hello and welcome to the apa style writing lecture on chapter five uh titled bias free language guidelines uh all content from this from this lecture is taken from the seventh edition of the apa manual so let's get started uh this entire chapter was devoted to uh making recommendations about how to write free of biased in your in your writing and as writers uh you know we as writers want to convey uh you know our scientific findings our theoretical knowledge uh in very clear concise and precise ways but we also want to do this uh in a in a way that's free of bias and also in in so we can use more affirming and inclusive uh language in our writing so uh apa uh the ap manual it uh strictly forbids any prejudicial language towards groups that that might perpetuate biased assumptions so the the chapter provides a number of guidelines for how to reduce bias in our writing and i'm going to go over a lot of the main points of the chapter i'm going to delve into some examples i would recommend that you would that you should definitely read the chapter for the specifics whereas i'm i'm going to be getting into some specifics but not all of them so i would see this lecture as uh maybe a general or a general overview so the first guideline of the chapter is to describe at uh to describe our participants or our groups uh that that were um you know that we're writing about at at appropriate levels of specificity and uh and and and when we when describing a person or persons we want to write clearly accurately and free of bias of course but we want to focus on the relevant characteristics of the people or persons that we are that we are you know that we're describing so so the thing is is we have to think about this we have to think about this from a common sense perspective so if uh let's say you're doing a study and and this is more or less the the book's uh example but i think it's a good example if if you're doing a study on let's say on the cognitive performance of older adults you don't necessarily need to include their sexual orientation uh uh in in the demographic description that that's somewhat irrelevant so you only want to include the demographics that's relevant to the study itself and you want to also acknowledge that you know that acknowledge that relevant differences that do exist within your demographic so or within your participants so um you know like if you're looking at the cognitive performance of older adults going back to that example that there might be a difference that exists between the two subgroups of of older adulthood and and there's there's a there's a subgroup of a young young old and and also old old and then there's a third one oldest old and we're gonna i'll get into that later in the lecture but this would be a relevant difference uh you know within uh within your participants uh in relation to the study if there is some kind of uh you know difference in cognitive performance between the young old and the old old uh subgroups then that should be noted uh and then also you want to be appropriately specific so once you determine which characteristics of your you know are appropriate to uh you know to to describe then uh you have to choose the appropriate terms to use and and and the apa uh manual in in this chapter uh does do a a pretty good job of helping or guiding you to use the appropriate terms the second guideline uh uh that the book talks about is to be sensitive to labels and and first and foremost we need to listen to um listen to people and respect the language uh that they use to describe themselves that that is first and foremost and you know language and labels are gonna change over time and and there might be even disagreements about which terms to use within uh within groups over you know which which labels should be used and uh and and that's not always going to be easy to sort out that that's going to it's going to take some some effort on your partner some discernment uh avoid using adjectives as nouns to label people so uh some some definitely no no's would be to label uh you know like the gays the poor you might want some better alternatives would be gay men or people living in poverty and also avoid using labels that equate people with a condition so if you know if you're writing a paper and let's say it's a conceptual piece or even a an empirical study where your participants uh you know the inclusion criteria they have to be diagnosed with schizophrenia you would not label them in the right in in your writing as the schizophrenics or let's say the borderlines that you would uh you know that you would describe them as people diagnosed with schizophrenia or people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder now there are some exceptions uh you know to this rule in terms of there are certain groups uh deaf culture is one of them that some people in deaf culture do want to be identified as the deaf and that's a and that's a proper noun so and once again that's not everyone who is not all people who are deaf subscribe to that so once again you just have to listen and get and you know to figure out

what what labels you should use

so now we're going to look at reducing bias by specific topic area we're going to start with age uh so age should be reported should always be reported in the method section this is one of the ones age is always is it's probably one that's that 99 out of 100 times should always be reported uh you know in in your uh in your study and uh the seventh edition is now saying that not only the age range should be reported not only the mean age of your participants but also the median score as well

also there's no open-ended definitions when you're describing age in in your method section so so that means that like a definite no-no would be uh when you can't describe you know all people under 18 years old uh you know like anyone 18 years or younger you know that you would want to have specific uh age ranges same with you know people over 60 years of age that you might want to split that up into 60 to 70 70 to 80 80 to 90 90 to 100 and then go from like 100 to 110 and it you know those would be clear cut off ranges uh appropriate terms for age the one well these are all appropriate terms older adults is probably going to be the most used within the literature but there's also older persons older people older patients older individuals persons 65 years and older which seems to be somewhat of a a contrast to what they set up here but but then there's also older older populations so you know these are all okay dementia is a term that is is appropriate you can use uh that's appropriate uh and also provide the type of dementia if it is known so you know alzheimer's type dementia would be uh you know that probably the most ideal if you're referring to dementia now there's classifications within older adulthood uh uh that we have the young old the old old and the oldest old i i don't have the um the specific age ranges for each one of these in uh the apa manual did not describe them but they are out there in the literature and if you were to do a study and you wanted to look at older adults and compare between these three uh categories you certainly could terms to avoid uh when dealing with age seniors the elderly the aged aging dependents these are not ones that you would want to use also senile and senility these are these are ones that you would not want to use in your writing okay let's move on to disability disability according to apa encompasses physical psychological intellectual and socio-emotional impairments that a person might experience some groups have specific ways they self-identify for example like going back to deaf culture deaf culture is uh you know that they do identify uh as the deaf and um and and that is a proper noun and that is a part of their uh you know that is that's part of their culture the thing is is that you just want to listen uh listen specifically to how people want to be identified that's really going to be the best route to go for disability you want to use person first language that's going to be where the the person is emphasized not the disability so you would refer to in your writing a person with epilepsy versus the epileptic um you know or you could uh you can def you can use identity first language uh that is the disability is the focus and the and the person can claim uh where the person uh can claim the disability so person with autism versus autistic person and really both either of these can be used it just depends on which the person that you're describing in your in your study like if this is a qualitative study and and you and you have like you know three or four people that you're interviewing or that you're using in your study that you know you can ask them which would you prefer so you can uh you know so you can use the right right terms and label and and really you would only indicate disability status when relevant so once again if if you're doing a study that has nothing to do with disability uh or if you're writing a conceptual piece that has nothing to do with disability uh you wouldn't necessarily include that in in uh

okay let's move on to gender uh we're gonna the apa manual signifies or delineates the difference between uh gender versus sex gender is defined as the attitudes feelings and behaviors that is that a given culture associates with a person's biological sex it's a social construct and a social identity whereas sex is defined primarily as the biological uh sex assignment uh gender identity is a is a part or uh is part of the umbrella of gender and it's um it's a it's a it's one's psychological sense of their gender and this applies to all people we all have a gender identity and this differs from uh sexual orientation

uh when you report gender you know you're encouraged to specifically designate information about the gender identities of participants in a sample so some uh you know looking at you know transgender cisgender and other gender identities gender and noun usage do you want to refer to all people by the same by the name they oh i'm sorry i'm not reading this right gender and noun usage you want to you want to refer to all people by the name that they refer to themselves as so if their given name is let's say thomas but uh their but the name that they refer to themselves as as is let's say judy then you know you want to refer to uh to the name you want to call them by the name they refer themselves to uh you also want to reduce bias and avoid ambiguity you want to use specific nouns to identify people and groups of people so these you know these are all specific nouns that you can that you can use men women transgender men trans men transgender women trans women cisgender cisgender women cisgender men and gender fluid people use male and female when appropriate and relevant only when appropriate and relevant and if you're just referring to all people in general you can use words such as individuals people or persons

uh continuing on with gender uh with pronoun usage you know what you want to refer to a person's pronouns as their identified pronouns or their pronouns uh and and you're definitely going to use their identified pronouns they uh the seventh edition is actually saying that now we can use uh the pronoun they uh as an individual pronoun and other individual pronouns that uh that are allowed are z zay uh higher uh uh purvey i and and hen uh some prefer to alternate between he and she so if that's the case uh uh eight that's eight you know that's apa appropriate some prefer their name in place of a pronoun so people if someone does not want to be uh uh have or does not want a pronoun uh applied to them then uh you can just use their name throughout and also uh you use uh the pronoun they when referring to a person uh and you don't know their preferred pronoun so and and that eliminates any mistakes that you know that if they you know if they don't associate with one pronoun or another using they uh avoids that mistake and you know and also these forms they them theirs

uh participants in research or participation research how do we refer to the people who participate in research there's many terms that you can use it just depends on you know uh the participants in your study so participants is the the most i'd sing the most general term uh same as subjects patients are only going to be used when they are diagnosed with uh some kind of mental emotional or physical disorder and the study is about uh intervening or providing some kind of intervention to help with uh you know with that disorder client can also be used other more specific descriptive terms can be used as well such as students children you know if you're doing let's say some kind of a study where your interview or where your your main participants are college students or graduate students you can refer to them as graduate students college students so racial and ethnic identity uh these are uh these terms change over time and they're going to possess various terms within each group so so there might be various uh multiple terms that can be used with um uh with you know with one racial or ethnic uh group uh uh so and and they could be broad and specific terms race is defined by apa as the physical differences that groups and cultures consider socially significant and ethnicity are shared cultural characteristics such as language ancestry practices and beliefs so racial and ethnic groups are all going to be considered proper nouns so uh uh bla and these are just a few that i that i listed but black white asian american cuban american these are all proper nouns please capitalize uh any kind of racial and ethnic group when you refer to them in the literature or descriptions uh or in whatever

we're gonna go over some specific groups and i'm not going to go over all of the groups i've got i'm actually pulled out three specific groups and and then if you have questions about other groups i would refer you to the apa manual the first one uh is people of african origin some current terms that you can use uh are african-american and black and they're both of course proper nouns so they should be capitalized these are not uh for all people uh these terms are not for all people uh of african origin though so you have to remember if if if these folks are not from the united states if they're from the caribbean if they're from africa then you are going to want to use other terms uh by region and uh and or by nation so

you know so you know so you want to make sure so you want to be sensitive to that some outdated terms are going to be negro and also afro-american according to ap you don't want to you don't want to use those in your writing

people of asian origin the current usage or the current uh term would be uh you can use asian people of asian ancestry from asia or asian american if they are if people are of an asian descent but they're from and also from the united states and or from canada so and you can also be more specific by region or nation uh if if you can be so uh uh if you know if you if you have that information so some regions of asia like southeast asia east asia this is inclusive they're just i just uh i just listed two of them or by nations such as vietnam japan and there's you know there's many other nations that are on the list uh and and then uh so it's it's preferable to refer by region and nation when possible the third group is people of european origin the current terms to use would either be white or european american outdated term would be caucasian you don't want to use caucasian in your writing and and also to refer to region and nation uh you know when possible uh you know if you can sexual orientation this is a person's sexual and emotional attraction to another person uh and the behavior and or so uh social affiliation that may result from this attraction so that that's the definition according to apa the apa also lists two dimensions or describes two dimensions to consider under sexual orientation in terms of uh terms the first are terms for the degree of attraction someone might feel so we have so we're looking at degree of attraction right here so there's three terms there's sexual demise demisexual and um an asexual sexual uh is defined as uh an individual might feel sexual and emotional attraction towards some or all types of people demisexual is an individual who feels sexual attraction only in the context of emotional connection with another person or people and then asexual uh is is someone who does not experience sexual attraction or interest in in sexual behavior

the second uh dimension under uh of sexual orientation is is uh uh lists the terms for the direction of attraction someone feels so this is mainly for uh people who fit under the the sexual and demisexual dimensions and this is directed towards uh uh directed towards similarly gendered or differently gendered uh uh you know types of attractions so current terms of sexual orientation uh that are appropriate to use would be lesbian gay heterosexual straight bisexual queer polysexual and pansexual and the outdated term that you do not want to use is homosexual self-identification is always going to be best if we can always you know when we do a uh when we do an empirical study whether it's quantitative or qualitative if we can the more we can uh encourage people and allow people to self-identify you know the better uh the better that's going to be in terms of the more descriptive uh terms you know that the more descriptive you know for your study abbreviations may be used for uh to refer to multiple groups so uh the current abbreviation uh is gonna be lgbtqia plus the outdated abbreviation is just gonna be lgbt

okay uh next is socioeconomic status and this accompan encompasses uh not just income but it also encompasses income uh education level occupational prestige and and also subjective perceptions of social status and social class so there's a lot of things going on under socioeconomic status uh this should uh like age socioeconomic status should be a is one of those ones that you definitely want to make a part of your method section that you want to provide as much as possible about these dimensions uh and then last there is intersectionality and this is the way that individuals are shaped by and identify with a vast array of cultural uh structural sociobiological economic and social context really what this is is how if you think about all the dimensions that we've gone over in this lecture how do they all intersect and and and influence and affect each other and are affected by one another so and that's you know something to think about when you know when when you're uh when you're writing a study and and uh you know and maybe like in the in the discussion section uh when you're uh you know when you're discussing uh the results of the study okay well this has just been a uh i i'd say more of a general uh review of chapter five uh i would refer to the to the chapter itself for the reading to the reading for more in-depth analysis of some of these topics give me questions please reach out if not have a great day