APA is most often used in the social sciences including most business disciplines such as accounting, economics and finance. This means that research papers written in this discipline should follow the stylistic guidelines of the APA. This page contains examples of how to format an APA-style paper, how to create APA-style citations and links to citation generators.
APA Citation uses a combination of in-text citation and a reference page at the end of the paper - Not footnotes.
In-text Citation
If you use a direct quote from an article with quotation marks or rephrase information found in an article, you must cite the source with an in-text citation. The source of the information must be cited at the end of the sentence containing the referenced information. An in-text citation is given by noting in parentheses the author's name and the page number of the book where the quote is found.
Example: The author writes, "The study of life is called biology" (Jones, 120).
Reference Page
APA Basic Electronic Citation Format Pattern: [Author last name], [First initial]. [Middle initial]. ([Publication year]). [Title of article]. [Title of journal], [Volume number] ([Issue number]), [Page number starts]-[ends]. [Document Object Identifier]
Example: Jones, Kelly J. (2019). Careers in biology for today's college student. Biology Professions Journal, 18(3). 120-130.
Introduction to Citation Styles: APA 7th ed.CC) from CSUDH Library on YouTube
Manuals available through Manchester University
The Concise APA Handbook by
Most students struggle with learning how to find references, use them effectively, and cite them appropriately in a required format. One of the most common formats is that of APA. The authors all teach at the same university, where their current off-the-shelf reference book, while helpful, is filled with a lot of extra information that they do not use and contains missing or incorrect information. The cost of this book also continues to rise. In a search for something else to meet their needs, they discovered that there are no concise guides that deal with APA only that are cost effective or user-friendly for students who are not familiar with using references and formatting an essay in the APA format. In order to offer student writers a source of information that is concise and cost-effective, the authors have written this handbook to provide students with important information in clear, concise, user-friendly language, as well as to offer practical examples that will help them grasp the concept of secondary research writing. Much of the published materials present the nitpicky details of APA in very technical terms that are not easy to understand. This handbook presents the same information in simplified terms with images and step-by-step instructions in ways that will make sense to both undergraduate and graduate student writers. Additionally, student writers often struggle with understanding the concept of plagiarism, as well as how to find sources, evaluate the appropriateness of sources, and use sources in effective ways (e.g., how to integrate quotes, when to paraphrase, among others). This book provides this information in a concise and easy-to-understand format.
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association by What is a citation generator?
Some databases will provide citations for you when viewing an article. On this page to the right are instructions and illustrations for finding your citations in some of some our databases such as EBSCOHost and Google Scholar.
Citation generators can save you considerable time and effort by helping you create citations for your resources, Many citation generators (like Zotero below) will also help you organize your sources and create a list of references. It's important to remember, though, that citation generators are not perfect. Links to some free citation generators are listed here.
Always double check your citations to make sure
the formatting is correct
Below are examples of generating citations inside the research databases EBSCO and GoogleScholar.
Click image to enlarge
Click image to enlarge
Below are links to Citation Machine and Zotero which can help you generate citations and manage your annotations.
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