!
     Table 1 shows the means and standard errors of these

measures for the ten years (1987-96) for which daily data were

available. Planned paired-sample Student's t-tests (one-tailed)

indicated that there were significantly more reported accidents

on NSD than on the Wednesday in the 'before' measure, t(9) =
check the manual to see how to report your statistical results
-2.15, p = .03, or on the Wednesday in the 'after' measure, t(9)

= -5.95, p < .001.
no discussion or interpretation here in the Results section; save that for...
Discussion
another major section of the paper, so use a centered section heading for Discussion
     Visual inspection of data in Table 1 shows that, in contrast

with NSD, there were actually fewer reported accidents on the







 


Nicotine Withdrawal    5



Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday in NSD week than on those

days in the 'before' measure. This indicates that there was

nothing about the week of NSD generally that was generating an

excess of reported accidents. Moreover, although there are fewer

reported accidents generally in the 'after' measure (perhaps

because of better weather or more people being on holiday as

Spring progresses), the difference in the number of reported

accidents on NSD compared with the Wednesday in the 'after'

measure is larger than for all the other days. Finally, there are

also large day-of-the-week effects, for which there may be many

underlying causes.

     Of course, there may be some other factor associated with

NSD that underlies the effect seen. It is difficult, however, to

imagine what it might be, especially given that the actual date

of NSD can vary between 8 and 14 March across years. We stress

that the NSD effect, if real, should not be construed as

indicating that cessation attempts on No Smoking Day are a bad

idea, although it may suggest that wider use of nicotine

replacement might be beneficial. Our findings could be tested

with findings from other countries (for example, from the Great

American Smokeout) and by examining other variables for which

accurate day-by-day data are available (such as road traffic

accidents).

at last! a page break occurs at the end of the Discussion section










 


Nicotine Withdrawal    6



References
center this heading; DON'T call it a bibliography!
Health and Safety Executive. (1986). A guide to the reporting of

     Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations

     1985. London: HMSO.

McGuire, C. (1992). Pausing for breath: A review of No Smoking

     Day research 1984 to 1991. London: Health Education

     Authority.

Snyder, F. R., Davis, F. C., & Henningfield, J. E. (1989). The

     tobacco withdrawal syndrome: Performance decrements assessed

     on a computerized test battery. Drug & Alcohol Dependence,

     23(3), 259-266.

West, R. J. (1997). Getting serious about stopping smoking: A

     review of products, services, and techniques. A report for

     No Smoking Day. London: Health Education Authority.

West, R. J., Jarvis, M. J., Russell, M. A. H., Carothers, M. E.,

     & Feyerabend, C. (1984). Effect of nicotine replacement on

     the cigarette withdrawal syndrome. British Journal of

     Addiction, 79(2), 215-219.

some rules for typing references
  • typing references is a major pain; use the APA manual carefully to get the correct format
  • continue double spacing
  • all references cited in the text MUST occur in the References section
  • all references listed in the References section MUST be cited in the text














 


Nicotine Withdrawal    7



Author Note


     The authors wish to thank the Office of the Health and

Safety Executive in Great Britain for its help in this study.

     Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to

Andrew J. Waters, Tobacco Research Section, National Addiction

Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, London, SE5 8AF, UK.


you WILL have people to thank (people who helped you, authors who let you use their tests, etc.); put that in the Author Note, which goes on a separate page after the References










































 


Nicotine Withdrawal    8



Table 1
tables come next; type each on a separate page; continue to double space
Numbers of Reported Non-fatal Accidents 1987-96
every table has a title, typed at the top in italics
________________________________________________________________
continue to double space as you type the elements of your table
             Before NSD week      NSD week       After NSD week
             _______________   _______________   _______________

Day             M      SEM        M      SEM        M      SEM
___           _____   _____     _____   _____     _____   _____

Monday        695.9    28.2     690.3    28.5     646.6    24.1

Tuesday       593.3    22.6     586.1    19.8     555.4    19.9

Wednesday     553.4    17.6     575.8    16.7     519.1    18.2

Thursday      546.8    16.7     529.4    20.9     493.5    19.3

Friday        493.4    16.8     490.5    23.4     443.5a   20.1
________________________________________________________________

Note. Bold text distinquishes Wednesdays before and after NSD

week (bold) and NSD itself (bold italics).

a We excluded data from Fridays that were UK Bank Holidays when

computing this Friday value (the second Friday after NSD week in

1989 and 1991 was a 'Good Friday').


typing tables is a bit of an art form; check the APA manual for the picky details

following the last table comes a page with figure captions for all figures (there are none in this article, but see the example in the manual)

then come the figures themselves; these are the only pages without a page header or page number
















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