ENGL 102: Davis, L. (Spring 2024): Citing in APA
What is APA?
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.
- What is APA?Here is the official definition of APA style (7th edition) from the APA itself
Purdue OWL guides for APA style
- The Purdue OWL: APA 7 style citation guideUse the navigation on the left to find examples of in-text and reference list citations. Also contains a sample paper demonstrating in-text citations and paper layout .
- The Purdue OWL APA 7 changesThe OWL goes over some of of the changes from APA 6 to APA 7
- The Purdue OWL APA 7 overview and workshopThis workshop introduces important aspects of the American Psychological Association (APA) Style used to format research papers.
TCC's 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
- APA style References guide (7th ed.) 2020 [.pdf]This double-sided .pdf handout provides some example References page citations for commonly used sources.
- APA style References guide (7th ed.) 2020 [.docx]This double-sided .docx handout provides some example References page citations for commonly used sources.
In-text citations
- APA style in-text citations guide (7th ed.) 2020 [.pdf]This double-sided .pdf handout provides some example in-text citations for commonly used sources.
- APA style in-text citations guide (7th ed.) 2020 [.docx]This double-sided .docx handout provides some example in-text citations for commonly used sources.
- TCC Library's APA guideIn this guide you will also find an extensive list and description of the changes, from APA 6 to APA 7, that are most relevant to TCC students.
Citing social media
- APA style social media citations (7th ed.) [.pdf]This double-sided .pdf handout provides some example References page citations for social media content.
- APA style social media citations (7th ed.) [.docx]This double-sided .docx handout provides some example References page citations for social media content.
APA style books in the TCC Library
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association 7th (new 7th edition) by Call Number: Reference BF76.7 .P83 2020Publication Date: 2019for in-library use only
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