Best practices for teaching APA Style to students of all levels

As the spring semester is underway in the United States, the APA Style team has been compiling best practices for teaching APA Style, no matter what level you teach (or if you’re a student: learn!). If your students will use APA Style in your class or a future class, we have some great tips that can help students become better writers and save you from reading more poorly formatted and cited papers!

Our three guidelines for teachers at all levels are as follows:

• Teach APA Style directly.
• Teach APA Style in the context of your curriculum.
• Teach APA Style incrementally over time.

We know that your syllabus is filled to the brim with learning objectives already. However, there are great and accessible ways to incorporate APA Style into your classes with a bit of planning and our instructional aids—helping your students write with clarity, precision, and inclusion.

With limited class time, many instructors have their students learn APA Style on their own by using internet resources, citation generators, and (hopefully) reference texts like the Publication Manual (7th ed.) and Concise Guide to APA Style (7th ed.). However, taking some class time to teach elements of APA Style directly can lead to the best learning outcomes for students (Mandernach et al., 2016).

Nevertheless, if your time is limited, teaching students how to use a reference text and find appropriate sources can be a good use of your instructional time. Working with them on our Manual Lookup Activity (PDF, 87KB)opens in new window or reinforcing the elements of a reference (PDF, 220KB)opens in new window (author, date, title, source) can provide the tools needed to learn other elements of APA Style independently. Knowing the basics about creating references and their associated in-text citations can help students spot citation-generator errors and better understand how to avoid plagiarism. By teaching elements of APA Style directly, during class or online, you can provide the knowledge that students will need as they become more independent with APA Style writing.

If you would like to add elements of APA Style into your classes, you do not have to schedule a separate lesson or jam the entire Publication Manual or Concise Guide into an hour! Instead, think about how good writing and communication are related to what you are already teaching. Are you assigning a journal article reading to beginning students? Try pairing the article with our Anatomy of a Journal Article (PDF, 227KB)opens in new window handout to help students understand how to read scientific research. If your students are writing research papers, the Research Article Activity (PDF, 105KB)opens in new window is a great way for them to hone their reading comprehension and paraphrasing skills. This way, they can achieve their course objectives, whether learning about pharmacology or social psychology, while they strengthen their critical thinking and writing abilities. If you are teaching about people, a conversation about inclusive language is always a good idea. Our Brief Guide to Bias-Free and Inclusive Language (PDF, 316KB)opens in new window is a good start.

The best way to learn APA Style is one step at a time. If it is possible to collaborate with other instructors in your department, consider the ways in which you can build APA Style knowledge throughout the curriculum. Having consistent standards and expectations for writing throughout the curriculum and applying them in all classes can create confident, competent academic writers. For example, in an introductory class, have students use in-text citations in their discussion posts to get a feel for citation, or have them practice paraphrasing a lesson or journal article. Then, as they move into more advanced classes, they can work on more advanced topics, like APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards. Even during one class, you can help students build their knowledge through instruction, resources, and practice one step at a time.

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is an opportunity and concern for many instructors and students. As GenAI continues to improve, instructors have more difficulty spotting AI-generated content (Fleckenstein et al., 2024). Rather than focus on detecting use of AI, we recommend focusing on the process of writing and including incremental check-ins throughout the semester to help students focus on their learning objectives. Also encourage them to follow the AI plagiarism guidelines of your course or institution. Stay tuned to our blog for a future post about best practices for writing education in the age of AI.

Many of our instructional aids, best practices, and tips come from the experiences of teachers and students like you! What are your best practices? What have you learned is key to helping your students become great communicators? Do you have any lessons, handouts, or assignments that have been particularly helpful or compelling? If you’d like to share, drop a comment below or email us.

Do you have some time for a deep dive into APA Style best practices? Check out our YouTube channelopens in new window for videos that delve deeper into best practices for teaching APA Style.