Formatting an APA Paper

Rivier College Writing & Resource Center Formatting an APA Paper (6th Edition—Revised January, 2012) ______Guidelines: 1. Use 1” margins and a12 pt. Times New Roman or Courier font. 2. Avoid abbreviations; if one is used, write it out the first time and include the abbreviation in parentheses directly following the phrase. Then you may use the abbreviation. 3. Use commas before “and” in lists, and for separating a series within a sentence as in: “three choices are (a) yes, (b) no, and (c) maybe.” 4. Spell out numbers below 10; use numerals for numbers 10 and above or for numerals grouped with 10 or above (i.e.: from 5 to 12 hours of sleep).

Title Page:

Running head: EFFECTS OF AGE ON DETECTION OF EMOTION 1

Effects of Age on Detection of Emotional Information

Christina M. Leclerc and Elizabeth A. Kensinger

Boston College

The running head is an abbreviated title (maximum of 50 characters) that will be used for the published article. Type out the words “Running head” and use all caps. The running head is positioned flush left on the first page of your Provide three- five keywords from your abstract to aid Second Page of Document—Abstract: (Not always required; check with your professor) your readers

EFFECTS OF AGE ON DETECTION OF EMOTION 2

Abstract An abstract is a brief summary of Age differences were examined in affective processing, in the context of a the contents of your essay. The visual search task. Young and older adults were faster to detect high arousal abstract is typically 150-250 images compared with low arousal and neutral items. Younger adults were words and must be readable, faster to detect positive high arousal targets compared with other categories. concise, and well organized. In contrast, older adults exhibited an overall detection advantage for emotional

images compared with neutral images. Together, these findings suggest that

older adults do not display valence-based effects on affective processing at

relatively automatic stages.

Keywords: aging, attention, information processing, emotion, visual search

First Page of the Body of Your Paper:

EFFECTS OF AGE ON DETECTION OF EMOTION 3

Center the complete title of your essay on the Effects of Age on Detection of Emotional Information first page of your text only. Frequently, people encounter situations in their environment in which it is impossible to attend to all available stimuli. It is therefore of great importance

for one’s attentional processes to select only the most salient information in the

environment to which one should attend. Previous research has suggested that

emotional information is privy to attentional selection in young adults (e.g.,

& Tapia, 2004; Nummenmaa, Hyona, & Calvo, 2006), an obvious service to Three Levels of Headings:

EFFECTS OF AGE ON DETECTION OF EMOTION 4 Level A—centered, Method bold, capitalize all Level B— appropriate individual Participants left words justified, bold, Younger adults (14 women, 10 men, Mage = 19.5 years, age range: 18–22 years) capitalize all words were recruited with flyers posted on the Boston College campus. Older adults (15 women, nine men, age = 76.1 years, age range: 68–84 years) were recruited through

the Harvard Cooperative on Aging (see Table 1, for demographics and test scores).

Participants were compensated $10 per hour for their participation. (section continues)

Level C— Materials and Procedure indented from left margin, The visual search task was adapted from Ohman et al. (2001). There were 10 bold, capitalize different types of items (two each of five Valence × Arousal categories: positive high only first word, use a arousal, positive low arousal, neutral, negative low arousal, negative (section continues) period at the end, and Valence and arousal ratings. Valence and arousal were judged on 7-point begin text on same line. scales (1 =negative valence or low arousal and 7 = positive valence or high arousal).

Items in a Series:

EFFECTS OF AGE ON DETECTION OF EMOTION 5 Identify elements in a series by lowercase letters Use The participants’ three choices were (a) working with another participant, in parentheses. semicolons Within a (b) working with a team, and (c) working alone. . . .(section continues) to separate sentence, use three or commas to We tested three groups: (a) low scorers, who scored fewer than 20 points; more separate three or elements more elements. (b) moderate scorers, who scored between 20 and 50 points; and (c) high scorers, that have internal who scored more than 50 points. . . . (section continues) commas. How to format headers for APA research papers:

1. On your cover page, click on Insert (bar at top left of screen) 2. Select Header 3. Select Edit Header (bottom of option screen) 4. At top of screen under Design, check off Different First Page 5. In the blank header on your cover page, type Running head: AS MUCH OF YOUR TITLE IN ALL CAPS THAT WILL FIT 6. Tab to right of this first header, select Insert, then select Page Number from options to the right 7. Select the option Current Position from the screen that comes up, and then click on the Plain Number box at the top to the left; the number 1 will appear 8. Go down to the second page, type in your running head in all caps (without the label), tab to the right and repeat step above; the number 2 should appear 9. The computer will format the rest of your pages 10. Click on Design at top of screen and select Close Header and Footer