APA Style & Formatting

APA Style

APA Style a set of rules made by a professional organization for formatting documents.

It includes rules for the way an academic paper should look & how outside sources should be cited within a paper.

Important Questions
What does APA stand for? What does it look like? Why do we use it?

APA Style

APA stands for the American Psychological Association. This formatting style was created 80 years ago by a group of scientists, most of whom focused in psychology, and this style is used by the social and behavioral sciences today (About APA Style, 2010, para. 3).

Uses for APA

While it was developed for the social sciences, it is one of the most popular formatting styles in use

Teachers in a number of fields may require you to use APA format for their classes.

Citation and Plagiarism

Plagiarism is when you use the words or ideas of others as your own. To avoid plagiarism, you should always cite:

Quotationswhen we use the words of

others directly Summarieswhen we recount the main ideas of others Paraphraseswhen we reword others ideas

Citations

In APA Style, there are two kinds of citations:

In-text, or parenthetical ( ) These are found within the paper itself

Reference list These come at the end of the paper in a special section marked References

In-Text Citations

Whenever you mention a source within your paper, you should use an in-text citation.
In Bottlemania, Royte (2008) observes

that drinking directly from the source of a spring is a rare opportunity today. APA always wants the author and year. If quoting a specific passage, you should include page number of a source.

In-Text Citations

There are ways to create in-text citations.

One mentions the author and the date

in the sentence, not in parentheses.

In Bottlemania, Royte (2008) observes

that drinking directly from the source of a spring is a rare opportunity today.

The other places the full citation at the

end.

Drinking directly from the source of a

spring is a rare opportunity today (Royte, 2008).

In-Text Citations

Furthermore, when quoting a source there are two major types of quotations:
A block quotation 40 words or more Is a separate and indented paragraph An embedded quotation 39 words or less Is a part of the paragraph

Block Quotation

A block quotation should include the following:

A sentence that introduces the quotation

and ends in a colon (:) No quotation marks around the quotation Period, then citation

Sample Block Quotation

In Chapter 1, Royte (2008) reflects on her chance to drink straight from a spring:
I can only say that I feel privileged to be drinking straight from the ground, a rare possibility in this age of ubiquitous animalborne diseases and pollution. I can choose from nearly a thousand types of bottled water on store shelves but I cant . . . drink from a naturally occurring body of water. (p.3)

Embedded Quotation

An embedded quotation should include the following:

A phrase that introduces the quotation Quotation marks around the quotation

Citation, then period

Sample Embedded Quotation

Considering the scarcity of freshwater, Royte (2008) remarks on the value of such a resource as a spring: Magically appearing from inside the earth, springwater has always had a powerful mystique. Civilizations have fought over such resources (p.3).

Reference List
This comes at the end of your paper, and documents the source mentioned within the paper. The list should be in alphabetical order, and after the first line, each entry should be indented .

Reference List

Reference List

For Bottlemania, the reference would look like this:

Royte, E. (2008). Bottlemania. New York,

NY: Bloomsbury USA.

For an article it would look like this:

Howard, B. (2003). Message in a bottle. E -

The Environmental Magazine, 14(5), 26. Retrieved from MasterFILE Premier database.

Help for APA Style

A Pocket Style Manual The APA Style website: http://apastyle.org/ Purdue OWL Website

References
About APA style. (2010). American Psychological Association. Retrieved from http://www.apastyle.org/about-apa-style.aspx APA paper format. (April 30, 2008). Retrieved from Pasadena City College, WAC Health Sciences website: http://www.pasadena.edu/hstutoringlab/apa/ paperformat.cfm Hacker, D. (2006). A writers reference. Boston, MA: Bedford St. Martins. Howard, B. (2003). Message in a bottle. E - The Environmental Magazine, 14(5), 26.Retrieved from MasterFILE Premier database. Royte, E. (2008). Bottlemania. New York, NY: Bloomsbury USA.