APA formatting style is the official referencing style American Psychological Association (APA). It is the common method to cite sources in psychology, social sciences and education. A group of social scientists first developed APA in 1929 to establish organizes standards for written communication. Since then, many fields also adopted it and is in extensive use by writers around the world.
- Citing (identify) ideas and information from other people with academic papers such as essays, dissertation, thesis term, or research paper.Your list
- Indicate sources of the citations in a references list at the end of an academic paper.
- Allow presentation of written material in a clear and consistent manner
- Writing in APA for academic papers allows logical presentation of essential aspects of the academic paper like tables, headings, statistics and citation of references.
If you to learn about the appropriate use of this popular writing style, APA Style central will help to learn fast. It is an online solution by creators of APA style. The aim is to provide support to students for them to master the use of APA style, provide guidance through research and writing the writing processes. Students can access this help 24/7 to use it for research and writing. It includes citation of sources and building of the reference list.
APA Style Central provides a platform for collaboration between members of research groups or teams who are working on specific sections of a task to coordinate seamlessly and contribute to the final product.
Copying and submitting material as your own is an academic crime. You can avoid it by citing and referencing the sources from someone’s work. These sources include ideas, quotations, paraphrases, and images. You should name the original author and place the material you quote within quotation marks or in a block format.
It is the reason authors should cite their sources within the text after driving information from work by an author or materials such as a book or a journal even when the author is not known. APA format follows author-date method meaning that you place the last name of the author and the source’s year of publication in the text. Eg. John 2016.
Remember that any citation should appear in the reference list.
You only cite the author and year of publication in in-text reference when referring to an idea from other work without direct quotation of the material. It follows the same format when referencing to entire work in a book, article or any other extensive work as you can see in these examples:
Author, year of publication and page number that you precede with p. Use signal phrase to introduce the quotation, e.g., According to John (2016) “students should cite their sources (p. 10)”
Place direct quotation of exceeding 40 words in a free-standing block of typed lines but avoid quotation marks. Indent first line of ensuing paragraphs within a quotation from the new margin by five spaces. Parenthetical citation should appear after you close the quotation mark.
John’s (2016) study revealed the following: Students must learn how to use APA style for the first time to cite sources. The best method to learn is by seeking guidance from lecturers or buying a style manual.(p. 10)
Paraphrasing ideas from other works require an author to refer to the author and the year of publication in-text reference, but APA guidelines encourage the inclusion of page number although it is not mandatory.
E.g., according to John(2016), first-time users of APA should first learn the referencing style before using it, or first-time users of APA should first learn the referencing style(John 2020, p.10)
- One or two authors: Write the names of both authors in a signal phrase or parenthesis in each citation with “and” between them. E.g. Research by John and Janet(2017) reveals… , (John & Janet, 2017)
- Work by 3-5 authors: Lists all the authors in parentheses or signal phrase for the first citation of the source and name only the last name of the first author followed to “et al.” E.g. (John, Juliet, Sandra, Bailey& Harris, 2017), John et al. ,2017)
- Six authors or more: Write only the name of the first and et al. in parentheses or signal phrase. E.g. (John et al.,2017), John et al.(2017) claimed…
- Unknown Author: Cite the source’s title in the signal phrase or when in parentheses, use the first word or two. Remember to put titles of books or reports in italic and underline. Put titles of chapters and articles in quotation marks. E.g. Students did a similar study (Students Study, 2017). In rare cases, you can notice the use of anonymous in place of the unknown author (Anonymous, 2017). However, the use Anonymous should be in the reference list.
- Unknown author and date: Use the title, first word or two and n.d to indicate no date. E.g. A study shows that students benefit much from tutorials (“tutorials,” n.d.).
- Organization as the author: Information from an organization or a government agency recognized it as the author. Mention it in the signal phrase the first time you cite. E.g. According to American Psychological Association (2016)… Use abbreviation in brackets the first time for organizations with well-known abbreviations and uses only the abbreviations in the subsequent citations. E.g. (American Psychological Association [APA],2016). First citation, (APA, 2017)Second citation
- Authors with same last name: You prevent confusion by using first initials with their last names. E.g. (E, John; L. John, 2017) Two works or more written by one author and published the same year: You should use lower case letters with the year in the in-text citation or to order entries in your reference list. E.g. Research by John (2017a) shows that…
- Books Provide the last name of the writer and publication date. For books with six or more authors, provide the last name and the first initial if the first the books first listed author then et al. to represent the rest. E.g. Students test their competence in writing with APA format by practicing (John et al., 2017). You can also use John et al., (2017) found that students…
- Articles from Journal, magazine and other periodicals: APA in-text citation follows author-date format. Use the author’s last name and date of publication. E.g John and Jones (2017) demonstrate…, The study shows how these two variables relate ( John&Jones, 2017). Include a short title for an article you find from a publication without any listed author and follow it up with the publication date.
- Electronic sources: Wherever possible, cite electronic documents in author-date style like other documents but include the source where you retrieved it(exact URL). E.g. John A.(2017). Practicing writing in APA. Retrieved from http://…
A reference list has the sources you refer when writing. It helps your readers to find them. Include all references except personal communication such emails that you cannot retrieve.
It is more like a bibliography although the latter includes all the sources of your writing plus those for your research and background reading.
- Title: Begin by the title “References” centered but not in italics.
- Indent and spacing: Hang indent the references space ( spacebar them 5-7 spaces for the second and consequent lines of reference). Double space the references.
- Ampersand: Use “&” before the final author for works by 2-6 authors. For more, write the name of the first author and et.al.
- Same first author but different for the second: List them alphabetically by the second and other authors.
- Same first author but different for the second: List them alphabetically by the second and other authors.
- Two or more publications by one author: List by year of publication beginning with the first. If the publication year is the same, add a, b and c after the year but inside brackets.
- URL: Include URLs where you retrieve without underlines for readers to notice and underscore
- Place of publication: There is a slight difference between the way publishers provide the name of the place of publication. In the USA, they provide the name if the city and abbreviate the state. E.g., New York, NY. Publishers outside the United States write the full name of the city and country. E.g., Bristol, England.
- Use of upper case letters: Capitalize words in a journal title (headline style) except for prepositions and articles, i.e. “the, an, a.” Use sentence style (capitalizing first work on the title)for book or article title in magazine or newspaper, subtitle after the colon and for any proper names.
- Square brackets: Use square brackets when necessary after the title to include essential detail when the description, format or medium is vital for retrieval or identification of a resource.
When typing your work in APA format, use 8.5 by 11 inches and 1-inch margins on all sides of standard paper. APA prefers 12-point Times New Roman although you can still use other fonts.