APA (American Psychological Association) 7th Edition
In APA, you must “cite” sources that you have paraphrased, quoted or otherwise used to write your research paper. Cite your sources in two places:
- In the body of your paper where you add a brief in-text citation.
- In the Reference list at the end of your paper where you give more complete information for the source.
We highly recommend using a Reference Management Tool to organize your literature and citations for your assignment. You can search for “Zotero” or “Mendeley” online to see how powerful these tools are in enhancing your credibility.
Quick Link: Zotero | Mendeley | Read The Reference Easily | Student Sample Page (From APA)
Majority Setting
Essay Format
- Font: You can use Times New Roman 12, but other fonts like Calibri 11, Arial 11, Lucida Sans 10, and Georgia 11 are also acceptable.
- Headers: No running headers are required for student papers.
- Tables and Figures: There is a standardised format for both tables and figures.
Style, Grammar, Usage
- Singular “they” is required in two situations: when used by a known person as their pronoun or when the gender of a singular person is not known.
- Use only one space after a sentence-ending period.
Citation Style
- The ‘Four Elements of a Reference’ (Author, Date, Title, Source) help writers create references for source types not explicitly covered in the APA Manual. See Read the Reference Easily for more example.
- Three or more authors can be abbreviated to First author et al. on the first citation.
- Up to 20 authors are spelled out in the References List.
- Publisher location is not required for books.
- An ebook platform, format, or device is not required for eBooks.
- Library database names are generally not required.
- Hyperlinks:
- No “doi:” prefix. Include the doi.
- All hyperlinks retain the https://
- Links can be “live” in blue with underlining or black without underlining.
In-Text Citations
Following the usage of a quotation or paraphrase from another source, in-text citations must be supplied.
In-text citations are references to a direct quotation or paraphrase that appears in the context.
These citations present the surname of an author and the date of publication.
Single Author
Using James Mitchell as an example author, this takes the form: Mitchell (2017) asserts… Or … (Mitchell, 2017).
The structure of this changes depending on whether a direct quote or parenthetical is used:
Direct Quote: The citation must follow the quote directly and contain a page number after the date, for example (Mitchell, 2017, p.104).
This rule holds for all of the variations listed.
Parenthetical: The page number is not needed.
Multiple authors and corporate authors
When a source has multiple authors or is authored by an organization, the in-text citation is modified considerably.
Pay attention to punctuation and the use of the ampersand (&) symbol.
| Author type | Parenthetical citation | Narrative citation |
|---|---|---|
| One author | (Mitchell, 2017) | Mitchell (2017) |
| Two authors | (Smith & Jones, 2020) | Smith and Jones (2020) |
| Three or more authors | (Smith et al., 2020) | Smith et al. (2020) |
| Organization | (APA, 2020) | APA (2020) |
Paraphrasing & Direct Quote
Short Quotation (Not more than 40 words)
For quotes of less than 40 words, contain them in quotation marks and integrate them into your own text, and no extra formatting is required. Despite the original source having an ellipsis, do not place an ellipsis at the beginning and/or end of a citation.
Example:
Effective teams can be difficult to describe because “high performance along one domain does not translate to high performance along another” (Ervin et al., 2018, p. 470).
Long Quotation (40 words or more)
– Quotes of 40 words or more should be formatted as block quotes.
– Avoid using quote marks around block quotations.
– Begin a block quote on a new line and indent it to the left by half an inch.
– Indent the full block quote with two spaces.
– Do not add more spacing before or after.
– If the quote has multiple paragraphs, indent the first line of each successive paragraph by an extra 0.5 inches.
– Either (a) identify the source in parentheses after the final punctuation of the quote, or (b) credit the author and year in the narrative before the quotation and insert just the page number in parenthesis after the quotation.
– In neither instance should a period be added after the closing parenthesis.
Sample:
Block quotation with parenthetical citation:
Researchers have studied how people talk to themselves:
Inner speech is a paradoxical phenomenon. It is an experience that is central to many people’s everyday lives, and yet it presents considerable challenges to any effort to study it scientifically. Nevertheless, a wide range of methodologies and approaches have combined to shed light on the subjective experience of inner speech and its cognitive and neural underpinnings. (Alderson-Day & Fernyhough, 2015, p. 957)
Block quotation with narrative citation:
Flores et al. (2018) described how they addressed potential researcher bias when working with an intersectional community of transgender people of color:
Everyone on the research team belonged to a stigmatized group but also held privileged identities. Throughout the research process, we attended to the ways in which our privileged and oppressed identities may have influenced the research process, findings, and presentation of results. (p. 311)
Insert a table or figure
After you insert a table, figure or chart in your paper, you need to give a table number and title.
If you want to automatically generate a table list in the TOC, click “Insert Caption” in the “Reference” tab of Microsoft Word.
Sample
Generate a table list in TOC
Click “Insert Table of Figures” in the “References” tab to add it to your Table List Page.
Insert the Reference List
Manual Entry: You need to create a complete bibliography for your credited work.
Reference Management Software: Generate or update the bibliography list at the end.
Read The Reference Easily
Common Phrases: Author (Last Name, First Name [short form]) | Publication Year (Year/Month/Date) | Publisher
Books, eBooks & Reviews
Book
Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst. Penguin Books.
eBook
Jackson, L. M. (2019). The psychology of prejudice: From attitudes to social action (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000168-000
Book Review
Review with no title.
McKinley, A. (2018). [Review of the book Criminal investigative failures, by D. K. Rossmo]. Salus Journal, 6(1), 82-84.
Review with specific title
Bell, M. S. (2006, December 31). Are you my mother? [Review of the book Let the northern lights erase your name, by V. Vida]. The New York Times Book Review, https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/books/review/Bell.t.html?ref-review
Journal, Magazines & Newspaper Article
Journal
Grady, J. S., Her, M., Moreno, G., Perez, C., & Yelinek, J. (2019). Emotions in storybooks: A comparison of storybooks that represent ethnic and racial groups in the United States. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 8(3), 207–217. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000185
Magazine
Lyons, D. (2009, June 15). Don’t ‘iTune’ us: It’s geeks versus writers. Guess who’s winning. Newsweek, 153(24), 27.
Schaefer, N. K., & Shapiro, B. (2019, September 6). New middle chapter in the story of human evolution. Science, 365(6457), 981–982. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aay3550
Newspaper
Carey, B. (2019, March 22). Can we get better at forgetting? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/health/memory-forgetting-psychology.html
Harlan, C. (2013, April 2). North Korea vows to restart shuttered nuclear reactor that can make bomb-grade plutonium. The Washington Post, A1, A4.
Social Media & Audio Visual
Facebook Reference
News From Science. (2019, June 21). Are you a fan of astronomy? Enjoy reading about what scientists have discovered in our solar system—and beyond? This [Image attached] [Status update]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/ScienceNOW/photos/a.117532185107/10156268057260108/?type=3&theater
Instagram References
Philadelphia Museum of Art [@philamuseum]. (2019, December 3). “It’s always wonderful to walk in and see my work in a collection where it’s loved, and where people are [Photograph]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/B5oDnnNhOt4/
Online Forum (e.g., Reddit) References
Little, J. [j450n_l]. (2018, December 12). I’m the first person in the world with a neural-enabled prosthetic hand. Using an specialized prosthetic and a device implanted [Online forum post]. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/a5jxbe/im_the_first_person_in_the_world_with_a/
LinkedIn post
American Psychological Association. (2019, December 9). Last month, APA joined more than 40 national and international psychology organizations to explore ways to collaborate and use psychological [Thumbnail with link attached] [Post]. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/american-psychological-association_how-psychologists-are-combating-climate-change-activity-6609801161937612800-GvdC
Encyclopedias & Dictionaries
Online Encyclopedia or Dictionary (with Author and DOI)
Stonard, J. (2016). Wall, Jeff(rey). In Grove art online. https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T096536
Online Encyclopedia or Dictionary (with Author, No DOI)
Maher, J. (2010). Work and mothering. In A. O’Reilly (Ed.), Encyclopedia of motherhood (Vol. 3, pp. 1278-1283). SAGE.
Printed Encyclopedia or Dictionary (with Author)
King, P. N., & Wester L. (1998). Hawaii. In The world book encyclopedia (Vol. 9, pp. 88-110). World Book
Statistics
Statistics from Statista
UNWTO. (2018). Number of international tourist arrivals worldwide from 2005 to 2017, by region (in millions). Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/186743/international-tourist-arrivals-worldwide-by-region-since-2005/
Note: Because the publisher and author are different, you need to identify Statista as part of the source element.
Report by a Government Agency References
National Cancer Institute. (2019). Taking time: Support for people with cancer (NIH Publication No. 18-2059). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.cancer.gov/publications/patient-education/takingtime.pdf
Websites
Webpage on a website reference
Bologna, C. (2019, October 31). Why some people with anxiety love watching horror movies. HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anxiety-love-watching-horror-movies_l_5d277587e4b02a5a5d57b59e
Webpage on a website with institutional author
National Institute of Mental Health. (2018, July). Anxiety disorders. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders/index.shtml