Empirical pedagogy: history of APA style as epistemology; instructions in regard to preparation of manuscript

This research draws upon the history of the book and editing as conceptualized by Dalia Valdez Garza, who, building on the work of Robert Darnton, posits that the analysis of scientific journals must center on the editorial form—a structure that effectively determines what qualifies as scientific knowledge. Within this framework, the study examines the document Instructions in Regard to Preparation of Manuscript, published in the Psychological Bulletin in 1929. This text represents the earliest antecedent of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association; a standard now disseminated internationally for the presentation of research across various sciences and disciplines. It is argued that this instructional papper encapsulated a pedagogy that steered psychology toward empiricism, a tendency that appears to prevail in contemporary scholarship, albeit expanded into the social sciences and humanities.