[From the Archive] APA: First Things First

by Ryan Roark


This article first appeared in the December 2010 Online College of Humanities Faculty Newsletter.

I will begin with a confession: I used to be an APA fascist.  As a new faculty member, I was often overwhelmed with meeting the requirement to make substantive comments on 15 to 20 papers each week.  In reality, this is a challenging task for many of our faculty.  One way to meet this challenge is to comment only on the obvious, and formatting problems are some of the most obvious aspects of any paper.  It is exceedingly easy and quick to insert comment such as, "make sure your margins are set at 1 inch," or, "remember to include a page or paragraph number in your citation of direct quotes."  Comments like these take almost no time to make, so it is easy to create the appearance of thorough feedback.

I came to the realization, after torturing my students for far too long, that formatting concerns are among the least important aspects of student writing.  Many of our students enter the university with relatively poor writing abilities; that should come as no surprise to most faculty members.  In my courses, student papers consistently display poor organization, ambiguous or inaccurate statements, oversimplification and generalization, mere repetition of cited sources without critical commentary, glaring grammatical defects, and many other serious issues.  These are fatal flaws in student papers, and the most serious concerns should be responded to with more attention than minor issues.  When evaluating a paper with serious concerns, commenting heavily on formatting issues is analogous to arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

I have found it helpful to consider the concept of triage when evaluating student work. Triage is a medical term that refers to the process by which patients’ treatments are determined based on the severity of their injuries.  It is a method of determining which patients will be treated first, and critically injured patients are treated immediately.  Similarly, faculty members can support students by providing feedback that first addresses the most serious issues in their writing, and delaying feedback on relatively minor concerns such as formatting.  For example, I comment on formatting at the end of my feedback like this: "After you have worked on the issues I have detailed above, please pay attention to the following formatting improvements."  This keeps APA formatting concerns in perspective and reminds me (and my students) not to obsess over it.

When I write that formatting is a relatively minor concern, some faculty reading this article will be flabbergasted. I appreciate that formatting is an important aspect of any written work, especially considering the number of choices writers have at their disposal. For example, this newsletter is well formatted to maximize the impact of its content. In contrast, our students are not taught to understand formatting concepts nor allowed to make creative choices in formatting. Alas, they are simply expected to conform vacuously to a particular set of formatting requirements. Because students will rarely use APA format outside of college, and because there are far more interesting ways to format text, I view APA format as one of the least important things a student can learn from me. I would rather teach them how to write first. I will teach them how to format their content later, according to the adage, “First things first.”

Here are some questions to consider:

• What is most important to you in student writing?
• Where is APA formatting on your list of priorities, and why?