Skip to Main Content

Citation and Plagiarism

Citation Style Guides: APA Style

APA Style is produced and maintained by the American Psychological Association. The official style rules are published in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition (access The Concise APA Handbook (7th Edition) eBook here). Read more about the interesting history of APA Style on Wikipedia.

Click in to free resources from around the internet, or read below for more tips.

Quick facts via Purdue OWL:

  • Used in most social sciences courses
  • Because the social sciences discipline places an emphasize on the date a work was created, the author-date system of citation is important in APA style -- this means that the author's name and the publication date are heavily emphasized in the in-text citation to match with the full reference listing on the works cited or "References" page at the end of the document

APA Basics / Tips for Success:

  • Most citations follow a formula
  • Most things can be cited! Even Tweets and PowerPoint presentations
  • Use the right language when talking about citations. There are two basic aspects to proper citation:

1. ​In-text citations​

  • In-text citations use the author-date method in the body of the paper to correspond with the complete reference listing at the end of the paper
  • These are used to evidence quotes, summaries, context, facts and figures -- anything that is not your original thought
    • These can mingle with the test or live at the end of a sentence
      • Example: Evans (2017) argues, "everyone should think citations are great" (p. 10). versus Some people are very enthusiastic about citations (Evans, 2017, p. 10).

2. Reference List (also known as Works Cited page)

  • The list of all sources referenced at the end of the paper
  • For every reference on the list, there should be an in-text citation and vice versa

Tutorials:

Guides: