Emergency Medical & Health Services: Citing your souces and other APA publication stuff

A Quick Look at the Two Parts of a Citation

1. The brief in-text citation lets your reader know where the information in your paper came from, as you are using it. Usually, this means the author(s) and year.
2. The full References citation is on a separate References page, letting your reader know, in detail, where to find that source.

Below is an example of how the two citation pieces fit together in APA style:

The In-Text Citation

Gordon and Cui (2015) found compelling evidence suggesting that a person’s career outcomes in adulthood are more of a product of the quality of their childhood relationships with their parent(s), or other adult guardians, rather than the quality of the education they received.
 

References

Gordon, M. S., & Cui, M. (2015). Positive parenting during adolescence and career success in young adulthood. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(3), 762-771. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-013-9887-y

Understanding the D.O.I

All citations are meant in part to serve as a kind of 'address' to help your readers find the sources that you use in your papers. The ordering of the citation is deliberate and precise. Several journal article citations ends with a "DOI" number.

What's a "D.O.I."?

• D.O.I. stands for "digital object identifier". D.O.I.s are assigned to every scholarly journal article that is published electronically. Each article has its own unique number. This number can help your reader locate information about the article you used even if they do not have access to the database you retrieved it from.
• Most articles published after 2010 have the D.O.I. printed somewhere on the first page. Since 2012 the D.O.I. is commonly displayed as a URL, prefaced with https://doi.org/
• APA requires that you use the D.O.I. as the retrieval link, presented as a live hyperlink, with no punctuation at the end
• If the D.O.I. you find for an article is not prefaced with https://doi.org, APA requires that you type in that root in front of the D.O.I yourself. See below.

Example: 

When a D.O.I. Can Be Found

Gordon, M., & Cui, M. (2015). Positive parenting during adolescence and career success in young adulthood. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(3), 762-771. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-013-9887-y

What if I Can't Find a D.O.I. On the Article?

• If you cannot see a D.O.I. on the article itself, I recommend doing a Google search of the article title, locating information about the article, often on the journal's Website, and seeing if you can find the doi listed somewhere on the Website page.
• If you have exhausted all attempts to locate a D.O.I. for the article, APA requires that you leave that space blank.
• If you have exhausted all attempts to locate a D.O.I. for the article, but you then find that the article is freely available, in full-text, on the Web (not a library database), use the article's URL instead, formatted as an active hyperlink.

Example: 

When a D.O.I. Cannot Be Found, and the Article is Not Freely Available on the Web

Gordon, M., & Cui, M. (2015). Positive parenting during adolescence and career success in young adulthood. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(3), 762-771.

Example: 

When a D.O.I.  Cannot Be Found, but the Article is Freely Available on the Web:

Gordon, M., & Cui, M. (2015). Positive parenting during adolescence and career success in young adulthood. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(3), 762-771. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mellissa_Gordon/publication/259634832_650e9.pdf

What if I Am Using a Print Journal Article?

• If you can find the D.O.I. on the article, go ahead and include it in your citation. Many articles are still published both in print and electronically.
• If you cannot find the D.O.I. on the article, treat it as above, leaving that space blank.

What is APA Style?

APA style refers to the rules created by the American Psychological Association for formatting papers, use of language, presentation of data,... as well as for how to do in-text citations and end-of-paper citations (References). APA style is used primarily by authors in social sciences and health sciences, but is used widely in many TCC courses.

See the boxes on this page for details.

APA Style Handouts

Here are some handouts (in both .docx and .pdf formats) featuring examples citations for sources you might find through TCC's Library and the Web.

References

In-Text Citations

Citing Social Media

Using MS Word to Create Citations

Watch the short video (2:46 mins) below to see how to format a bibliography, center a title (such as "works cited" or "references"), and create the "hanging indent" for citations: