Citing Your Sources: APA

APA Style is a standard for written communication that defines

1. the organization and content of a paper, writing style and

2. how to create citations of the works used to create your paper.

Organization and content

APA Style gives instructions on things like how the title page should be arranged, margins and page numbering.

• Rules for formatting your paper

• Look at a sample paper in APA Style to get an idea of how your paper should be arranged and formattted.

• Consult a full list of style and grammar guidelines

Citations

Citations acknowledge how others contributed to your work.  They are also important to avoid claims of plagiarism.

In APA Style, each work used in a paper has two kinds of citations:

1. an in-text citation

• Learn how to create the two types of in-text citations (parenthetical & narrative)

• Guidelines:

  • "Cite only works that you have read and ideas you have incorporated into your writing."

  • "Cite primary sources when possible and secondary sources sparingly."

  • "Provide documentation for all facts and figures that are not common knowledge." 

    • From p. 253 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association

2. a corresponding citation in a reference list at the end of the paper

• Guidelines:

  • "The reference list at the end of a paper provides the information necessary to identify and retrieve each work cited in the text."

    • From p. 281 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association

• Basic Principles of Reference List Entries (who:author, when:date, what:title, where:source)

• Reference List example entries

• Learn about creating a reference list

• Try using an automatic Citation Builder to create citations

Get more help with APA Style

Need more? 

This hour long video is a step by step guide to APA student papers.