APA Style

APA stands for the American Psychological Association, an organization focused on the advancement of psychology. The APA citation style, created by the Association, is often used in psychology and social sciences, but it can be used in a variety of other disciplines as well. The most recent edition of the APA style is the 7th edition, put out in 2020.

When using APA style, you should use in-text citations, also called parenthetical citations (shown below). You will also create a References page at the end of your paper.

Examples

In-Text Citations

APA in-text citations are the way you cite your sources throughout your paper. When you quote or paraphrase a source, you should include an in-text citation.

For Journal Articles and Books

Include the author's last name and the year the source was published (also include the page number if you are directly quoting from your source; don't include a page number if you're paraphrasing or summarizing):

Receiving different versions of the same news "may hinder the chances of political moderation and compromise among the mass public” (Morris, 2007, p. 726).

If you introduce the author of the source in the sentence, then you should include the date in parentheses after the name (the page number still goes at the end of a direct quote):

Morris (2007) writes that receiving different versions of the same news "may hinder the chances of political moderation and compromise among the mass public" (p. 726).

For Websites

If the article has an author, cite it like a journal article/book. (Just leave out the page number.) If the article has no author, use the title of the article (in quotes) and the year of publication:

The initiative aims to "strengthen infrastructure, trade, and investment links between China and some 65 other countries" ("Belt and Road," 2018).

If your source has no date, write n.d. (which stands for "no date") instead of the date.

For in-text citations, you should shorten a long article title. Include the most important words. You want the title to be recognizable, so that when a reader looks at the References, they can tell which source you're referencing. On the References page, you will need to include the whole title.

References Page

Create a new page at the end of your paper and write "References" in the center of the first line. Then list all the sources you cited in alphabetical order. Your list should be double-spaced, and you should create a "hanging indent." How to create a hanging indent: here (for Microsoft Word) or here (for Google Docs).

For Journal Articles and Books

Books:

Last Name, First Initial. Middle Initial. (Year of publication). Title of book. City of Publication, State of Publication: Publisher.

For example, if the author's name is Sue L. Dodge, you would write: Dodge, S. L. (If the source doesn't report the author's middle initial, leave it out.) For the state of publication, use the two letter abbreviation of the state (ex. New York = NY).

Journal Articles:

Last Name, First Initial. Middle Initial. (Year of publication). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number(issue number), pages.

* Note: the "pages" here are the page numbers of your article within the journal (since journals publish many articles together)

This is what the citation for the article from the in-text citations would look like:

Morris, J. S. (2007). Slanted objectivity? Perceived media bias, cable news exposure, and political attitudes. Social Science Quarterly, 88(3), 707-728.

For Websites

Last Name, First Initial. Middle Initial. (Year of publication). Title of article. Retrieved from URL or DOI

If your article has no author, just begin with the article title. Cite it like the article below:

Belt and Road Initiative. (2018). Retrieved from www.worldbank.org/en/topic/regional-integration/brief/belt-and-road-initiative

If your article has no publication date, write n.d. instead. If you are using a journal article that you find online, you can add a URL/DOI to the citation, like you would for a website.

resources

The website for the APA style, where you can find style guidelines and sample papers

Purdue OWL links:

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