APA Style Guide

When you write a research paper, it is important that you credit the scholars and critics who have contributed to your ideas. Using citations and bibliographies is the scholarly method to discharge this important responsibility. The following are samples of American Psychological Association (APA) style citations and references.

IN-TEXT CITATIONS or parenthetical notes

The basic form of the citation briefly identifies only the name of the author or title under which the source is listed in the reference list at the end of your paper along with only the year of publication. Someone reading your paper should be able to use your citation to find the complete entry in your reference list.

Citing a work by one author

Jelin (1977) indicates similar patterns for women in Argentina.
or
Women also migrate to become involved in petty trade (Arizpe, 1978)...

Citing one work by three or more authors

Holland, Holt, Levi, and Beckett (1983) indicate that...
or (after first citation)
Holland et al. (1983) also found...

Citing works by several authors

After the Civil Rights movement a growing number of racial/ethnic scholars such as Almaguer (1975), Barrera (1978), and Takaki (1979) challenged...
or
The subjects of this study seemed to perform their duties as determined by the institutional arrangements within which they worked (Watson, Kumar, & Michaelsen, 1993).

Quotation of sources
Kenneth Clark (1979) raised some interesting questions concerning artistic "masterpieces" (p. 105).
or
She stated, "The essence of the issue is reality vs. perception" (Cox, 1993, p.132), as noted earlier.

Citing two or more works by the same author
Past research on race and class (Wilson, 1978, 1987) play a significant role in today's society.

Citing a government document
Several key points were made in a recent report (Commission on Migrant Education, 1992) ...

Published proceedings from a Conference
Researchers have reported at a related conference (De Angelo, Smith, & Lang, 1993)...

REFERENCES

 
One reason to take care in creating a Reference List is so that others will be able to find the sources you've used. When in doubt, provide more information rather than less. Books, journals, magazines, and newspapers are identified by underlining the title. These examples are single spaced. Note that in manuscript, references are double spaced. First line of each entry begins at the left margin; subsequent lines are indented five spaces.

Book by one author
Takaki, R. T. (1979). Iron cages : Race and culture in nineteenth-century America.
     New York, NY: Knopf.

An edited book
Jelin, E. (Ed.). (1991). Family, household, and gender relations in Latin America.
     New York, NY: Routledge, Chapman & Hall.

Article or chapter in edited book
Ruiz, V. L. (1992). Star struck: Acculturation, adolescence, and Mexican American
     women, 1920-1950. In E. West & P. Petrik (Eds.), Small worlds: Children and
     adolescents in Lawrence, America, 1850-1950. Plains, KS: University Press of
     Kansas.

Article from a scholarly journal
Martinez, E. & Palmer, S. (1993). Beyond black/white: The racisms of our time.
      Social Justice, 20, 22-35.

Article from a newspaper
For job seekers, a toll-free gift of expert advice. (1993, December 12) New
      York Times, p. D1.

Article from a magazine
Corliss, R. (1993, September 13). Pacific overtures. Time, 142, 68-70.

Government document
Commision on Special Education. (1993) Our future, our children: planning
     for the next generation (93-094-P). Washington, DC: Government
     Printing Office.

Published Conference Proceedings
Murray, L. (Ed). (2001) Endless searching: New horizons in search engine
     technology. Proceedings of the Search Engine Technology Conference,
     University of Main. Journal of the Internet, 40 (suppl.), 1-402.

IN-TEXT CITATIONS OF ELECTRONIC MATERIAL

Electronic materials with page numbers
To cite a specific part of a source, indicate the page, chapter, figure, table, or equation at the appropriate point in text. Always give page numbers for quotations. Note that the words page and chapter are abbreviated in such text citations:

(Cheek & Buss, 1981, p. 332)
(Shimamura, 1989, chap. 3)

Electronic sources without page numbers
Use the paragraph number, if available, preceded by the paragraph symbol or the abbreviation para. If neither paragraph nor page numbers are visible, cite the heading and the number of the paragraph following it to direct the reader to the location of the material.

(Myers, 2000, ¶ 5)
(Beutler, 2000, Conclusion section, para. 1)

REFERENCE FORMATS OF ELECTRONIC MATERIALS

Electronic sources include aggregated databases, online journals, Web sites or Web pages, newsgroups, Web- or e-mail-based discussion groups, and Web- or e-mail-based newsletters. Examples below and additional information are available at the APA website http://www.apastyle.org/elecref.html. When using and citing Internet sources use the following two guidelines:
1) Direct readers as closely as possible to the information being cited; whenever possible, reference specific documents rather than home or menu pages.
2) Provide addresses that work.

General Form for Online periodical:
Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author,  C. C. (2000).
    Title of article. Title of  Periodical, xx, xxxxxx.
    Retrieved month day, year, from source.

General Form for Online document:
Author, A. A. (2000). Title of work.
   Retrieved month day, year, from source.

Sample references:

Internet articles based on an exact duplicate of a print source:
VandenBos, G., Knapp, S., & Doe, J. (2001). Role of reference elements in the
     selection of resources by psychology undergraduates [Electronic version].
     Journal of Bibliographic Research, 5, 117-123.

Internet articles changed from the print source:
VandenBos, G., Knapp, S., & Doe, J. (2001). Role of reference elements in the
     selection of resources by psychology undergraduates [Electronic version].
     Journal of Bibliographic Research, 5, 117-123. Retrieved October 13, 2003,
     from http://jbr.org/articles.html

Article in an Internet-only journal
Fredrickson, B. L. (2000, March 7). Cultivating positive emotions to optimize
     health and well-being. Prevention & Treatment, 3, Article 0001a. Retrieved
     November 20, 2003, from http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume3/pre0030001a.html

Electronic copy of a journal article retrieved from database
Borman, W. C., Hanson, M. A., Oppler, S. H., Pulakos, E. D., &
     White, L. A. (1993). Role of early supervisory experience in supervisor
     performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 443-449. Retrieved
     October 23, 2003, from PsycARTICLES database.