Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association by APA (American Psychological Association) Style originated in 1929, when a group of psychologists, anthropologists, and business managers sought to establish a simple set of procedures, or style guidelines, that would codify the many components of scientific writing to increase the ease of reading comprehension.
As with other editorial styles, APA Style consists of rules or guidelines that a publisher observes to ensure clear and consistent presentation of written material. It concerns uniform use of such elements 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. (Source: Paraphrased from the Official APA website)
In-text Citation with APA
The APA style calls for three kinds of information to be included in in-text citations. The author's last name and the work's date of publication must always appear, and these items must match exactly the corresponding entry in the references list. The third kind of information, the page number, appears only in a citation to a direct quotation.
....(Crockatt, 1995).
Direct quote from the text
"The potentially contradictory nature of Moscow's priorities surfaced first in its policies towards East Germany and Yugoslavia," (Crockatt, 1995, p. 1).
Major Citations for a Reference List/Bibliography
An entry in the reference list generally has four elements: author (who is responsible for this work?), date (when was this work published?), title (what is the name of the work?), and source (where can I retrieve this work?).
Note: All second and third lines in the APA Bibliography should be indented.
|
Material Type |
Reference List/Bibliography |
|
A book or ebook |
Beattie, G., & McGuire, L. (2019). The psychology of climate change. London: Routledge. {For ebooks add a DOI or permalink}. |
|
A book or ebook chapter |
Denmark, F. L., Rabinowitz, V. C., & Sechzer, J. A. (2016). Growing Up. Engendering psychology: Women and gender revisited. (pp. 147-180). Routledge. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=shib&db=nlebk&AN=1139924&site=eds-live&custid=s9006354&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_147 |
|
An article in a journal |
Quinn, P.C., Lee, K., Pascalis, O., & Xiao, N. G. (2020). Emotional expressions reinstate recognition of other-race faces in infants following perceptual narrowing. Developmental Psychology, 56(1), 15-27. https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/dev0000858 |
|
Websites |
Sinclair, H. C. (2020, August 12). Why misinformation goes viral. Psychology Today. (1999, July 7). https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unpacking-social-relations/202008/why-misinformation-goes-viral |
These are examples of APA style, there are many factors to consider for each citation and other types of sources that aren't covered on this site. Please consult the Publication Manual or a librarian for more authoritative assistance with citations.