In 1928 editors and business managers of anthropological and psychological journals met to discuss the form of journal manuscripts and to write instructions for their preparation. The report of this meeting, which was chaired by Madison Bentley and sponsored by the National Research Council, is the forerunner of this book. The report was published as a ven-page article in the February 1929 issue of the Psychological Bulletin, ournal of the American Psychological Association (APA). The group agreed that it would not dictate to authors; instead, it recommended a andard of procedures, to which exceptions would doubtless be necary, but to which reference might be made in cases of doubt" ("Inuctions," 1929, p. 57; see section 9.01 for references to the predecessors this edition of the Publication Manual).

In the 70 years that followed, those "Instructions" were revised and anded a number of times. The first edition of the instructions under title of Publication Manual was actually a 60-page supplement to the Psychological Bulletin published in 1952.

It was another 22 years before a new edition was published in 1974 with 136 pages. Publication of the 208-page third edition occurred in 1983, and the fourth edition of 368 pages rolled off the presses in 1994.

Seven years have elapsed since the last edition, during which time great changes have occurred in the publishing world and in the technology b I authors, editors, and publishers. The fourth edition stood the of time well, but eventually there were more matters to be dealt with than could be easily accommodated on the APA Web site for updates. In 1999 the APA Publications and Communications Board authorized work to begin on this fifth edition of the Publication Manual.

Leslie Dodson ably served as the project leader for the revision, and many APA members and staff contributed their time, energy, and expertise to the preparation and editing of this volume, Nlark Appelbaum and his colleagues on the Statistics Task Force (Leona S. Aiken, Joel R. Levin, Robert S. Rosen, and Howard Wainer) had a particularly difficult assignment. Although not always in agreement on the specifics, the task force did agree on the need to provide some additional assistance to authors in dealing with statistical representations in manuscripts. Lenore W. Harmon, the APA Chief Editorial Advisor, drew on her experience to work on the ethics and authorship sections and to chair the Task Force on the Publication of Case Material (with Janice Birk, Clara Hill, Ross Parke, and NVilliam Stiles). Kathleen Sheedy took aim at the moving target of electronic referencing and manuscript preparation. She will continue working with the APA Internet Services staff to keep the new APA Style NVeb site up to date with changes in this area as they occur, Susan Knapp and Demarie Jackson provided examples, text, and guidance along the way.

There is a section in the foreword to the fourth edition that aptly characterizes the Publication Manual.

The Publicationn Manual presents explicit style requirements but acknowledges that alternatives are sometimes necessary; authors should balance the rules of the Publication Manual with good judgment. Because the written language of psychology changes more slowly than psychology itself, the Publication Manual does not offer solutions for all stylistic problems. In that sense, it is a transitional document: Its style requirements are based on the existing scientific literature rather than imposed on the literature.

Every edition of the Publication Manual has been intended to aid authors in the preparation of manuscripts. The 1929 guide could gently advise authors on style, because there were then only about 200 authors who published in the 4 existing APA Journals. Today, the editors of APA's 24 primary journals consider close to 6,000 manuscript submissions per year (of which approximately 1,400 reach print). Without APA style conventions, the time and effort required to review and edit manuscripts would prohibit timely and cost-effectivc publication and would make clear communication harder to achieve.

The numbers are higher today, of course. There are now 27 APA primary journals. And at least a thousand other journals in psychology, the behavioral sciences, nursing, and personnel administration use the Publication Manual as their style guide. This standardization has greatly facilitated the communication of new ideas and research and simplified the tasks of publishers, editors, authors, and readers as well as enabled linkages of electronic files across articles and across publishers.

As noted in the foreword to the fourth edition, however, this "standard" is not static. Our APA Web site devoted to the Publication Manual will provide updates and the latest information on changes in APA style and in APA policies and procedures that will affect authors as they preparc flicir manuscripts.