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APA Citation Guide (7th Edition)

The APA 7th edition was published in October 2019. Please check with your instructor about which edition should be used for your work.
Hello and welcome to the Hoffman Family Library APA LibGuide! This guide provides information on using APA style to cite sources, create reference lists and more. In October of 2019, a new edition of the APA Manual was released. This guide focuses on the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th Edition). 

 

The purpose of this guide is to serve as a starting point with APA formatting. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association provided more detailed information and many excellent examples. The library has copies for you to use in the building. If you are a graduate student, I recommend purchasing your own copy! 

APA Style

Welcome to the Hoffman Family Library APA Style Research Starter! Here you will find information on how to cite books, periodicals, and electronic resources for your reference page. This style is commonly used for citing references in student papers in the science and social science disciplines, such as Psychology, Nursing, and Social Work.

The seventh edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect best practices in scholarly writing and publishing. Additions include resources for students on writing and formatting annotated bibliographies; guidelines on citing course materials; a chapter on bias-free language guidelines; and more.

This is a guide for citing resources using the American Psychological Association (APA) style of citation. APA is used to cite resources within the social sciences, education and business subjects.

Why Cite Resources ?

  • Citations allow readers to locate and further explore the sources you used to develop your thoughts and outcomes expressed in your paper. They are a measure of the depth and scope of your research.
  • Citations are the method used to give credit to authors for their ideas and research.
  • Citations provide the evidence for your arguments and establish your credibility by questions that you have searched for and considered a number of resources during researching and writing of your paper.
  • Citing enable you to have your own original ideas and outcomes standout from the other's research.
  • Citing is standard practice in the world of academia.

What is a citation?

A citation is a way you inform the readers that certain materials in your paper came from another source. It also gives your readers the information necessary to find the source. Your citation should include the following.

  • Author
  • Title of work
  • Place of publication
  • Publisher
  • Date published
  • Page numbers where the material is located.

When do I need to cite?

You need to acknowledge whenever you borrow quotes or ideas. The following are when you need to cite:

  • Whenever you use direct quotes.
  • Whenever you paraphrase.
  • Whenever you use an idea that someone else has already expressed.
  • Whenever you make specific reference to the work of another.
  • Whenever someone else's work has been critical in developing your own ideas.

In APA Style, you want to use the DOI whenever possible!

The DOI is a digital object identifier.  It is a unique set of characters that ar attached to a digital object. The most common place they are found is on journal articles, but they can be attached to any digital object.

How do I find them?

For journal articles, go to the PDF version of the article and look in the top left corner of the first page of the article. If available, DOI's will also be in the database record for an article.

Can't find one, check CrossRef.org!