Two Connected Parts

All citation styles include two parts that work together:

1. An in-text citation, which is a brief notation (usually within a paragraph, at the end of a sentence) acknowledging that information came from another source. In MLA and APA style, an in-text citation is contained inside parentheses (and sometimes called a “parenthetical citation”). Citation styles that use footnotes or endnotes (such as Chicago or Turabian) may use a superscript in the same way.
2. At the end of the paper or assignment, there will be a list of more detailed bibliographic information that enables the reader to find the sources that were used. Every in-text citation must have a matching entry in this list. Depending on what citation style you are using, this list may be called “works cited,” “references,” or “bibliography.” Different citation styles will require you to format these citations in different ways, but they all include similar information, like the author’s name, title of the publication, date, URL, and/or page numbers.

When to Cite Sources

it is necessary to give credit to others when you use their information in your assignment. Using other people’s information may come in the form of a direct quote, or summarizing or paraphrasing somebody else’s words. Paraphrasing means you restate what an author said in your own words; summarizing is when you talk about the main concepts or points. When you include someone else’s ideas whether that’s word-for-word (a direct quote), or summarizing or paraphrasing the words of somebody else—you need to include an in-text citation to let others know that the information is not your own, and to allow your reader to go and find the same source you used. Since in-text citations are only brief notations, they will all need a full citation at the end of the assignment or paper.

APA In-Text Examples:

• Direct quote: According to a study on social pain, “acetaminophen reduces behavioral and neural responses associated with the pain of social rejection, demonstrating substantial overlap between social and physical pain.” (DeWall et al., 2010, p. 14) Note: DeWall is the author’s last name, and “et al.” means there are additional authors. 2010 is the year of publication, and 14 is the page number.
• Paraphrasing: In one study by DeWall et al. (2010), it was discovered that over-the-counter painkillers, like Acetaminophen, reduced social pain.
• For a source with no author and/or no date, use the title and n.d. for “no date”: An online poll found that the more time students spent in the library, the higher their overall GPA (“Student Success Poll,” n.d.).

APA Style

Overview

The American Psychological Association (APA) is a professional association that represents those working in the field of psychology in the United States. Just like the Modern Language Association (MLA) is often used in the humanities subjects, the APA has their own citation guidelines that  are often used to cite sources within the social sciences. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association is the official reference book, or style guide, for all the details of APA style format. The library has a citation styles subject guide that can assist you with formatting.

References

In APA style, the list of detailed bibliographic information at the end of the paper or assignment is called “References” and generally, your professors may use the word “references” instead of the word “citations”. The core elements of a APA style citation are as follows (be sure to pay attention to the punctuation used at the end of each element):

Author

• List the last name first and the first and middle names as initials.
  • Example: Smith, J. M.
• If there are two authors, use the ampersand (&) instead of the word “and.”
• When there are three to 20 authors, list all of the authors by last name and initials and use an ampersand before listing the last author.
• If there are more than twenty authors, list the first 19 authors then use an ellipsis (…) before listing the last author’s name. Do not use an ampersand before the last author and do not list more than 20 authors’ names total.

Date

• Use a complete date (YYYY, Month DD), if given, otherwise use what is given.
• Use “n.d.” if there is no date given.

Title

• Capitalize only the first letter of the first word of the title and subtitle, the first word after a colon or a dash in the title, and proper nouns (except for journal articles, in which you will capitalize all major words in the title.
• Italicize titles of longer works, like books, collections, websites, or journals. Do not put smaller titles in quotation marks or underline (e.g., chapters, articles, web pages).

Source

• This is where one can retrieve the cited information, like in a book, on a website, or in a journal article. The format of this section depends on the type of information resource it is. Check out this helpful guide for more information on formatting sources.

Compiling & Formatting

The rules for formatting a list of APA references is similar to MLA format, with some small but important differences:

• Center and bold the word “References” at the top of a separate page
• Alphabetize the citations by author’s last name, or by the first main word of the title if there is no author. (When alphabetizing, ignore A, An, and The at the beginning of citations.).
• If you have multiple citations by the same author(s), list the citations in chronological order, from earliest to most recent.
• Make sure all lines are double-spaced.
• Apply “hanging” indents to all citations: The first line of the citation is not indented. All subsequent lines are indented 0.5 inch.

Source

“APA Style” Adapted from Introduction to College Research Copyright © by Walter D. Butler; Aloha Sargent; and Kelsey Smith is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License