Citation Libguide- APA
Citing or documenting the sources used in your research serves three purposes:
gives proper credit to the authors of the words and ideas that you incorporated into your work.
allows those who are reading your work to locate your sources, in order to learn more about the ideas that you include in your paper and verify your research.
citing your sources consistently and accurately helps you avoid plagiarism in your writing.
APA (American Psychological Association)
Used in: psychology, science, business, communications, engineering, and some other social sciences.
Resources
APA requires FOUR ELEMENTS of every citation:
Who- Author of content
When- Date content was published
What- Title of content
Where- Publication information. This can be the website you got it from or the journal or book's publication information.
Help Videos: APA
“APA 7th Edition: In-Text Citations.” YouTube, OWL/Purdue, 11 Nov. 2020, https://youtu.be/-yi6GXPhybs.
“Introduction to Citation Styles: APA 7th Ed.” YouTube, YouTube, 29 Oct. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fVv2Jt0o18.
In-Text Citations
General Formatting Tips
APA uses the author-date method of in-text citation. This type of citation can be formatted as either parenthetical or narrative citations.
The author's last name and publication date are included in parentheses and separated by a comma.
Format
Example
(Author, Publication Date)
(Smith, 2017)
(Author & Author, Publication Date)
(Johnson & Granger, 2018)
(Author et al., Publication Date)
(Maybell et al., 2013)
(Author, Publication Date; Author & Author, Publication Date)
(Foster, 2020; Chandler & Pearce, 2012)
If you are directly quoting from a work, you will need to include the author, year of publication, and page number for the reference (preceded by "p." for a single page and “pp.” for a span of multiple pages, with the page numbers separated by an en dash).
You can introduce the quotation with a signal phrase that includes the author's last name followed by the date of publication in parentheses.
According to Jones (1998), "students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time" (p. 199).
If you do not include the author’s name in the text of the sentence, place the author's last name, the year of publication, and the page number in parentheses after the quotation.
She stated, "Students often had difficulty using APA style" (Jones, 1998, p. 199), but she did not offer an explanation as to why.
Website Resources
APA Style is used by writers in many disciplines around the world for concise, powerful, and persuasive scholarly communication.
