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You will often use sources for academic writing, and it’s important to know how to responsibly cite and integrate those sources into your own writing. APA format provides guidelines and structures for citing those sources in a way that helps you avoid plagiarism and give proper credit to your sources.
APA stands for the American Psychological Association and is the format designed for use within the field of psychology. However, other disciplines use APA as well, so always use the format your professor chooses.
In addition to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , 7th edition, the APA maintains its own website with multiple examples of how to format your paper and cite your sources. If you’re unable to find the answer to your question here, check the APA Manual 7th edition or the APA website.
Papers constructed according to APA guidelines generally include the following elements:
- Subsections within the body, with headings
- Tables and Figures
In most cases, each of these elements will begin on a separate page, and it is important to note that not all academic papers will include all of these elements.
For specific types of reports, your subsections may need to be named with headings that reflect the type of report you are writing. For example, in reports on experiments or studies you’ll usually need to follow the IMRAD structure with Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion sections. Be sure to check with your instructor to determine what the expectations are for your paper.
The APA style demos in this section will provide you with more information regarding APA basic formatting, in-text citations, and the references list.
This short video is meant to give students who are brand new to APA format some context and basic overview information about using APA format for college papers.
APA stands for the American Psychological Association, and APA format is the formatting style that many academic majors use to format their papers and cite sources within their papers.
There are three basic “parts” of APA that you should understand: There is the basic format of how you set up your paper for things like your cover page, margins, line spacing, etc. There is in-text citing, where you use citations within your paper to let your readers know where your source material comes from. Finally, there is the References list, where you list all of the publication information for any sources used within your paper.
We’ll start with the overall formatting.
In the 7th edition of APA format, you should have a cover page that includes your title, your name, the name of your program and school, the name of your class, the name of your professor, and the date. You should also have the page number at the top right corner. Your page numbers should appear on every page.
You should begin your essay on the next page. Your margins should be 1 inch all the way around. You should use a clean, standard font, and you should double space your lines and single space after all punctuation. Be sure to indent by hitting tab for all new paragraphs.
Next, we will explore in-text citing.
It is important to remember that you must cite your sources within your text when you quote, summarize, and paraphrase information from your sources. This means, you must cite even information you put into your own words.
In APA, there are two basic structures for in-text citations—the narrative citation and the parenthetical citation.
The narrative citation is used when you mention the author or authors’ last names within the sentence. In this kind of citation, the year citation is placed after the author or authors’ last names, and any page or paragraph citations come at the end.
The parenthetical citation is used when you haven’t mentioned the author or authors’ names within the sentence. This citation includes the author or authors’ last names, year, and page number if necessary for a direct quote.
Finally, we will take a look at a References page.
The References page is where you will provide full publication and retrieval information for your sources. The References page is presented in alphabetical order, and it is important to remember that your in-text citations must match up with your References.
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- The APA Style Blog explores common questions related to APA and offers detailed APA style advice.
- Intern’s Corner: Referencing and Citing Sources Part IV: APA Style — a blog post from Hoot – The OWL Blog — contains tips to help locate more information about APA style within the OWL.
- Guest Author Jason Brown wrote “Why Don’t We Have Both?” Using the OWL’s APA and MLA Citation Materials about offering students a citation style choice and explaining how the OWL has helped his students with proper citation.
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APA Style: Purdue OWL
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- APA Style General Formatting and Style Guide 7th ed
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How Does APA Style Apply to Me?
The APA style manual will govern a number of aspects of your writing, including:
- How you credit sources
- How you format your paper
- How you organize your paper
To help you learn APA style, this guide contains information on each of these three elements.
REMEMBER: This help guide is intended to familiarize students with the basics of APA style and formatting; it is by no means a comprehensive resource. For more information on APA style, please refer to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , or browse through some of the following resources:
- The Owl at Purdue: APA Formatting and Style Guide This resource, revised according the 7th edition, second printing of the APA manual, offers examples for the general format of APA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the reference page.
- APA Supplemental Materials The materials are intended as supplementary material to the publication of the American Psychological Associations, Sixth Edition. Due to space and printing limitations, they are referenced from but not printed in the actual Manual.
- The Owl at Purdue APA FAQs The following FAQs address issues in APA citation and/or formatting. The entries in this section are based on frequently asked questions received by our OWL Mail Tutors.
- Learning APA Style Contains all the resources you might need to learn APA style - online courses and tutorials, blogs, FAQs, and more!
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APA Style from OWL Purdue
- APA Formatting and Style Guide (7th Edition) Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) guide to APA gives a user friendly overview of APA style. The linked overview should help you better understand how to cite sources using APA 7th edition, including how to format the reference page and in-text citations.
- APA General Format This webpage provides an overview of the format of an APA style paper.
- Reference List: Basic Rules This webpage review the basic format of the APA style reference list.
- Reference List: Articles in Periodicals This webpage describes how to cite articles from journals, magazines, and newspapers.
- Reference List: Books This webpage shows how to cite books and book chapters in APA style.
- APA Sample Paper This webpage has an annotated paper that show what an APA style looks like.
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association: 7th Edition
Table of Contents: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
- Scholarly Writing and Publishing Principles
- Paper Elements and Format
- Journal Articles Reporting Standards
- Writing Style and Grammar
- Bias-Free Language Guidelines
- Mechanics of Style
- Tables and Figures
- Works Credited in the Text
- Reference List
- Reference Examples
- Legal References
- Publication Process
APA Style Blog
- APA Style Blog Stay up-to-date on the lastest in APA Style.
Sample articles from the blog
How to cite ChatGPT (April 7, 2023)
How to capitalize medication names (June 15, 2022)
Introducing APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards for Race, Ethnicity, and Culture (November 2, 2023)
APA Style Overview
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Basic guidelines for formatting the reference list at the end of a standard APA research paper Author/Authors Rules for handling works by a single author or multiple authors that apply to all APA-style references in your reference list, regardless of the type of work (book, article, electronic resource, etc.)
APA Formatting and Style Guide APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. This resource, revised according to the 7 th edition of the APA manual, offers examples for the general format of APA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the reference page.
APA Formatting Guide. 7th Edition6th Edition. Once you review the different aspects of APA formatting, you may find that it takes you awhile to remember everything you need to do. Referring back to helpful resources here can help, but a guide of the key components of APA can provide important reminders and support.
The authority on APA Style and the 7th edition of the APA Publication Manual. Find tutorials, the APA Style Blog, how to format papers in APA Style, and other resources to help you improve your writing, master APA Style, and learn the conventions of scholarly publishing.
APA format provides guidelines and structures for citing those sources in a way that helps you avoid plagiarism and give proper credit to your sources. APA stands for the American Psychological Association and is the format designed for use within the field of psychology. However, other disciplines use APA as well, so always use the format your ...
The following two sample papers were published in annotated form in the Publication Manual and are reproduced here as PDFs for your ease of use. The annotations draw attention to content and formatting and provide the relevant sections of the Publication Manual (7th ed.) to consult for more information.. Student sample paper with annotations (PDF, 4.95MB)
These instructional aids are in PDF format and include. guides to introduce writers to APA Style or provide a brief overview of specific topics. checklists to use during the writing process. interactive activities to help writers learn and apply APA Style guidelines for citations and reference formatting, paper writing and formatting, bias-free ...
APA Style Guide; Citation Managers; Useful Library Guides ... 2019-10-01. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition is the official source for APA Style. ... Below are a few topics covered by the OWL. APA Style Introduction APA 7th. APA Overview and Workshop APA 7th. General Formatting APA 7th. In-Text ...
In an APA Style paper, every page has a page header. For student papers, the page header usually consists of just a page number in the page's top-right corner. ... Beginner's guide to APA in-text citation APA in-text citations consist of the author's last name, publication year, and when quoting, a page number: (Parker, 2020, p. 67) 1089 ...
APA Style. The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects. Teachers and trainers may use this material for ...
This guide includes books, journals, databases, and reference sources in the psychological sciences discipline. ... (OWL) APA Style Manual. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th ed. by American Psychological Association. Call Number: BF76.7 .P83 2020 (three copies at HSSE reference desk, one in HICKS) ...
Indent the first line of every paragraph of text 0.5 in. using the tab key or the paragraph-formatting function of your word-processing program. Page numbers: Put a page number in the top right corner of every page, including the title page or cover page, which is page 1. Student papers do not require a running head on any page.
Style Guide Overview MLA Guide APA Guide Chicago Guide OWL Exercises. Purdue OWL. Research and Citation. APA Style (7th Edition) APA Style (7th Edition)
Number the first text page as page number 3. Type and center the title of the paper centered, at the top of the page. Type the text double-spaced with all sections following each other without a break. Identify the sources you use in the paper in parenthetical in-text citations. Format tables and figures.
Types of APA Papers. APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. This resource, revised according to the 6th edition, second printing of the APA manual, offers examples for the general format of APA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the reference page.
The APA style manual will govern a number of aspects of your writing, including: How you credit sources; How you format your paper; ... The Owl at Purdue: APA Formatting and Style Guide. This resource, revised according the 7th edition, second printing of the APA manual, offers examples for the general format of APA research papers, in-text ...
ISBN: 9781433832154. Publication Date: 2019-10-01. The newest official release of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition is the official source for APA Style. It is the style manual of choice for writers, researchers, editors, students, and educators in the social and behavioral sciences, natural ...
In-text citations are covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Chapter 8 and the Concise Guide Chapter 8. Date created: September 2019. APA Style provides guidelines to help writers determine the appropriate level of citation and how to avoid plagiarism and self-plagiarism. We also provide specific guidance for ...
Purdue Owl: APA Formatting & Style Guide /citations/purdue-owl-apa-formatting-style-guide Developed by Purdue's Online Writing Lab. Contains resources on in-text citation and the references page, as well as APA sample papers, slide presentations, and the APA classroom poster.
After consulting with publication specialists at the APA, OWL staff learned that the APA 6th edition, first printing sample papers have incorrect examples of running heads on pages after the title page. This link will take you to the APA site where you can find a complete list of all the errors in the APA's 6th edition style guide.. Type your title in upper and lowercase letters centered in ...
Each work cited must appear in the reference list, and each work in the reference list must be cited in the text (or in a table, figure, footnote, or appendix). Both paraphrasesand quotationsrequire citations. The following are guidelines to follow when writing in-text citations: Ensure that the spelling of author names and the publication ...
Mission. The Purdue On-Campus Writing Lab and Purdue Online Writing Lab assist clients in their development as writers—no matter what their skill level—with on-campus consultations, online participation, and community engagement. The Purdue Writing Lab serves the Purdue, West Lafayette, campus and coordinates with local literacy initiatives.