The following information includes EXAMPLES of how to cite different sources in APA style. Careful attention is paid to formatting and the order of the information.
If you are using a citation builder, double-check your work against this guide.
Ideally, your APA reference (at the end of your paper) will consist of this information:
Author. (date). Title. Source.
Academic articles, books, and other sources often refer to previously published articles, books and other sources. You'll usually see the author of the previous source in the sentence or in the intext citation.
You will NOT include this source as if you read the study yourself.
For example, there is a paper written by Anderson that is referred to in an article written by Robb. You read the article by Robb; NOT the paper by Anderson. This is what you write:
According to Anderson's 2013 study (as cited in Robb, 2019), learning APA "can be difficult, especially when students are focusing on content area and not writing styles" (p. 33). In addition, some elements of APA seem subjective to students (Anderson, 2013 as cited in Robb, 2019).
In the reference list, you include the article you read; not the article you read about.
Robb, L. (2019). Librarianship in community colleges. Journal of Libraries, 110(2), 31-35. https://doil.something/something/000000.
Table 9.1 on page 284 in Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association Seventh Edition.
Please also note that in PubMed they show the AMA Approved Abbreviations for journal names instead of the full journal name sometimes. Make sure you are using the full journal name.
If you use direct quotes, you must include some way for the reader to find the information. In a source with page numbers, you include the page number in the in-text citation (Robb, 2021, p. 88).
Many sources from the web don't have page numbers. You should choose the approach that will best help your reader.
For people who know that they have a serious allergic reaction to some substance, it is recommended they wear a medical alert bracelet to let "others know that you have a serious allergy in case you have a reaction and you're unable to communicate" (Mayo Clinic, 2021, Prevention section).
This is the reference for the end of your paper
Mayo Clinic. (2021). Allergies. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/allergies/symptoms-causes/syc-20351497
According to an article on NPR, after the Covid-19 pandemic, many people are "rethinking what work means to them, how they are valued, and how they spend their time" (Hsu, 2021, para 4).
This is the reference for the end of your paper
Hsu, A. (2021, June 24). As the pandemic recedes, millions of workers are saying 'I quit.' NPR. https://www.npr.org/2021/06/24/1007914455/as-the-pandemic-recedes-millions-of-workers-are-saying-i-quit
The destruction is even more important when one realizes that "around a third of all Australian fish spend at least some time on the Great Barrier Reef" (Films Media Group, 2018, 7:11).
Here is the reference to the film
Films Media Group. (2018). Can we save the reef? https://fod.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=99147&xtid=186717
APA uses the (Author, Date) system UNLESS you need to cite a specific part of a source (for example, direct quotes or statistics). Here are some examples:
(Robb, 2019, p. 35)
(Shores, 2021, para. 3)
(Anderson, 2020, paras. 2-3)
(Ervin & Ervin, 2019, Table 5)
(Folck Institute for Archival Studies, 2017, 45:14) - This is a video or sound recording
(Deese, 2020, Slide 8) - Powerpoint or Slideshare type source
(King James Bible, 1769/2017, 1 Cor. 13:1)
(Aristotle, ca 350 B.C.E./1994, Part IV)
(Shakespeare, 1623/1995, 1.3.36-37)
For more information, see page 264 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th ed.
