APA Format

citations have many benefits. Some benefits include the ability to help the reader see and
understand where your information is coming from; it helps them follow the paper trail. So, if the
readers wants to follow up on a particular point that you’re making, or a particular reference you
have cited, they can do that because citations offer a specific way of communicating the
information in a standardized format. Also, citations allow you to use the ideas and expertise of
others to better support your points appropriately and ethically. There is a strong ethical component
to using citations. In an academic environment, you never want to use ideas that are not your own
and credit them like they belonged to you. By using citations, you can properly communicate that
the ideas or words from something you are citing come from somebody else.  Citations allow you to
express the notion that all academic writing is, in some way, related to other existing writing.

Why use APA style:

 offers a standardized way of organizing a document and references.

 highlights the importance of current information.
 provides a rule for everything.

In-Text Citations

General Format:

APA in-text citations follow the author-date citation method. All references that are cited within
your document must appear on the references page.

People affected by Polio virus are mostly residents of backward areas and hence generally poor
(Nishtar, 2010).

Short Quotations:

Consider the following examples.

"APA style is important in various academic fields" (Smith, 2010, p.207).

According to Smith (2010), "APA style is important in various academic fields" (p. 207).

Long Quotations:

Long quotations consist of direct quotes from a source that are 40 words or longer. Quotation marks
are not included. The direct quote is indented half and inch from the left margin.

Smith (2010) made the following observation:

APA style is important in various academic fields, such as education, political science,
sociology, anthropology, psychology, and public health. Therefore, it is crucial for students to
understand how to properly cite (both in-text and on the references page) the sources they use
in their academic documents.
Placement of a direct quotation in-text reference

 If the direct quote is part of a sentence, place the in-text reference directly after the quote
and continue with the sentence. For example:-
Mindfulness has a range of meanings as it "...has become a trend word conveying a
diversity of understandings dependent on context" (Crane, 2017, p. 586) and can
encompass....
As Crane (2017) said, "Mindfulness has become a trend word conveying a diversity of
understandings dependent on context" (p. 586) and can encompass....
 If the direct quote is at the end of a sentence, include the in-text reference directly after the
quote and end with a full stop.
"Mindfulness has become a trend word conveying a diversity of understandings
dependent on context" (Crane, 2017, p. 586).

Summarizing/Paraphrasing

If you summarize or paraphrase information from a source, you only need to include the author and
the date of publication (including the page number is optional).

Consider the following examples.

According to Smith (2010), understanding how to cite using APA style is relevant to several
research areas.

Understanding how to cite using APA style is relevant to several research areas (Smith, 2010, p.
207).

Journal Article Citations

Here are two sample journal article citations from a typical references page.

Taylor, J. L. (2015). Accelerating pathways to college: The (in)equitable effects of

community college dual credit. Community College Review, 43(4), 355-379.

https://doi.org/10.1177/00091552115594880

Zeidenberg, M., Scott, M., & Belfield, C. (2015). What about the non-completers? The labor

market returns to progress in community college. Economics of Education Review, 49,

142-156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2015.09.004
 A Note About Online-Only Journal Articles

When you cite an online-only journal article, use the following format:

Author, A. (Date of publication). Title of article. Title of Online Periodical, volume number(issue

number if available). Retrieved from https://www.wepageaddress.com 
Note that there are no page numbers.

A DOI, or Digital Object Identifier, is a string of numbers, letters and symbols used to
permanently identify an article or document and link to it on the web.

Think about it as a digital social insurance number for a journal article: It is assigned to the article
and can be used to find an electronic version of that article. The DOI goes at the end of the journal
citation. It is your responsibility to track down the DOI. It is no longer considered acceptable in
APA style to include a URL for a journal article when a DOI is available.

A DOI can be formatted in one of two ways.

It can either be cited as doi:0000000/000000000000
or
https://doi.org/10.0000/0000. Note that the second option is not hyperlinked.

Website Citations
1. First, we have the author’s last name with a comma and the author’s first name initial.

2. Then, we have the date of publication. The date can be the year of publication (e.g., 2008), or, if
a more specific date of publication is provided, you include the specific date (e.g., 2017, March 30).

3. Next in the reference is the title and subtitle of the webpage (if applicable) and the name of the
website (e.g., TimeOut). Note that the title of the webpage is italicized, while the name of the
website is not italicized. In some instances, you have to do some looking around for the name of the
larger website.

4. Lastly, we have the URL. It is very important that the URL is not hyperlinked

Additional Considerations

You may have to search around for the author of the webpage if not immediately apparent. Keep in
mind that the author could be a corporation or a government entity. A good tip is to look at who
holds the copyright for the website – that person or organization may, in fact, be the author. If the
webpage is authored by the organization that runs the website, do not include the name of the
website after the title of the webpage. 

If you can't find the publication date, you can substitute the date of publication with (n.d.).

Here we see two examples of common website citations.

1. Brown, A. (2008). Shepherd's Pie. Food Network. https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-

brown/shepherds-pie-recipe2-1942900
2. Calhoun, D., Clarke, C., Huddleston, T., Rothkopf, J., & Uhlich, K. (2017, March 30). The best and

worst Disney movies: We explore the brilliant best and woeful worst of Disney animated films.

TimeOut. https://www.timeout.com/london/film/disney-movies-list

Book Chapter Citations

The basic elements of a book chapter citation are as follows: the author of the chapter, the year of
publication, the title of the chapter, the names of the editors, the title of the book (in italics), the
edition and page numbers of the chapter (in parentheses), and the name of the publisher. All of this
information should easily be found in the book. 

If citing an e-book, the DOI should be included as a hyperlink at the end.

If a book only has editors (i.e., no authors), then you use the names of the editors in place of the
author followed by Eds. in parentheses.

We have two examples of book chapter citations.

References Page:

Let's start with some general information about APA formatting. When using APA, the font must
be 12-point font and Times New Roman. Additionally, the text must be double-spaced.

Now, let's look at the formatting of the references page. The references list must go on its own
page. Like the rest of the APA document, the header of the page includes the running head of the
document (e.g., Socioeconomics and Information Literacy) and the page number (e.g., 17). 

Unlike other APA headings, the references heading should not be in bold; instead, it should be
centred on its own line.

 All of the APA references go in in alphabetical order by the last name of the first listed author of
that particular resource. Some information will be given in a later section about what to do with
alphabetization if you don’t have an author or if you aren’t sure about the author.  Note that all of
the references on the page use a function called a hanging indent, which means that the first line of
the reference is justified at the left-hand side of the margin, but the remaining lines are indented.
Depending on the program used to create the document, a hanging indent can be added by using the
formatting menu.

The following document is a sample references page.

 References

Goldingay, S., Hitch, D., Ryan, J., Farrugia, D., Hosken, N., Lamaro, G., Claire Nihill, C. &

Macfarlane, S. (2014). ‘The university didn’t actually tell us this is what you have to

do’: Social inclusion through embedding of academic skills in first year professional

courses. The International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education, 5, 43-53.

doi:10.5204/intjfyhe.v5il.194

Kraus, M., Piff, P., Medoza-Denton, R., Rheinschmidt, M. & Keltner, D. (2012). Social class,

solipsism, and contextualism: How the rich are different from the poor. Psychological

Review, 119, 546-572. doi:10.1037/a0028756

Marchant, G. J. & Finch, W. H. (2016). Student, school, and country: The relationship of

SES and inequality to achievement. Journal of Global Research in Education and

Social Science, 6, 187-196. Retrieved from

http://www.ikpress.org/index.php/JOGRESS/article/view/2078
Citing a Digital Image or Photograph:

In APA format image citation includes the creator’s name, the year, the image title and format
(e.g. painting, photograph, map), and the location where you accessed or viewed the image.

Format Last name, Initials. (Year). Image title [Format]. Site

Name. or Museum, Location. URL
Reference list van Gogh, V. (1889). The starry night [Painting]. Museum of Modern Art, New
York City, NY, United States. https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79802
In-text citation (van Gogh, 1889)

Audiovisual Media - Videos, Music Recordings, Maps Retrieved Online, Podcasts, etc.

Reference in text (Gladu & Brodeur, 2001)

(Manhatten77, 2007)

Reference List Gladu, A. (Producer), & Brodeur. M. (Director). (1999). Dance of the

warrior [Motion picture]. Canada: National Film Board.

Tables
Include the word Table with its number next to it ( Table 1). Give a title which describes the
Above Table
contents of the table.
Reference
Note. Adapted from "The Role of the Shared Family Context in Differential Parenting," by
Below Table
J.M. Jenkins, J. Rasbash, and T.G. O'Connor, 2003, Developmental Psychology, 39, p.104.
Copyright 2003 by the American Psychological Association.

Comments  Tables are characterized by a row-column structure.

 All tables must be referred to in text.
 The information that should appear in the Note below the table must include the
following: Reprinted from Title of Work, by Author. Retrieved from ... Date of
Copyright by Copyright Holder.

 This work must have a full bibliographic entry in your Reference List even though
the information in the Note field uses a lot of the same information.

 IF the table has been compiled from a variety of sources, all sources that have
been used to create the table's data need to be cited in the Note. below the table.
You do not need to give the full bibliographic citation - Author (date) is sufficient.

 When using multi-source data you want to describe what data is coming from
where. e.g.: Note. Data for hot sauce consumption in
 the United States from Kantar Media (2010), for
 Canada from Statistics Canada (2011), and for
 Britain from Euromonitor International (2010b).

 If you have multiple kinds of data (population figures, consumer information, etc...)
in one table you would describe each set of data. e.g.:

Note. Population figures for XYZ from Author (date) and for ABC from Author
(date). Data for pet ownership for XYZ from Author (date) and for ABC from
Author (date).
Personal Communications, Interviews and Class notes.

Reference In his interview M.S. Bloomberg (personal communication, April 22, 2007) talks
in Text about....

Reference
List Not Usually Applicable

Comment
s • Personal communications may be letters, e-mails, interviews, telephone
conversations, etc.
• Some forms of personal communication are recoverable, and these should
be referenced as archival material (See Rule 7.10, pp.212-214 for examples of
archival material).

• Unpublished, unrecoverable personal communications are not included

in the reference list because they do not provide recoverable data. Cite in text only.

• Cite information from your own class notes as a personal communication

and refer to it only in the body of your paper (e.g. In a lecture on
September 23, 2007 to a PSYC 103 class, Professor Brown said... ).
• Published interviews are included in the reference list. If the published
interview has a title, include it after the year. Give further description in
[brackets] if necessary. Provide the original source where the interview
was published (e.g. a print journal article with one author, a website, etc.)
and choose the format accordingly.
• If the published interview lacks a title, give a description of the interview in
[brackets].