Running head: GENRE STUDY

Genre Study: The Power of APA Style

Alayna Stein
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
Fall 2014, ENG 313

GENRE STUDY

2
Genre Study: The Power of APA Style

I have only one important characteristic, Burris: I'm stubborn. I've had only one idea in
my lifea true ide fixe . . . to put it as bluntly as possible, the idea of having my own way.
Control expresses it, I think. The control of human behavior, Burris. In my early experimental
days it was a frenzied, selfish desire to dominate. I remember the rage I used to feel when a
prediction went awry. I could have shouted at the subjects of my experiments, Behave, damn
you, behave as you ought! Eventually I realized that the subjects were always right. They
always behaved as they ought. It was I who was wrong. I had made a bad prediction.
In his novel, Walden Two, behaviorist researcher B.F. Skinner expressed through the
character of Frazier his own personal opinions regarding the Scientific Method that he was
unable to publically express to the scientific community. As a behaviorist researcher, it was his
ultimate goal to show that human behavior could be controlled, manipulated and produced.
However, what Skinner found in many of his early experiments was that observing behavior
must be the initial step.
Here was a first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: When you
run onto something interesting, drop everything else and study it.
Skinner had unknowingly ignited the emergence of the Scientific Method. Developed to
define science as a method for testing and modifying beliefs through experience, the Scientific
Methods main characteristic was its empirical and self-correcting nature. Empirical research is
knowledge acquired through observation which inherently leads to the Scientific Methods
ability to find and fix errors of past research. In an ever changing environment, human behavior
innately adapts for optimal survival. Using the Scientific Method, researchers are able to track
the progress of these changes and how they direct behavior. As the understanding of human

GENRE STUDY

behaviors, motives, weaknesses, etc. increases through research, we continue to move toward a
complex society with a major conflict between having the ability to manipulate the character of
human kind and human kinds ability to recognize and retaliate against that manipulation.
One method of the execution of this manipulation is rhetorical language. Previous
research has identified the ability of language use to circumvent the general publics
understanding of certain issues. Using language in research articles, terms of agreement
statements, laws, etc. that goes beyond the reach of the average reader can be confusing and
influential and can ultimately lead to changing an individuals behavior without their fully
informed consent (see Appendix for more information).
Enter the American Psychological Association. The accuracy and precision achieved
through the Scientific Method is the driving motive recreated in APA style. Within the genre of
research articles, the APA has developed a style guide to be strictly followed by all researchers
and authors publishing material in the field. This year, the APA released the sixth edition of its
manual. The manuals introduction offers an explanation of the associations ultimate goal;
Over the years, the Publication Manual has grown by necessity from a simple set of style rules
to an authoritative source on all aspects of scholarly writing, from the ethics of duplicate
publication to the word choice that best reduces bias in language. The American Psychological
Associations authoritarian grip on writing in the sciences is not a secret. The goal of this study
is to explore the avenues of impact the APAs power has on all writing within the genre of
research articles and ultimately to show how the limits it places on authors use of prose style is
detrimental to the advancement of science.

GENRE STUDY

Method
Materials
The articles used in the current study were Wrzesniewksi et al.s 2014 study, Multiple
types of motives don't multiply the motivation of West Point cadets taken from the journal of
PNAS and Alicia Grandeys 2003 article, When the show must go on: Surface acting and deep
acting as determinants of emotional exhaustion and deeper-rated service delivery, taken from
the Academy of Management journal, the contents of which I found to be relevant to the present
discussion regarding the motives and influences of human behavior.
Procedure
To begin answering the multi-faceted question of the APAs degree of influence, I have
investigated the use of prose style in the procedure, results and discussion sections of the
previously mentioned research articles. I hypothesized that plain style would be abundant in the
procedural section, official style would define the results sections and that the discussion sections
would be more predominantly creative in style.
Results
Now for a second unformalized principle of scientific practice: Some ways of doing
research are easier than others.
Skinners presence in the rhetorical development of the scientific method and indeed the
authoritative members of the APA at times have the tendency to feel ominous and otherworldly;
the clandestine and celestial rulers of the scientific universe. Thus I feel it is important to
provide a reminder that Skinner was as human as any one of us. Scientists take short cuts. As is
true for prose style, some ways of writing are easier than others. However, APA style and its
demands of language to reduce bias effectively eliminate the ability for authors to take short cuts

GENRE STUDY

in their writing. This offers an explanation as to why examples of plain style, a prose style
characterized by short cuts, are few and far between in research articles. One of these short
cuts, what rhetoric researcher Richard Lanham refers to as the paramedic method is
fundamental in plain style. The goal of the paramedic method is to create sentences that are
easy to read [and thus] more persuasive and more user-centered (Purdue University, 2010). In
the procedure section of a research report, the researchers responsibility is to create a clear
outline of how the study was conducted in a way that makes it easy for other researchers to
potentially replicate the study. In her 2003 article, When The show must go on: Surface acting
and deep acting as determinants of emotional exhaustion and deeper-rated service delivery,
Alicia Grandey provides a substantial amount of examples of plain style used in her procedure
for the experiment. One of the main strategies used in plain style is metabasis, or stating what
has been said and/or what will follow. The instructional tone delivered in procedure sections of
research articles is a form of metabasis that indicates plain style in this context. The active voice
is also used throughout Grandeys procedure, emphasizing the subject and the verb of the
sentence, for example, Surveys were sent or I viewed or I sent or a reminder letter and
additional copies of the survey were sent. First person was also used throughout the procedure
section. The average sentence within Grandeys procedure, such as Gender was not related to
the variables of interest, was short and not complex. All of these stylistic techniques point
toward plain styles strong representation in the procedure sections of research articles.
The present study found that the results sections of research articles are often
characterized by official style. One technique that defines official style is an exaggerated use of
prepositional phrases. In the following sentence taken from Wrzesniewksis study (2014), the
prepositional phrases have been italicized, Across two different survey measures administered

GENRE STUDY

by the institution at the start of their first year, cadets indicated how much each of a set of
reasons offered represented their reasons for attending West Point, which allowed them to
endorse any number of reasons at various levels of strength (response scales for the two
measures ranged from very important to not important on a 13 Likert-type scale; and very
positive to very negative on a 15 Likert-type scale). In addition to the abundant prepositional
phrases, the references to the response scales also characterize official style as an example of
highly composed jargon that is inaccessible to those who are unfamiliar with those scales. The
use of the passive or impersonal voice is demanded by APA style within the results section of a
research article as a method of reducing bias. Again, Wrzesniewksis article offers more than
enough evidence to support this finding; Of the various reasons offered, two types were of key
interest: reasons indicating an internal desire to become an Army officer and reasons indicating
an instrumental desire to gain eventual outcomes associated with attending West Point. A
version of this sentence written in the active voice may instead be written as We were interested
in two types of reasons offered: the first reason shows internal desires and the second reason
shows instrumental desires. Readability statistics also show the low readability scores of results
sections that are characteristic of official style. For example, the following section received a
reading ease score of 33.2 on a 1-100 scale: Retention probability after completion of
mandatory service at different levels of instrumental motivation. Each graph shows the impact of
internally based motives on retention probability at high (95% quantile), median, and low (5%
quantile) levels of instrumental motives. Officers are more likely to exit the military following
their mandatory service period, except in cases where their internally based reasons for attending
West Point were strongest (P = 0.01). The graphs reflect the logit-transformed probability of
remaining in the military. n = 7,663. While the official style is scattered throughout research

GENRE STUDY

articles by demand of APA formatting and phrasing, these examples support the researchers
hypothesis that result sections of research reports are significantly saturated with official style.
Creative style was found to be statistically more abundant within the discussion sections
of research articles. Creative style is characterized by an artful use of rhetorical devices The
use of metaphors was found to be present, such as the Wrzesniewski et al.s references to
motivational crowding out and what might be called experimental party tricks and the
metaphor of customer service as an act used in Grandeys article. The concluding sentiment in
Grandeys study repeats this use of the metaphor by saying, This study provides evidence for
encouraging and training service personnel in deep acting when the show must go on.
(Wrzesniewski, 2014; Grandey, 2003). The rhetorical device of analogy (theorized in
psychology as analogical transfer) was used throughout the discussion section of Wrzesniewskis
article, notably during the explanation of their findings; This might be called a shotgun
approach to recruitment; if one piece of buckshot fails to hit the target, perhaps another one will.
This shotgun strategy may get more recruits, but it may also yield worse soldiers. If a subset of
students is not interested in learning, or even in grades, then offers of financial incentives for
good attendance and high performance may reach students who cannot be reached in other
ways. More examples of the creative style in research article discussions include the use of
alliteration in the sentence, service workers engaged in such faking in bad faith from
Grandeys article and the imagery used in the phrase Years that unfolded in Wrzesniewskis
article. In the following series of sentences taken from Wrzesniewskis article; Diligent
students learn and get good grades. Doctors ease suffering and make a good living, the multiple
rhetorical devices of Parallelism (i.e. putting equally important ideas into similar grammatical
structures) and Polysyndeton (i.e. using conjunctions between every word, phrase or clause in a

GENRE STUDY

series), that could be used to define the series shows the significant extent of the creative style
through the use of rhetorical devices found in discussion sections of research articles. Another
characteristic of the creative style is the presence of a greater variety in word choice and sentence
structure. Grandeys article provides a clear example of this style in the sentences that read
This result supports the idea that deep acting has the power to convince an audience, as the
Stanislavsky method theory of acting and Hochschild's (1983) work imply. But is this effortful
process stressful for employees? The combination of a complex sentence followed by a
question directed to the reader provides further evidence of the variability that defines the
creative style.

Discussion
A third unformalized principle of scientific practice: Some people are lucky.
As an undergraduate student fully enveloped in the overlapping and often combative
fields of Rhetorical Writing and Psychology, I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to
expand beyond the limits of APA style. Bear with me here; Skinners research is world
renowned and the catalyst to a whole body of literature spanning decades of imperative
information gained from the studies of human behavior. This vast impact could not have been
achieved without pushing the limits of scientific methodology; evidence of why diversity in
thinking is vital to the success of any operation, but that is a whole different field of psychology
(see appendix for more on this topic). Nonetheless, Skinners impact on the scientific
community provides more than enough reason for the diversification of prose style in all writing.
In his case study on the scientific method, Skinner writes, But our experience with practical
control suggests that we may reduce the troublesome variability by changing the conditions of
the experiment. By discovering, elaborating, and fully exploiting every relevant variable, we

GENRE STUDY

may eliminate in advance of measurement the individual differences which obscure the
difference under analysis. This will achieve the same result as increasing the size of groups, and
it will almost certainly yield a bonus in the discovery of new variables which would not have
been identified in the statistical treatment. In conjunction with the possibility of using all of the
various prose styles in writing, the idea follows that new territory cannot be discovered without
breaking the boundaries. APA confinement acts as a roadblock to this kind of advancement in
all areas of academia. The organization of the present article was intended to exemplify the
limits created by APA formatting. Future research could examine the other stylistic guides such
as MLA and Chicago style. Additionally, future research could examine the previous versions of
the APA style guide and the corresponding transitions in the body of psychological literature.

GENRE STUDY

10
References

American Psychological Association. (2014). Publication manual of the American psychological

association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

American Psychological Association. (2014). APA style. Retrieved December 14, 2014, from American
Psychological Association website: http://www.apastyle.org/

Grandey, A. A. (2003). When "The show must go on": Surface acting and deep acting as detriments of
emotional exhaustion and peer rated service-delivery. Academy of Management Journal, 46(1),
86-96.

Skinner, B.F. (1956). A case history in scientific method. American Psychologist, 11(5), 221-233.
doi:10.1037/h0047662

Writing Lab, The OWL at Purdue, & Purdue University. (1995-2014). Purdue OWL: APA formatting
and style guide. Retrieved December 14, 2014, from Purdue University Online Writing Lab
website: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

Writing Lab, The OWL at Purdue, & Purdue University. (2010). Purdue OWL: Paramedic method: A
lesson in writing concisely. Retrieved December 15, 2014, from Purdue University Online
Writing Lab website: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/635/01/

GENRE STUDY

11

Wrzesniewski, A., Schwartz, B., Cong, X., Kane, M., Omar, A., & Kolditz, T. (2014). Multiple types of
motives don't multiply the motivation of West Point cadets. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, 111(30), 10990-10995.

Appendix
Stein, A. (2014). 5 ways to improve employee engagement in a diverse workplace. Retrieved
December 14, 2014: https://docs.google.com/a/uwlax.edu/document/d/1LZ6jc28rgbDrZRwJe_djrOmnV6QQi_uwoFTpJwHyvQ/edit?usp=sharing

Stein, A. (2014). Demanding our rights with our words. Retrieved December 14, 2014 from
Prose Works website: http://proseworks.blogspot.com/2014/11/demanding-our-rightswith-our-words.html
Stein, A. (2014). The official style battle of journalism and experimental research. Retrieved
December 14, 2014 from Prose Works website:
http://proseworks.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-official-style-battle-of-journalism_22.html