APA Style

APA (American Psychological Association) style is a system for formatting scholarly writing and documenting sources. When editors or teachers ask you to write in APA style, they are referring to the editorial style that many of the social and behavioral sciences have adopted to present written material in the field. APA style was first developed 80 years ago by a group of social scientists who wished to establish sound standards of communication.

Traditionally, APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences.

The APA Manual is the definitive source for APA guidelines. It is produced by the American Psychological Association. However, there are many online resources such as the American Psychological Association's site and the Purdue Online Writing Lab that now provide easy access to guidance.

Click on the image below of the APA Manual to access the American Psychological Association's site.

The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) site will provide you with APA formatting, grammatical, and documentation guidance. It provides examples of title pages, work cited pages, etc.

Click on the image below to access the Purdue Online Writing Lab for APA.

Although it is not usually considered an academic source, at times it may be necessary to cite specific instances from social media.

Click on the pic below for more information on how to correctly cite social media sources.