Finding Errors in Complying with APA’s Citation and Reference Styles*, **
Some spacing and punctuation errors in citations and references are hard for writers to avoid
when trying to comply with publishers’ styles. Writers trying to comply with APA’s style for
citations and references often:

forget the comma between author and date in parenthetical citations

forget to space between authors’ initials in references

forget the serial comma in parenthetical citations and references

forget the comma between the period and the & in references

forget to space between p. and the page number and pp. and the page span

use hyphens instead of en dashes in number spans (i.e., page and date spans).
Everyone makes such errors. Looking for them when reading might make you lose focus and
miss bigger problems: unclear phrasing, vague pronoun reference, subject-verb agreement errors,
pronoun-antecedent errors, dangling modifiers, inaccurate comparisons, faulty parallelism, etc.
Simply assume you’ve made such errors and use Word’s tools to find them.
I always search for such errors first when copyediting, using a long list of typical writing
problems (i.e., “the usual suspects”). I search for, find, and fix them before reading line by line.
Thus, I’m not distracted by them when reading.
Screen shots below show how to set up the “Find what” box in Word’s “Find and Replace”
window to find some of the problems mentioned above and below. Symbols shown are found by
clicking on entries in the pop-up menu appearing when you click the “Special” tab in the “Find
and Replace” window. Click “Any Letter” in the pop-up menu and ^$ appears in the “Find what”
box. Click “Any Digit” and ^# appears in “Find what.” So, to find missing commas between
author and date in parenthetical citations:

Enter in “Find what” ^$ ^#^#^#^# (This search finds highlighted cases of the missing
comma between author/source and date: (DeSombre, 2000; March & Olsen 1998;
Steinberg & VanDeveer 2012, p. 33); (Sabatier 1998); and (GoB 2009).)
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When searching, Word takes you to things that aren’t problem areas, but eventually takes you to
all things that are.
Two searches for other kinds of errors in complying with APA’s style:

To find the missing space between authors’ initials in references, enter ^$.^$ (This search
finds the highlighted problem (i.e., it should be F. R.)):
Baumgartner, F.R. (2007). EU lobbying: A view from the US. Journal of European Public
Policy, 14:3, 482–488.

To find the missing comma between the period and the & in references, enter . & (This
search finds the highlighted problem (i.e., it should be K., &)):
Hochstetler, K. & Keck, M. E. (2007). Greening Brazil – Environmental activism in state and
society. Durham: Duke University Press.
Now you have tools for finding many kinds of errors in complying with APA’s citation and
reference styles. Use those tools. Let Word’s “Find what” functionality do the drudgery for you.
Good hunting!
* Of course, you can use Word’s “Find what” functionality to search for errors in complying
with other citation and reference styles (e.g., Chicago’s styles), too. Chicago doesn’t use a
comma between author and date, for example (Smith 2012), but many writers erroneously write
(Smith, 2012). To find such errors enter ^$, ^#^#^#^# in “Find what.”
** And you can use Word’s “Find what” functionality to search for many kinds of errors, not
just errors in complying with citation and reference styles. When you find errors of any kind,
always assume you’ve made them elsewhere. Think about what symbols, words, or phrases to
enter in “Find what,” enter them, and find all other cases of each error.
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Click the “Special” tab to display a pop-up menu:
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Search for missing commas (APA’s style) between author and date in parenthetical citations:
Search for lack of space between authors’ initials in references (APA’s style calls for space):
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Search for the missing comma between the period and the & in references (APA’s style calls for
a comma):
Search for missing space between p. or pp. and page numbers:
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Finding hyphens in number spans (e.g., date and page spans) and replacing them with en dashes:
Never click “Replace All.” Just one example: If you click “Replace All,” you’ll have a disaster
because you’ll change the hyphens in the following to en dashes:
http://www.brasil.gov.br/infraestrutura/2014/11/leilao-contrata-1-658-8-mw-de-potencia-cominvestimentos-de-r-7-1-bi. Instead, click “Find Next.” When Word finds number spans with
hyphens, click “Replace.”
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