APA reference citations

APA format: Reference citations, with examples by Nancy Rosenbaum When to reference If you restate or make mention of someone elses idea, someone elses published or unpublished work, or quote directly from a work, you must cite the source. How to cite Citations may be incorporated into the running text: According to research published by Jones in 1994 . . . or parenthetically: (Jones, 1994) If you have made mention of a specific fact or quotation, your citation should also include the page on which that fact or quotation can be found; the typical format used to reference a page is the parenthetical citation(Jones, 1994, p. 18)or simply p.18 if the author has been mentioned earlier in the paragraph. In all cases except for those involving block quotations, the parenthetical citation is included before the period that ends the sentence. Variations on how to cite Same author If you make mention of the same authors work multiple times in the same paragraph and that work would not be confused with any other work (that is, only one such work by that author is mentioned in the paragraph), you include the date in the first citation only. For all citations in that paragraph, you mention only the authors name. Variations on how to cite Block quotations For block quotations (those of 40 or more words, although this number may be different for specific institutions and journals), the citation follows the period that ends the sentence. Variations on how to cite Multiple authors When a work has two authors, cite both authors names every time. In the text, use the word and to link two authors. In parenthetical citations, use the ampersand (&) to link two authors. When a work has three, four, or five authors, cite all of the authors names the first time you cite the work. Thereafter, include only the name of the first authors last name and et al. Be sure to include the period after al.; do not add a period after et and do not italicize this Latin term. All of the authors are listed in the References section. In the text, use commas between all of the authors' names, including before the word and immediately preceding the last authors name in

each citation (e.g., Walker, Jones, and Smith). In parenthetical citations, use the ampersand instead of and (e.g., Walker, Jones, & Smith). When a work has six or more authors, include only the name of the first author, followed by et al. (e.g., Smith et al., 2000). The first six authors names should be included in the References entry (if there are more than six, end with et al.). Variations on how to cite Multiple references in a parenthetical citation Multiple references can be included in the same parenthetical citation. Use commas within each citation and separate the citations with semicolons. The citations are listed alphabetically (by the name of the first author of each citation). For example: (Baker & Butcher, 1996; Butcher & Candler, 1972; Candler, Baker, & Butcher, 1982).

the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association ("APA manual") provides many general guidelines for editorial style, including areas such as capitalization, punctuation, and spacing. In addition, there some rules that only apply in very specific situations. The following are examples of some of these one-of-a-kind rules: The general rule is to leave one space after every punctuation mark, but you should leave no space after internal periods in abbreviations (e.g., U.S. or n.d.) See page 291. The general rule is to capitalize proper nouns, personal names, names of specific departments within a university, complete names of specific academic courses, and the trade and brand names of products, but you should not capitalize the names of laws, theories, models, and hypotheses. See p. 97. The general rule is to capitalize both words of a capitalized word that is a hyphenated compound in the title of a book or article within the body of a document, but you should not capitalize the second word of a capitalized hyphenated compound in the title of a book or article in a reference list entry. See page 95. The general rule is to end each reference list entry with a period, but you should not use a period at the end of an entry if the last element is a URL. See page 272. The general rule is to use a hyphen in all compounds involving the prefix self, but you should not use a hyphen in the compound self psychology. See page 93. The general rule is to use a period after a page-number citation for quoted material, but you should place the period before the page-number citation if the quoted material appears in a block format. See page 118. The general rule is to list peoples initials following their last names in a reference list entry, but initials should precede last names of editors in an entry that includes both author and editor names. See page 252.

The rule is to place table titles and numbers above the tables, but you should place figure captions and numbers below the figures. See page 199. The rule for breaking a URL between two lines in a reference list entry is to divide the URL after a slash, or before a period, but never by inserting a hyphen. See page 273. The rule is to capitalize an academic grade level when using it as a noun (e.g., Grade 10), but not when using it as an adjective (e.g., 10th-grade student). See page 125.

A Few Important New Rules in the Sixth Edition of the APA Publication Manual by James Powell Writing in APA Style presents significant challenges. Neither students nor professionals have the leisure to commit to memory the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. To complicate matters, the first printing of the Sixth Edition of the publication, printed in July 2009, contained errata on over 80 pages. For this reason, do not purchase a used copy. Amazon.com and the American Psychological Association are presently selling only later, corrected printings of the work. Although the Sixth Edition is more concise than its predecessor, this is partly because it lacks the wealth of examples provided in the Fifth Edition. Also, there are numerous rules in the Fifth Edition that have been changed in the Sixth Edition. I present below a few important changes in the mechanics of APA Style:

Whereas the Fifth Edition recommended inserting one space after punctuation marks at the end of a sentence, the Sixth Edition stipulates two spaces, as in this article. Both editions provide a general rule to use numerals to express numbers 10 and above and words to express numbers below 10. However, the Fifth Edition made an exception that the Sixth Edition does not: When numbers 10 and above are grouped together in the same sentence with numbers below 10, the latter are also expressed in numerals. Two examples of this outdated rule follow: 4 of 29 analyses 3 of the 36 groups

There is also a difference between the two editions in another exception to the rule of expressing numbers 10 and above with numerals and those below 10 with words. Whereas the Fifth Edition stipulates that all numbers denoting time should be in numerals (e.g., 2 months), the Sixth Edition states that this exception no longer applies for approximate designations of days, months, and years (e.g., about two months ago). Report p values to two or three decimal places (e.g., p = .031, p = .03). However, the Sixth Edition states to report p values less than .001 as p < .001.

Whereas the Fifth Edition did not allow bulleted lists, such as this one, the Sixth Edition suggests that writers who wish to avoid connoting an "unwanted or unwarranted" ordinal relationship (e.g., chronology, priority, importance) among items in a list may wish to resort to bulleted lists rather than numbered ones.

Making APA mistakes can cost a significant amount of time and money. You may need to revise an entire manuscript, which could entail enrolling in school for another semester or more. To avoid such inconveniences, seriously consider enlisting the expertise of a competent APA editor.

Steps
1. 1 Begin a new page separate from the text for your bibliography or reference list. A reference list is different from a bibliography. Find out which one you need. The only difference is that a reference list includes what you have cited within the text, and sources you have used, but nothing else. Any other sources you have read or seen, but later discarded because they are irrelevant, outdated, etc., should never be included in a reference list, but can be included in the bibliography. 2. 2 Create an alphabetized list of your sources based upon the authors last name. If the source you are using contains two or more authors, use the last name of the author listed first on the title page. According to the 2010 APA manula, For up to 7 authors names list them all. For 8 or more, list the first 6 followed by a comma, an ellipsis or 3 periods then the last author's name. If a book is edited and there is no author named, type the editor's name followed by (Ed.). If your source does not list an author, use the first word of the title to alphabetize the work. 3. 3 For each source, list the authors last name and first initials, with a comma separating the names and initials and periods after the initials. APA calls for initials only to reduce bias. Ex. Smith, M.A. 4. 4 After the authors name, list the date of publication in parentheses, with a period following the closing parenthesis. Ex. (2005). 5. 5

List the title of the article. Capitalize only the first word of the title unless subsequent words are proper nouns. End with a period. This step does not apply if you are referring to an entire book. 6. 6 List the title of the work (book or journal) in italicized text, with a period following the title. If it is a book (or any other source except a journal) you will capitalize only the first word of the title unless subsequent words are proper nouns or the first word after a colon, and end it with a period. Ex. How to write an APA-style bibliography. If it is a journal, capitalize all major words, insert a comma, add the volume number, issue number (in parentheses, if applicable -- if the journal starts the page numbering of each issue with 1, then include this; if the journal continues page numbering issue to issue for a volume, do not include this), another comma, the page number(s) and a period to end the journal citation. Ex. The Statesman Journal, 59(4), 286-295. 7. 7 List the place of publication of the book (city, state or just city) and then the name of the publisher, with a colon separating them. Follow the publisher with a period. Ex. Boston, MA: Random House. 8. 8 Indent all but the first line of every entry (a hanging indent).