Does your program require that you use APA Style for the research papers you write?
Did you go out and buy the brand new 6th Edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association?
Yes? Well, I have some bad news for you.
It seems that the first printing of the 6th edition is riddled with errors. What’s worse is that many of the errors are in the very examples you count on to make sure that your own writing is error-free.
How do you know if your copy of the 6th edition Manual is from the first printing? Two ways:
- If you have the paperback and you bought it before November 2009 (in case you are reading this in the future), then you have one from the first printing.
- If you have the hardcover or spiral bound book, just look at the fourth (unnumbered) page of the book. It’s the same page as the copyright and cataloging-in-publication data. At the bottom of the page it will say “First Printing” or “Second Printing”.
So, what can you do to be sure you are looking at the correct examples? At the moment, all we can do is look at the two PDFs (here and here) of corrections that the APA has posted on their website.
At the moment, the APA has kindly decided that posting the errata in those PDFs is a better option than replacing the defective books with with the corrected second printing. Don’t agree? You could always contact APA Style to let them know how you think they should fix this problem.
Update: If you want to exchange your copy for a corrected “second printing” version they should be available after November 2 through the APA Service Center – 800 374-2721.
You can find an interesing story about this on the Inside Higher Ed blog.
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