ENGL 101: Lundberg, M. (Fall 2024): Citing your sources

What is APA Style?

You may be required to write all of your papers and presentations in this course in APA format. But, what is APA?!

APA is:

• A style manual published by the American Psychological Association
• Used in the health and social sciences
• Governs how we format our papers and ensures consistency
• Includes elements such as:
  • selection of headings, tone, and length;
  • punctuation and abbreviations;
  • presentation of numbers and statistics;
  • construction of tables and figures,
  • citation of references;
  • and many other elements that are a part of a manuscript.
• APA style refers to the physical appearance of our papers (type size, margins, running headers, tables, headings, punctuation, etc.); the way we cite our sources, both in text and in our References; and even the language we use when describing people.
• While there are similarities between MLA and APA citations, because APA is applied to different fields than MLA, the individual pieces that make up a citation are arranged differently.
• Remember than many of the Library's databases will provide an APA citation that you can copy and paste into your References page, however, you will need to correct any minor errors, and change the formatting to match that of your paper.

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

Useful Online Style Guides

Visit Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) APA Style Guide for a sample paper and instructions for citing individual sources such as newspaper articles, scholarly journals, video and books.

OWL also provides general information about APA style in an APA Style Workshop.

Please use the link below to visit TCC's Citation guide if you are interested in learning more about:

• How citation is important
• What, when, where and how to cite
• Integrating your research into your writing
• Word tips for creating reference lists 

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.