University of Western Australia

American Psychological Association Referencing

A Journey of Self Discovery

Zackary Sheppard

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Contents
Overview....................................................................................................................................1
Introduction................................................................................................................................1
Examples....................................................................................................................................2
Summary....................................................................................................................................2
References..................................................................................................................................3

Overview

APA (American Psychological Association) style is primarily used in the social

science disciplines. It is formatted like MLA, and shows many similarities, but is unique in
several key points.

Introduction
APA uses parenthetical (or in-text) citations within sentences, but rather than
indicating the author's name and page number, APA includes author's name and date of
publication. The page number, represented with ap. or a pp., is only added to the citation
when using a direct quote (not a summary or paraphrase). If the author's name is mentioned
in the sentence, then place the date of publication in parentheses directly after the name. If the
name is not mentioned include the author's name and date in parentheses at the end of the
source material. And, if you use a direct quote, place the page number after the publication
date within the parentheses.

Examples
Note the difference between the following three examples:

Terrence (1999) has presented poignant examples from 150 interviews. However, it
has been pointed out that the research was conducted in a selective, highly biased, way.
(Strong & Porter, 1998) All of the interviewees have been called 'exceptions to the norm'
(Strong & Porter, 1988, p. 544).

Note the first example paraphrases an author that is named in the sentence, the second
example paraphrases authors that are not named in the sentence, and the third example
provides a direct quote (thus the inclusion of the page numbers) but also does not identify the
authors within the sentence. If the authors were identified within the sentence in the third
example, the authors' names would be followed by the year of publication and only the page
numbers would be in the parentheses at the end of the quote.

Summary

Finally, the bibliographic page in APA style differs from MLA, what APA calls the
Reference page. You will notice a few immediate differences from the MLA Works Cited
format. With APA you include the initial of the author's first name rather than the complete
name, the publication date immediately follows the author's name in parentheses, and titles of
articles are not surrounded with quotation marks (however titles of books, magazines,
journals, etc are still underlined). The lists are still alphabetized by author's last name (or title
in the absence of an author) and the first line is flush left while subsequent lines in the same

entry are indented in (approximately 5 spaces or one tab). For journals and magazines,
publication title and volume number are both underlined, followed by the issue number (not
underlined) in parentheses. Only use a p. or a pp. to indicate page numbers with newspapers.
The only other time you would use a p. is to indicate what pages an article is on within a
collection or anthology. Again, if you have any questions or need further assistance, come in
to see us at the Writing Desk.

References

Booth, W. (1979). Writing Essays: Secrets of the Trade: Composition Today, 13, 78-91.

Eckholm, E., & Gibbons, A. (1991). Guide to APA Style: Journal of Style Manuals, 18,
1561-1562.

Strong, R. L., Porter, M. (1998). Grammatical Combinations. In S. T. Parker & K. R. Gibson

(Eds.), Language and Literacy (p 540-578). Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Terrence, H. S. (1999, November 1). Student Success in Community Colleges. Oregonian.

P.A6

White, A., & Long, B. (Eds.). (1993). Praise for America's Literacy. Westport, CT:
Greenwood