Citing Resources in APA (American Psychological Association) Style

The APA citation style is typically used by the sciences and psychology.

Current copies of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association can be found in the stacks, or on RESERVE, at:
BF76.7 .P83 2010

Remember that your list of resources should be presented in alphabetical order by author's last name.

Sample Citations
Online Resources

 
Sample Citations
 
When writing a citation in the APA style, pay particular attention to italics, punctuation, indentation, and capitalization. With the APA Style, quotations and borrowed phrases are indicated as such within the text, with the author's name and page number cited in parentheses. This variation is used instead of footnotes or endnotes.

Authors' first and middle names are never spelled out in the APA style. Initials are always used for first and middle names.

Many more samples of citations presented in the APA style can be found in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Please consult this book or a librarian for help with unusual resources.

All of the following samples are taken from:

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the

      American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC:

     American Psychological Association.

(Sample of organization as author, with latest edition number. Only proper names italicized in title.)

 

Book with an Editor:
Note: italicize the title of the book and do not capitalize any words in titles except the first word, proper names and after a colon. Use the author's or editor's initials only for first and middle names.

(Note indents and spare use of capitals.)

Robinson, D.N. (Ed.). (1992). Social discourse and moral judgment. San

      Diego, CA: Academic Press.

 

Scholarly Article (with multiple authors):
Note: Do not set off the title of the article with quotes, italics, underlines, or capital letters (except for the first word, proper names or after a colon). Italicize the title of the journal and capitalize all keywords in the title of the journal. This sample includes the volume number (65), which is italicized to set it of from the page numbers, and issue number (4) in parentheses. Do not italicize the issue number. Provide the DOI when available for electronic documents.

(In a bibliography. Note authors' names, indents, spare use of capitals, page numbers, and use of periods and commas.)

Calvo, M. G., & Lang, P. J. (2004). Gaze patterns when looking at emotional pictures:
      
       Motivationally biased attention. Motivation and Emotion, 28(3), 221–243. doi:
      

       10.1023/B%3AMOEM.0000040153.26156.ed

 

Popular Article (with two authors):
Note: Do not set off the title of the article with quotes, italics, underlines, or capital letters (except for the first word, proper names or after a colon). Italicize the title of the magazine and capitalize all keywords in the title of the journal. Italicize the volume number to set it off from the page numbers.

(In a bibliography. Note order of author's names, indents, page numbers, and use of periods and commas.)

Kandel, E.R., & Squire, L.R. (2000, November 10). Neuroscience:

     Breaking down scientific barriers to the study of brain and mind.

     Science, 290, 1113-1120.

 

Newspaper Article:
Note: Do not set off the title of the article with quotes, italics, underlines, or capital letters (except for the first word, proper names or after a colon). Italicize the title of the newspaper and capitalize all keywords in the title of the newspaper.

(In a bibliography.)

Schwartz, J. (1993, September 30). Obesity affects economic, social

     status. The Washington Post, pp. A1, A4.

     

Website:
Note: Italicize the title of the website but do not capitalize any words except the first, proper names, and after a colon.

(In bibliography. With authors.)

Chou, L., McClintock, R., Moretti, F., & Nix, D.H. (1993). Technology

     and education: New wine in new bottles: Choosing pasts and imagining

     educational futures. Retrieved August 24, 2000, from Columbia

     University, Institute for Learning Technologies Web site: http://www.

     ilt.columbia.edu/publications/papers/newwinel.html.

 

Online Resources
Samples of papers written using the APA style can be found at the following websites:

APA Style.Org
The APA's official website, as excerpted from the 5th edition.

Citation Styles
An all purpose web site from Bedford/St. Martin's publishers. It is contained in Online: a Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources.

OWL : Online Writing Lab Online
APA style manual on the Purdue University's Writing Lab's website.

Slate Citation Machine
Excellent tool for citing sources in MLA and APA style. Simply fill in the form for the type of source you are citing, I.E. a book, journal article, web site etc. and this tool will show you the way to cite the reference. Be careful of your capitalization.

Updated: November 8, 200