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Citation: APA

A guide to citation resources

American Psychological Association

APA (American Psychological Association) format is mostly used for social sciences courses. Its in-text and references page focuses on the date the material was created. The formatting style is currently in its seventh edition. For further resources, please see:

Publication manual of the American Psychological Association : the official guide to APA style
CALL NUMBER: 808.06615 P976 2020
The concise APA handbook
eBook - Use your Ocean Connect Credentials to access this title
Mastering APA Style: Student’s Workbook and Training Guide
CALL NUMBER: 808.06615 B422a
 
Rules for Writers
CALL NUMBER: 808.02 H118RW 
 
Purdue Owl
In addition to providing citation information for MLA, APA, and Chicago/Turabian formats, this resource covers grammar and the basics of writing a research paper.

The examples from this subject guide can be attributed to Purdue Owl:
The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and Purdue U. (2008). The Purdue OWL Family of Site. Retrieved December 12, 2018, from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/

In-Text Citations

  • APA uses parenthetical citations. Use the last name of the author or authors and then cite the year of creation for the work (if applicable). Put a comma in-between the author and year. If it is a direct quote, put another comma and then p.(page number) where the quote can be found. For example:
    • “Contempt for the rule of law is deeply rooted in U.S. practice” (Chomsky, 2000, p.17).
  • When you already include the name of the author within the sentence, just include the year in the end citation. For example:
    • Chomsky theorized that “contempt for the rule of law is deeply rooted in U.S. practice” (2000, p. 17).
    • Chomsky (2000, p. 17) stated that “contempt for the rule of law is deeply rooted in U.S. practice.”
    • Van Hear (1998) and Richmond (1994) have argued that the term allows analysis of the interaction of structural factors and degrees of individual choice to explain displacement.
  • For long, direct quotes (40 words or longer) use a block of text written without quotation marks.
    • Indent each line of the quotation 1/2 inch from the left
    • Include in-text citation AFTER the punctuation mark
  • If a work has two authors mention both author’s names. If you mentioned them within the text, use “and” in between their names. If it is in the parenthetical citation, use the “&” sign.
  • If a work has three or more authors use the first authors last name followed by et al.

Reference Page

  • References appear on a separate page at the end of the paper.
  • Keep margins, font size, style, spacing, page numbers and running head all the same.
  • Title the page: References. Do not bold, italic, quote, or underline the title. Center it in the middle of the page.
  • Citations there should be listed alphabetically by the author’s last name. State the author’s first initial only and second initial if given; do not write their full first name.
  • If there is more than one author, list the authors in the order that they appear on the material cited. If a work is authored by an organization, corporation, or government department, use the name of the institution as the author name. If the author name is completely unknown, start the citation with the title.
  • Use the special indent feature called “hanging indent” on each citation.
  • Capitalize only the first word and proper nouns in the titles of materials.
  • If the publication date is not provided, use n.d. No publisher provided, use n.p.
  • DOIs and URLs should be should be presented as hyperlinks for electronic resources.
    • Do not use the label “DOI” or “URL” in the citation.
    • The words “retrieved from” should only be included when there is a retrieval date also included.
  • Basic formatting for citations:
    • Author and/or editor names by last name first.
    • (Date in parenthesis)
    • Title of the article
    • Title of book, journal, volume number of journal in italics.
    • Issue or edition number.
    • Publisher information, including the publisher name and date
    • URL, DOI, or permalink for electronic resources