The ABCs of APA

It is not that APA writing style is particularly difficult, it is that this method is complicated, particularly for a newcomer.  On each of my first two papers, I may have spent as much time on the stylistics imposed by APA requirements as with the substance of the actual writing.  Yes, I get the point; these are research-based works and citation of sources is necessary so anyone curious about a particular point that is made can easily track that information down.  Still, it is quite foreign when compared to anything else I have ever written and, like so many other things associated with grad school, has taken some adjustment. 

The one aspect of APA that practically leaps off the page at both reader and writer is how seemingly everything, no matter how innocuous, is treated as worthy of citation with author, publication, date, and page number.  I half expect to find a paper that includes a source to justify the claim of the sun rising in the east.  Shouldn't some things be considered public knowledge, facts established beyond any hint of doubt? 

For example, I recently did a literature review on envy between siblings.  Every article I looked at included a citation for stating that a sibling relationship is usually the longest-lasting relationship any of us has.  That seems obvious, doesn't it?  The age difference puts a limit on one's relationship with parents; even the best of marriages won't start until a person is over 20; and, friendships also have built-in chronological limitations.  Apparently not good enough.   

Can't help but reminisce on occasion about the relative freedom of writing a 750-word column where the only requirement was  writing something that others would actually want to read and, if all went really well, be moved enough by it to write a letter to the editor to either hail the piece or condemn it.  I have had folks do both and have no particular preference as to which tack readers take.  Both are satisfying in that 1) people took the time to read something I wrote and 2) took a bit more time to think about it and formulate an opinion of their own.  

To a degree, I suppose APA sets the tone for similar results among academics.  They read another's published work, see where material and information came from, scour through the actual piece and possibly some of the sources, and find themselves intrigued enough by the subject matter to attempt to move the discussion further along by doing their own study.  None of this is meant as a complaint; it is simply an observation from someone new to the style.  I'll get better at it and fully expect to be able to justify each of its requirements as more assignments are completed.  A former colleague of mine may have been thinking of APA in saying "learning never ends, but will time?"