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Citation Style Guide: APA 7th edition

Citation Guide for MLA 8th, APA 7th Edition, Chicago/Turabian, WestLaw

APA Style

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The American Psychological Association developed the APA style. There are rules for publishing research papers based on the APA style. If you are writing a research paper in this style, you must cite all sources you have used, paraphrased, and quoted in the body as an in-text citation and at the end of the paper in the Reference list. You will find the guiding principles for APA Style here with more examples and additional information. For more detailed explanations, access the latest APA citation guide here.

Understanding APA Style 7th edition

APA Resources

Need additional help? Purdue Online Writing Center provides an APA Styleformatting guide and tons of examples. Check it out by clicking on the icon below.

The American Psychological Association provides the basics of APA Style, as well as tutorials and webinars.

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APA Style - The Basics

APA Style is a set of guidelines that were designed by the American Psychological Association. This citing style covers a wide range of subject areas and is usually used within the social sciences disciplines (such as psychology, economics, and sociology). APA citations are necessary in order to show the reader where your information came from, to strengthen and support your ideas/arguments, and to avoid plagiarism.

The general APA Style paper format is as follows:

  • Your paper should be double spaced
  • Margins are set at 1” on all sides
  • A page header at the top of your page is necessary and must include the title (in all caps) of your paper and the page number. This is called a running header. Also, your title page is considered page 1.
  • The paper will be composed of: a title page, abstract (a short summary of what your paper is about), main body, and reference page. For specific examples of each of these elements, click here.
  • Begin the reference list on a new page after the text.
  • Place the section label "References" in bold at the top of the page, centered.
  • Order the reference list entries alphabetically.
  • Double-space the entire reference list, both within and between entries.
  • Apply a hanging indent of 0.5 in. to each reference list entry, meaning that the first line of the reference is flush left and subsequent lines are indented 0.5 in. from the left margin.
  • Works are listed in alphabetical order in the reference list, by the first word of the reference list entry.
  • Arrange entries in alphabetical order by the surname of the first author followed by the initials of the author's given name(s).
  • When alphabetizing names, disregard any spaces or punctuation marks in two-word surnames, Also disregard anything in parentheses or square brackets.
  1. Author(s) last name, first initial
  2. Title – or books and sources that are NOT academic journals, only capitalize the first word in the title/subtitle
  3. Journal title (if applicable)
  4. Volume number (if applicable)
  5. Issue (if applicable)
  6. Page numbers
  7. Publication date (year, month, day) – if there is no date, use “n.d.”
  8. Publisher location
  9. URL
  10. DOI

In-text citations are used when citing sources used in the body of your paper. Generally, APA Style utilizes the author’s last name followed by the year of publication.

Here is a general example of an in-text citation with a direct quote:

Dinosaurs roamed the earth and have been described as “terrifying beings capable of inflicting great bodily harm” (Banks, 2020).

Here is a general example of a citation when paraphrasing:

Banks (2020) described dinosaurs as being able to cause great harm. 

In the previous tabs, we have discussed a bibliography page, or works cited page. A References page is the equivalent of these, except it follows the APA Style guidelines (I know! A lot to keep track of!) The basic APA Style guidelines for creating your References page are as follows:

  • Author’s name (last name first, followed by the first name initial)
    • If an author has a middle name, provide only initials as well. For example, if Olivia Marie Banks were your author, you would present it as “Banks, O.M.”
  • All citations will be aligned to the left. This means, don’t center them. An important detail to note here is if the citation is more than one line, only the first line stays aligned to the left, and any lines after that are indented 0.5”. This is called a hanging indent.
  • Your References page should be alphabetized
  • The title of the book, report, chapter, etc. that you are using should only have the first letter capitalized. If the title has a subtitle, capitalize the first letter after the colon.
    • Note: If you are citing an Academic Journal using APA Style, see the section below, as the APA Style guidelines change slightly.
  • If using more than one article written by the same author(s), list them in chronological order

General guidelines for citing Academic Journals in the References page using APA Style

  • Type out the full name of the journal-title and italicize it
    • If a journal utilizes nonstandard punctuation, keep it as is
  • Instead of having only the first letter of the title capitalized, capitalize all major words of the journal-title as you normally would
  • The article title shouldn’t be bolded, italicized, or underlined

**For more detailed information and specific examples of the APA Style guidelines, use the resources located in the “Additional Resources” box on the left side of this page.

For more specific details regarding citation guidelines, see the APA Citation guide above.

Book example:

FORMAT: Author’s name. (Publication Year). Book Title. Publisher Location: Publisher.

Martin, A. (2006). Introduction to the study of dinosaurs (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.

Journal article example:

FORMAT: Author’s name. (Publication Year). Article title. Journal title, volume(issue), pages. DOI: if provided​

Rieppel, L. (2012). Bringing Dinosaurs Back to Life. ISIS: Journal of the History of Science in Society, 103(3), 460-490. https://doi-org.elcamino.idm.oclc.org/10.1086/667969

WEBSITE

FORMAT: Author(s). (Publication date). Title of Web page. Retrieved from (URL).

Reading APA Citations

Quoting, Paraphrasing and Summarizing