Why Educators Should Learn APA style

I'm often asked why students should learn APA style, especially in a master's program. Doctoral students seem to be able to see a purpose for it, but MS and MEd students? Sometimes not so much. So, why do I require all written work to be formatted in APA style? Here are a few reasons:

1. APA is one of the major "languages" of educational research. Getting to know APA will help you be a better consumer of research. It will help you read research more quickly, more critically and it will make complicated studies accessible. Writing and reading APA means that you can be both a consumer and a contributor of educational research and ideas--it makes you part of a larger, historic and exhilarating conversation about improving education. Of course, it's possible to be productive and contribute great ideas without learning APA, but not learning it excludes you from many of the most important conversations. Note that APA is not the ONLY style used--for example, many of the best journals and books used internationally use Harvard, Chicago or other styles. Unfortunately, this is a barrier that can get in the way of us sharing our work and ideas across borders, but that's a post for another day.
2. Writing in APA helps an aspiring administrator (or educator) develop sound habits of mind. Writing in APA, you have to be disciplined, you pay attention to detail and perhaps most importantly you need to support your claims with evidence. While the first two I listed here are fairly obvious skills you develop writing in APA, the last is the most important. Educational research and practice should be informed by sound research. When you make decisions in a school--whether these are in the classroom or from an administrative position--there should be a reason. As educators, we all ask "why" but scholar-educators take it upon themselves to have a better answer to this question than "that's the way we've always done it," "that's what all the other schools are doing" or "because I said so." In APA, you must support your claims by citing relevant research that informed your perspective--this is something we should all strive to do in our practice and scholarship.
3. Writing in APA can improve your communication. The way you get better at writing is by writing--there is no substitution for lifelong practice. For some people, the most intense instruction they received on writing took place during their school years, and for some others during their college experience. Practicing APA, or any regimented form of writing for that matter, will have the residual effects of helping you as a public speaker, it will help you write better emails, tweets and blog posts, improve delivery to students, allow you to create better presentations to people in and out of your school and enable you to facilitate better group interactions. 

We all need to practice and improve our communication, both intake and output--working hard on being a better writer will help you be a better thinker and that can only improve you and your organization.