Donald R. Tapia College of Business, Saint Leo University

Your Professor’s Name, e.g. Professor Waddell

Assignment Due Date, e.g. January 21, 2020

My signature entered below constitutes my pledge that all the writing in this document is my own work, except for those portions which are properly documented and cited. I understand and accept the following definition of plagiarism:

1. Plagiarism includes the literal repetition without acknowledgment of the writings of another author. All significant phrases, clauses, or passages in this paper which have been taken directly from source material have been enclosed in quotation marks and acknowledged in the text itself as well as on the Reference page.

2. Plagiarism includes borrowing another’s ideas and representing them as my own.

3. To paraphrase the thoughts of another writer without acknowledgement is plagiarism.

4. Plagiarism also includes inadequate paraphrasing. Paraphrased passages (those put into my own words) have been properly acknowledged in the text and in the references.

5. Plagiarism includes using another person or organization to prepare this paper and then submitting it as my own work.

6. Plagiarism includes resubmitting my own previous work, in whole, or in part for a current assignment without the written consent of the current instructor.

Saint Leo University’s core value of integrity requires that students pledge to be honest, just, and consistent in word and deed. I fully understand what plagiarism is, and I further understand that if plagiarism is detected in my paper, my professor will follow the procedures for academic dishonesty set forth by Saint Leo University, the Donald R. Tapia College of Business and the Graduate Student Handbook.

Student Signature: [Type Full Name Here]

Abstract [Centered, Bold]

Start the abstract flush with the left margin; do not indent. According to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), “An abstract is a brief, comprehensive summary of the contents of the paper” (APA, 2020, p. 38). It allows readers to survey the contents of an article quickly and, like a title, it enables persons interested in the document to retrieve it from abstracting and indexing databases. The first line of the abstract is not indented. An abstract may range from 150 to 250 words (APA, 2020). Because an abstract is not always required for student papers, adhere to your instructor’s requirements.

Keywords: Follow the abstract with a selection of keywords that describe the important ideas or subjects in your paper. These help online readers search for your paper in a database.

The keyword list should have its first line indented 0.5 inches. keywords are written in lowercase (except for proper nouns) and separated by commas. Do not place a period at the end of the list.

Title of Your Paper [Centered, Bold]

Begin your paper on the next double-spaced line after the title, and indent all paragraphs 1/2 inch. In the updated manual on p. 154, writers are asked to include only one space between sentences rather than two spaces. When writing in APA style, you have two choices for in-text citations: narrative citations or parenthetical citations. According to a fictitious book by Harding and Jiménez (2020), a narrative citation occurs when you include “authors’ names as part of your sentence” (p. 24). Furthermore, Harding and Jiménez (2020) explain that you only need to provide a page number at the end of a narrative citation when directly quoting from the source. If the authors’ names do not appear in your sentence, you will use a “parenthetical citation” (Harding & Jiménez, 2020, p. 24). Similar to the above example, you only need to include a page number when quoting the authors’ original words (Harding & Jiménez, 2020). The APA manual summarizes these rules and related concepts on pp. 261-264.

All Headings Are Bold and Written in Title Case (Level 1, Bold, Centered)

You can read more about formatting section headings in the APA manual on pp. 47-49. Not included in this template is a level 5 heading, which is virtually identical to a level 4 heading, except it is italicized. According to the APA (2020), “The number of levels of heading needed for a paper depends on its length and complexity; three is average. … [S]hort student papers may not require any headings” (p. 48).

New Rules for Citations (Level 2, Bold, Left Justified)

First Rule (Level 3, Flush Left, Italicized, Bold, No Punctuation)

Begin indented paragraph on the next line. A couple of important new rules concerning in-text citations appear in the APA manual. The first pertains to citing works by three or more authors. Instead of writing each author’s name in the first citation, then utilizing the abbreviation “et al.” for all subsequent citations, the APA advises writers to use the “et al.” abbreviation for every in-text citation for works by three or more authors. For example, my first in-text citation for a work by three authors would look like this (Harris et al., 2020). This new guideline reduces the amount of clutter created by listing each author’s name. You can read more about the use of “et al.” on p. 266 of the APA manual.

Second Rule

The other significant change to in-text citation formatting has to do with repeating narrative citations. For example, if I am writing a paragraph focused specifically on the work of Brown (2016), I would need to provide the year in parenthesis only after the first reference to Brown. As you can see, I could write more about the groundbreaking work of Brown without cluttering my paragraph with multiple in-text citations containing the year. However, if I am referencing more than one work by Brown, I must provide a complete in-text citation after each reference to Brown. That way, my reader won’t be confused. I would also need to provide the year in any parenthetical citation referencing the author (Brown, 2016). This new rule is described on pp. 265-266 in the APA manual.

Similar Rule. (Level 4, Indented, Plain Text, Begins Paragraph, Punctuated) In a similar vein, if I am writing a long paraphrase of a single work, I need to provide only one in-text citation at the beginning of the paragraph as long as “the context of the writing makes it clear that the same work continues to be paraphrased” (APA, 2020, p. 269). In other words, I could continue to write more about how the manual provides a helpful figure of this rule on p. 270. I would not need to provide a citation when telling you that if the paraphrase is long enough to warrant the creation of a new paragraph, you will need to provide an in-text citation at the top of the new paragraph. As you can see, I am still discussing the APA manual in a specific context, so I am not required to cite the manual again in this paragraph unless I introduce information from a new source. Even so, if you think your professor or reader might question where you found a certain piece of information, it won’t hurt to provide an extra citation or two.

Punctuating In-Text Citations

So far, you might have noticed that parenthetical citations typically appear before the sentence’s end punctuation, because the parenthetical citation is just another element belonging to the sentence. However, there is one specific instance when the parenthetical citation comes after the end punctuation. In the case of block quotations (a quotation of 40 words or more), you will introduce the quotation and demarcate it using special indentation:

Pretend that this is the beginning of the block quotation. First, notice that this long quotation is not surrounded by marks. It is the only time in your paper where you will quote something without using quotation marks. Next, the quotation is indented 1/2 inch from the left, and it’s left-justified, meaning that the quote’s left margin forms a straight line up and down. Last but not least, you will provide the parenthetical citation after the end punctuation (and because it’s a direct quotation, you will include the page number). Use block quotes sparingly. (Harding, 2020, p. 49)

If the original paragraph continues after the quotation, begin on the next double-spaced line, making sure that the line is flush left. If you want to begin a new paragraph after the block quotation, you will indent the new paragraph 1/2 inch from the left margin. Finally, if you include a narrative citation when introducing the block quote (i.e. “According to Harding (2020) …”), only include the page number in the parenthetical citation after the block quote. You can read more about these rules on pp. 272-273 of the APA manual.]

References [Centered, Bold]