So I am doing some academic writing. First time in 25 years. They want endnotes in APA format. The on-line references are very obtuse.
Can someone explain how endnotes are supposed to look and work?
Didn’t you receive some sample bibliography examples? Honestly, I’m not being a jerk – IME, every journal or conference has their own little quirks and conventions that deviate from established standards. When submitting for a class, on the other hand, professors weren’t usually concerned with niggling details but only with the general format (although I have to disclaim that my classes were scientific, not arts & letters).
My suggestion is to use bibliography software, most of which is able to produce output in a variety of pre-specified formats. Not only will it keep you from screwing up arbitrary entries, you’ll be able to re-use anything you put in the database. Personally, since I used LaTeX to write my papers, I used bibtex for bibliographies…but the learning curve is high enough that I’d not recommend it in this case. Rather, you might want to look over Wikipedia’s comparison of bibliographic software and find one (hopefully free) that works for you.
Well, I am in the middle of a four-week course, no time to learn new software. (Does Word offer any help with this?)
I’m not sure exactly what you’re looking for as regards help. Do you want to know when you should use endnotes? Are you required to do all your citations in endnotes?
If the former, I would keep it to the absolute minimum if you’re not citing anything. Endnotes are a huge hassle for the reader to keep track of, in my experience.
If the latter, as far as I can tell, APA citations should look like this: (Name, Date of Publication, page number), as in (Smith, 2008, 24). But as far as I know, APA advocates parenthetical citations, so I’m still unclear as to what you need.
Ah, that’s an issue. I can’t speak to Word’s capabilities, as I don’t (and won’t) use it.
However, I’m the computer guy at a research institution, and the head scientist uses EndNote (which is, for reasons unknown to me, a really well-known and commonly used package). One of its touted features is “Cite while you write”, which allows you to refer to entries in the database while editing your paper, creating the bibliography as you go. Based on that, I’d say that if there is bibliography support in Word, it’s not very robust or easy to use.
Sorry I couldn’t be more help…I’ll leave it to others to provide better, more specific information.
Can’t you just grab a copy of the APA style guide? Either purchase a copy or see if your library has a copy you can review.
APA Formatting and Style Guide.
Forget the software. Just type it up like they say.
In Word prior to the new Word Vista, Insert > Reference > Footnote
In the Footnote box, select Endnotes. Word will put the appropriate number next to the text and move you to the last page so you can insert your reference.
I assume Word 2007 has a similar procedure.
In the newest version you would go into the References tab and select the “endnote” format (Footnote is the more popular default option). It will keep track of your numbers (automatically renumbering everything if you add a note in the middle of others, for instance) and allow you to edit the endnote text at will.
My understanding was also that APA prefers parenthetical citation (putting the citations right in the text inside parentheses) while endnotes are usually explanatory(1).
(1)An explanatory reference explains a point you are making in more detail than is needed within the text.
Ah, yes, an important clarification. My oversight – I was thinking solely of citations and bibliographies, having always used footnotes rather than endnotes for additional explanatory text.
Word 2007 does absolutely all the work for you. It’s disgusting that they give kids the same degree I got and they don’t have to do the tiniest bit of the work I did. 
The labor savings are even more noticable with footnotes because Word repaginates the whole document on the fly as you add/subtract footnotes. Oh the stories my dad tells about typing and retyping and retyping his whole dissertation because of changes in one footnote – it would send shivers down your spine!
My mom used to make money in college typing up other people’s papers! People paid good money not to have to deal with it.
My girlfriend used Endotes for her PhD Psych dissertation. I provided IT support, but once I got it installed she seemed to manage ok without me. basically it is a really really big set of Word Macros. It did make tracking her citations (footnotes, bibliography, etc.) easier, allowed her to only enter things once when there was a repeated reference, and stuff like that in addition to handling the formatting. It came with any number of style guides to select, APA is one in a long list you choose at setup. She never got any comments at all that the notes were in the wrong form, so it works.
I looked at some other competitors at the beginning, they were even more awkward. The issue is, you are trying to tack a cognitively separate task onto the writing process. There is only so much you can do, and Endnotes seems to be the best and most accepted way to do it in that space.
Thank you all.