APA Style is the dominant writing style used in college in the United States, particularly at the bachelor’s degree level and higher. Because the goal of any writing is clear communication, and because communication is enhanced when writers and readers adhere to a common system, it is perhaps not surprising that the higher education academic community has converged on a dominant writing style, with 70% of all college degrees potentially requiring APA Style or allowing it as an option for writing academic assignments.
The widespread use of APA Style in college makes a compelling argument for students to learn APA Style. In particular, high school students who plan to go to college may benefit from learning APA Style; seven out of 10 of them will likely choose a major in which they can use APA Style. This cohort of students typically already knows MLA style; if that describes you or students with whom you work, check out the blog post on why to learn APA Style if you already know MLA style as well as the free APA Style and MLA Style Reference Comparison Guide (PDF, 104KB)opens in new window.
Strengths, limitations, and future directions
Strengths of this work include that it relied on official data from the U.S. government, capturing more than 4 million degrees awarded in the 2021–2022 school year. Another strength is that it used an existing taxonomy for degree classification. Degrees are awarded in hundreds of different majors, and this version of the taxonomy has been in use for more than 40 years, meaning it is familiar to many when describing the landscape of higher education.
However, this work has some limitations. First, it is important to note that just because APA Style is allowed as an option in many fields does not mean that everyone in those fields will choose APA Style. For example, it is possible that students will choose another writing style because they are more familiar with it, it is better suited to their work, or the instructor requires it. Second, the NCES data do not capture granular detail about the number of degrees awarded within fields. For example, the health professions and related programs categoryopens in new window includes many domains that require APA Style, such as nursing, speech-language pathology, physical therapy, marriage and family therapy, and clinical nutrition. However, others do not—medicine uses AMA style, and public health uses APA Style in some cases and AMA style in others. Thus, the actual usage of APA Style at the college level may be lower or different than is suggested here.
On the other hand, usage of APA Style may be higher in some cases. For example, some universities, such as the University of Phoenix and Walden University, have chosen to adopt APA Style at the university level. At schools that adopt APA Style at the university level, even students in fields that do not typically use APA Style or in which students typically have a choice of writing style are using APA Style.
Furthermore, although college is an important context in which to examine the use of APA Style, other contexts matter too. This work did not address how many people use APA Style in contexts such as research publication in academic journals, business and professional life, college classes that do not count toward a degree, and high school. Although we considered what writing style is required for the professional academic journals of that field when assigning a writing style to a field, fields vary in their emphasis on writing and in how strictly they expect authors to adhere to a writing style when publishing. We know APA Style is the expectation for psychology and nursing journals, but the actual degree to which professional journals in other fields actually use APA Style remains to be investigated.
An additional consideration is that we focused on the use of APA Style in the United States. Although APA Style is most established in the United States, it is used around the world, with notable levels of adoption in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Future work could address the prevalence of APA Style in those as well as other countries to identify patterns.
A related consideration is how APA Style is used in languages other than English. The Publication Manual (7th ed.) is currently available in translation in four other languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, and Japanese, with plans for more languages in the future. Although much of APA Style is relevant no matter what language you’re writing in, some aspects of APA Style, such as guidelines for writing about personal characteristics using bias-free and inclusive language, cannot be strictly translated but rather require adaptation and consideration of the cultural context. It would be interesting to examine how APA Style is or could be used in those cases.
Conclusion
There is no disputing the prevalence of APA Style in higher education. Seven out of 10 U.S. college students choose majors in which they could use APA Style, and APA Style becomes increasingly the expectation at higher degree levels. However, anyone who consumes scientific literature would be well-served to understand the basics of APA Style, such as how to use APA Style to read and understand abstracts (PDF, 437KB)opens in new window or how journal articles are put together (PDF, 227KB)opens in new window. Basic literacy in APA Style allows anyone to become a better consumer of scientific information.
If this work has convinced you or someone you care about to learn APA Style, the APA Style team is here to help. All people new to APA Style should check out the APA Style for beginners landing page. If you would like to share ideas for teaching APA Style or for improving our resources, please contact the APA Style team.
The mission of the American Psychological Association is to use psychology to improve people’s lives; in the APA Style department, we hope to do that by designing a style that is meaningful, meets the needs of users, and makes sense to learn and apply. We also appreciate any insights you want to share in the comments about the use of APA Style at your school.
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