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LS 301: Adams, M. - Applied Management: APA style

Provides starting points for Applied Management students' research in LS 301

Main resources for citation help

These are the three resources I recommend you use when you are wanting help citing your sources.

Note: The newest version of APA is the 7th edition. If you are using other online resources not suggested above, make sure that they are representing the 7th edition. Editions aren't options in this case: Anyone anywhere writing with APA is expected to use the 7th edition.

What is APA style?

In the Applied Management BAS program, you will be required to write all of your papers in APA format. But, what is APA?

APA is:

  • A style manual published by the American Psychological Association
  • Used in the health sciences and social sciences writing
  • Provides guidelines for how we format papers and ensure consistency within specific scholarly, professional, and academic fields.
  • Includes elements such as:
    • how to choose headings, tone, voice, appropriate to paper type and subject;
    • how to punctuate and abbreviate;
    • how to present numbers and statistics;
    • how to construct and caption tables and figures,
    • how to cite sources of information within a paper and at the end
  • APA style refers to both the physical appearance of your paper (type size, margins, running headers, etc.) but that isn't all. APA also provides guidance on:
    • Writing with appropriate specificity
    • The use of appropriate bias-free language
    • Appropriate historical and cultural representation of subjects
  • Citation method: APA includes all or most elements needed for citations in MLA (or any other style) citation; they are just put in different order and may be formatted differently. 
    • Remember than many of the Library's databases will provide an APA citation that you can cut and paste (though you will often have to edit them to meet specific style requirements).

Formatting your APA papers

This video (17:09 mins) demonstrates how to format your paper for APA. Note: As of 2019, the APA makes a distinction between how to format student papers versus professional papers. Here is the video for how to format an APA professional paper if you need it.

video: "APA style 7th edition: Student paper formatting" by APA Style Videos by Sam. Standard YouTube license applies.

What does citing mean?

After you gather information from outside resources to add to your own ideas about a topic, you will quote, paraphrase, or summarize those sources within the body of your paper. 

Citing allows you to share with your readers where you got your information so that they can verify what you've written or follow up on an interesting idea, and it protects you from any charges of plagiarism.

There are two parts to a proper APA citation:

  1. The "in text" citation briefly lets your readers know when an idea comes from someone other than yourself within the text of your paper. Remember you must always cite when applying another author's words or ideas to your own work. That is true not only when you quote the words directly from an author's work, but also when you paraphrase or summarize their words and ideas.
  2. The "References" citation page(s) is where you will list complete information about each of the sources you have cited in-text. This page, or pages, appears at the end of your paper beginning on a new, separate page.
1. In-text citations example (color highlighting for instructional purposes only)

2

"Authentic leadership" styles such as sustainable leadership value building long-term trust from team members by focusing the leaders attention on the good of the organization as a whole (Cashman, 2017) and on the individuals who contribute to it (Lee, 2017). While traditional ideas of leadership...

2. Corresponding References page citations example

7

References

Cashman, K. (2017). Deepening authenticity for sustainable leadership: How to build awareness so your beliefs, values, principles and behaviors line up. Leadership Excellence, 34(11), 38-39. https:doi.org/0122.34.le.2017

Johnson, A. (2018). Change the lapel pin: Personalizing leadership to transform businesses and communities. Smart Business Books.

Lee, H-W. (2017). Sustainable leadership: An empirical investigation on its effects on organizational effectiveness. International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior, 20(4), 419-453. https.doi.org/0224.204.ijotb

Did you know? APA 7 changes

Multiple Authors: References Citations

When a source has more than one author (2 to 20), list them all in the References page citation.

When a source has 21 or more authors, list the first 19 authors, follow with an ellipsis..., then list the last author as shown on the article. Example:

Okore, W., Arslan, M., Fischer, P., Nowak, L., Van den Berg, O., Coetzee, L., Juárez, U., Riyaziyyat, E., Kimura, Y., Zhang, I., Chakraborty, P., Yang, M. L., Kumar, B., Xu, A., Martinez, R., McIntosh, V., Ibáñez, L. M., Mäkinen, G., Virtanen, E., . . . Kovács, A. (2019). The mathematics of the unicorn's horn. Journal of Improbable Mathematics, 27(1), 78–86. http://doi.org/10.0000/3mp7y-537

Multiple Authors: In-Text Citations

  • 2 authors: List them both every time you cite that source; (Adams & Coleman, 2023).
  • More than 2 authors: Every time you cite that source list the first author’s name, then use et al. to indicate there are others. Example: (Urschel et al., 2023).

​the References citation - 5 authors:

Urschel, H., Gillanders, H., Toppeta, O., Williams, R., & Snoek-Brown, J. (2023). Citing sources: APA (American Psychological Association). TCC Library Research Guides. http://tacomacc.libguides.com/TCCLibrary/research-guides

the in-text citation:

 (Urschel et al., 2023).

Citing website documents & pages

Webpages and website documents are treated as stand-alone documents, which means that webpage titles are in italics and website names appear in normal typeface (this is the opposite from citing journal, magazine, or newspaper articles).

Example:

Goodman, B. (2020, January 17). Could your Fitbit help detect the flu? WebMD. https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20200117/could-your-fitbit-help-detect-the-flu

Citing an Entire Website

After referring to an entire Website in your paper, provide its homepage URL in parentheses, as an active link, immediately after. You may then omit the Website from your list of References.

Example from an COL 101 student's Student Success Plan paper:

In addition to consulting with TCC Research Librarians and the Writing and Tutoring Center, my student success plan will include bookmarking and using the Purdue OWL (linked below) which is a valuable resource for writing and research help and for citation support.

 

If you are referring to a single page from a website, or a document you retrieved from a website, see the tab for citing a webpage or web document.

Retrieval Links in References Page Citations

  • For anyone who remembers APA 6, that edition directed us to type “Retrieved from” just before the webpage URL.
  • For APA 7 we eliminate the “Retrieved from” and get right on with the webpage URL (activated as a hyperlink):
Example of a webpage citation:

TCC Librarians. (2020). Citing sources: APA. TCC Library website: http://tacomacc.libguides.com/Citing_Sources/apa

When do we include a retrieval date? Hardly ever.

When contents of a webpage are designed to change over time and are not archived, include a retrieval data in the References page citation.

Example:

U.S. Census Bureau. (n.d.). U.S. and world population clock. U.S. Department of Commerce. Retrieved November 6, 2023, from https://www.census.gov/popclock/

DOIs and URLs

There are a lot of rules... sorry:

General summary for electronic (non-print) sources and the inclusion of retrieval information in References citations:

DOIs and URLs

  • If there is a DOI, use the DOI (DOIs are only used for scholarly journal articles and scholarly books).
  • If there is no DOI (either you can't find one, or the source is not a scholarly journal or book), do nothing. Do not substitute with a Library database URL*, for example.
    • *However, as a student, your instructor might prefer it if you include a library database URL so sources can be accessed more quickly when grading 100 papers! Always ask your instructor if they have any unique course-specific citation rules they would like you to follow.
  • If there is no DOI, and the source is available in full text, free of charge on the open web (not a library database), you can replace the DOI with the document's URL (web address).

Example of a References page citation for a scholarly journal that has a listed DOI:

Weltsek, G. J. (2019). Theatre programs in community colleges: A policy for equity. Arts Education Policy Review, 120(2), 103–111. https://doi.org/10.1080/10632913.2018.1423594

Citing Books and Ebooks

References page citations for books used to include the publisher's location (a city, and perhaps state as well). APA no longer requires the publisher's location. This applies to both print books and e-books.

Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to be an antiracist. New York: One World.

As with periodicals, if an e-book is accessed through a subscription database, such as EBook Central, do not include a retrieval URL:

Tuck, S. & Gates, H. L. (2014). The night Malcolm X spoke at the Oxford Union: A transatlantic story of antiracist protest. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

And also as with periodicals, if an ebook is available freely online to anyone, include a retrieval URL:

Hurston, N. Z. (1930). Poker! http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/15902/pg15902-images.html

eReader edition of a book? (Kindle for example)

APA 7 no longer requires a format note [Kindle]; cite as you would any other book

Paper Formatting: The "Running Head"

Quick and easy for students: Student papers do not need "running heads" - a bit of the paper's title in the header along with the page number Student papers just need page numbers. Read on for more information about running heads, if you like.

  • A “running head” is a shortened version of  a paper’s title, appearing on each page in the left-side header space of a paper.
  • Professional papers need running heads, which will appear in the header space on the left corner of the paper, as a SHORTENED PAPER TITLE in all caps.

Singular "They"

The APA is ignoring traditional grammar conventions in favor of reducing bias and gender-binary assumption. APA 7 endorses the use of they/them when the gender of a person is unknown or, as is most common, irrelevant.

  • Writers should use the singular “they” in two main cases: (a) when referring to a generic person whose sex or gender is unknown or irrelevant to the context and (b) when referring to a specific, known person who uses “they/them” as their pronouns.
  • When referring to a generic person whose sex or gender is unknown or irrelevant to the context, use the singular “they” as the pronoun. For example, if you use nouns like “person,” “individual,” or “everyone” or phrases like “every teacher” or “each nurse” in a sentence, use the appropriate form of the pronoun “they”, rather than using she/he when referring to them later, as needed.

Bias-Free Language

"The guidelines for bias-free language contain both general guidelines for writing about people without bias across a range of topics and specific guidelines that address the individual characteristics of age, disability, gender, participation in research, racial and ethnic identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and intersectionality" (APA.org). Example: Acknowledge humanity: Instead of "the homeless" put the person first "people who are living unhoused." See the link below for more information, guidelines, and suggestions..

Accessibility

While accessibility considerations are not unique to APA 7, there are more specific APA guidelines that adhere to WCAG 

For example, URLs should be formatted as descriptive text, as you see modeled below. instead of labeling the link and then providing a URL separately,

Citing ChatGPT & Generative AI

As of April 2023 this is APA's recommendation for citing outputs from Open AI's ChatGPT, or any large language model generative AI. Please ask your instructors for their guidelines about the use of generative AI in your course work.

References page citation

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

Parenthetical citation: (OpenAI, 2023)

Video tutorial: Introduction to APA, 7th edition

Video Tutorial: Introduction to APA 7

Watch the video below for an introduction to using APA style, 7th edition. To see it in a larger window, click on the link below. This video tutorial was created by TCC librarians.

APA citation example

The following are examples of how to do an APA style in-text citation and corresponding References list citation for a journal article from a library database.

In-text citation

Using a signal phrase

The first time you introduce a source within the body your paper, it is generally preferred that you use a signal phrase (and many instructors require that you do so). A signal phrase introduces a source and "signals" to your reader that the material to follow comes from someone other than yourself. The signal phrase in the example below is "According to Jones." After the signal phrase list the year of  publication in parentheses. Finally, if you use a quote, as shown below, also include the page number or numbers in parentheses preceded by a "p." for a single page or a "pp." for multiple pages. (Although you are strongly discouraged from quoting sources directly.)

According to Jones (1998), "Students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time" (p. 199).
Alternative to using a signal phrase

If you do not use a signal phrase, then you would put the author’s last name along with the year of publication and page number (if you are using a quote) preceded by a "p." or a "pp." in parentheses after the quote. For example: 

Students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time" (Jones, 1998, p. 199.)

References list entry

List the complete citation information for the source listed in your in-text citation in the References list at the end of your paper. 

Format

Author's last name, First initial. (Publication year). Article title in sentence case: Subtitles are also in sentence case. Journal Title in Title Case, Volume#(Issue#), page-range. doi

Example with DOI

Jones, H. (1998). Why citation styles are challenging for students: A review of the literature. Journal of Education, 88(2), 199-201. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/77.1.123

Example without DOI

Jones, H. (1998). Why citation styles are challenging for students: A review of the literature. Journal of Education, 88(2), 199-201. 

NOTE about doi's and database URLs: Library databases will provide you with the DOI for an article if there is one (and not all articles have a DOI). These are generally provided on the first page of the article itself and/or on the article details record. When there isn't a DOI, simply end your citation with the page-range, per APA rules, unless your instructor asks you to provide the database URL for your database-retrieved sources. Ask them.

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