Citations and APA Style

From the Plagiarism principle of the APA Publication Manual:

“Quotation marks should be used to indicate the exact words of another. Summarizing a passage or rearranging the order of a sentence and changing some of the words is paraphrasing. Each time a source is paraphrased, a credit for the source needs to be included in the text. . . .

The key element of this principle is that an author does not present the work of

another as if it were his or her own work. This can extend to ideas as well as written words. If an author models a study after one done by someone else, the originating author should be given credit. If the rationale for a study was suggested in the Discussion section of someone else’s article, that person should be given credit. Given the free exchange of ideas, which is very important to the health of psychology, an author may not know where an idea of a study originated. If the author does know, however, the author should acknowledge the source; this includes personal communications.”

Use American Psychological Association style. This means you insert the author’s name and date of the publication each time after paraphrasing a statement or idea. Example:

Public journalism practitioners and theoreticians argue that the content of

newspaper stories generated through public journalism is significantly different from the content generated by traditional reporting (Blazier & Lemert, 2000).

If you mention the author’s name in the text, then you do not need to repeat it in the citation. Example:

Voakes (1999) maintains that there is no universally accepted definition of public or civic journalism.

If you use direct quotes, then you must also include the page numbers in the citation. Example:

“Public journalism is not a settled doctrine or a strict code of conduct but an unfolding philosophy about the place of the journalist in public life,” say the founding fathers (Rosen & Merritt, 1994, p. 6).

You should avoid direct quoting of lengthy passages; that requires a different style. Paraphrase instead.

APA style also means you include the complete citation information at the end of the paper’s text, on a separate page, not in footnotes at the bottom of each page. There are many different circumstances of publications – multiple authors, multiple works by a single author, citation of a chapter by an author in a book edited by others, unpublished theses, etc. – and you will want to consult the APA Publication Manual for those. Here is a list of the most commonly encountered types of citations; it is not a complete list. If you find yourself faced with a publication circumstance not listed here, please consult the APA manual.

Also, please note that to help avoid gender bias, initials are used instead of first

names.

Journal article, one author:

Bekerian, D.A. (1993). In search of the typical eyewitness. American

Psychologist, 48(3): 574-576.

Journal article, more than one author:

Klimoski, R. & Palmer, S. (1993). The ADA and the hiring process in

organizations. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 45(2): 10-36.

Note: For articles with more than three authors, in the text you may use “et al.” i.e.: (Kniep et al., 1993).

Books:

Black, J., & Whitney, F. (1988). Introduction to mass communication. Dubuque,

I.A.: W.C. Brown.

Edited books:

Gibbs, J.T., & Huang, L.N. (Eds.). (1991). Children of color: Psychological

interventions with minority youth. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Articles in magazines:

Posner, M.I. (1993, October 29). Seeing the mind. Science, 673-674.

Articles in newspapers:

Apple, R.W. (1993, July 15). New drug appears to sharply cut risk of death from

heart failure. The New York Times, A12.