APA Citation

It is extremely important in academia and the publishing world to document where you learned everything that appears in your paper, report, or thesis that isn't already common knowledge. Intellectual honesty is important in your arguments, logic, and presentation of evidence as well as in documenting which parts are original to you and which belong to someone else. In order to do this, very specific rules have developed over time regarding exactly how and when to document the sources you used to compile your essay, research, or argument.

• The APA format is the style used and required in most Business Schools, especially for a report and thesis. Failure to use this format properly can result in lower grades, the rejection of a Thesis, and/or accusations of plagiarism and expulsion.

• There are numerous online guides available to use as a reference and learn the proper format. There are also free and paid APA citation format generators available from the internet that conveniently create the citation in the proper order automatically.

• Below are helpful hints and some resources to help you get started.

You also must copy the URL, the date retrieved, and the full publication information of any books or articles you read on the internet EVEN IF that article appears in a printed journal.

• • APA format requires that the citation indicate if a source was retrieved online and the date it was retrieved.

  • Most people no longer have access to the actual printed academic journal, therefore citing an online article is normal procedure.

  • The full publishing information for the journal must still appear in the citation, not simply the title and URL (ie. author(s), title of article, title of journal, volume # of journal, date of journal, AND the page numbers of the actual article within the journal.)

Here is an example of a citation of a website:

Coca-Cola announces new CEO and stocks double. (2018, October 13). Retrieved from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39625809/ns/world_news-americas/

To cite the above reference in your text, use the first few words of the reference list entry (usually the title) and the year, using double quotation marks around the title or abbreviated title. It would look like this: ("Coca-Cola announces," 2010).

Here is an example of an APA citation of a page from Wikipedia:

Nike. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 14, 2018, from http://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Nike

If you are using books or conduct your research at a library, be sure to copy the title page (including the subtitle) AND the two pages which follow that contain the full publishing information (company, place, and date).

If you read a chapter inside a book with multiple authors, be sure to collect the exact titles of the book and the article AND to collect the exact page numbers that the chapter appears within the book.

• • The best way to do the above is to photocopy/photograph the title page, 2 publishing copyright pages, and the table of contents page that contains the chapter(s) you have read.

Here are some links to APA citation generators.

NOTE:

• You still must collect all the appropriate information about a resources yourself, as detailed above.

• You type the information into the generator or app and it puts all of the information into the proper APA format for you to copy/paste into your essay or report. Some of them will search for the article online and collect the information.

• Make sure you use APA format, as some of these generators also put publications into other academic formats such as MLA.

• • • Grammarly is a popular program that works with Word and contains an APA format generator:

https://www.grammarly.com/office-addin/windows

• • • This has free and paid features:

http://www.citationmachine.net/apa/cite-a-magazine

• • • Simple, but will also search for journals online to collect the information:

http://www.bibme.org/apa

• • • Simple and free:

https://www.citefast.com/?s=APA

https://cite4me.org/apa/

There are TWO key components to writing using the APA style of citation.

1. A mention of or reference to the author is usually made in the text as part of a sentence which introduces their ideas, information, or research.

2. A brief citation is made immediately following the mention of the author in parentheses ( ) which gives the author's name and date.

Here is how a reference to an author might appear in the text of an essay or report:

NOTE:

• The full publication information is still needed for the Reference page which must follow at the end in most academic papers.

• Raised footnotes[1] with information appearing at the bottom of a page are rarely used in the APA format and only under certain circumstances.

[1] See the APA style guide to learn more about when a footnote might be necessary.