American Psychology Association (APA): The Basics

 


            To avoid plagiarism, the intentional or unintentional theft of intellectual property of others, a person must familiarize himself or herself at minimum with the basics of citation. To cite your sources of information when you write means that you give credit to the person or persons who first published the intellectual property you are now making use of. Here, intellectual property should be understood to be intangible creations which includes patents, copyrights, etc. If you fail to give credit to your sources, it may be considered a criminal act of plagiarism. Whether it was done wilfully or unwittingly is irrelevant. You must be accountable in academic and other publishing spaces because you will be held responsible if caught.

Be sure to cite your sources using in-text citation along with a corresponding works cited, bibliography or reference page. The type of citation you use will determine what you name that final page of any academic submission which reflects a list of creators whose ideas were quoted, paraphrased, or used in any way. The three most popular form of citation guides are the American Psychology Association (APA), the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the Chicago citation Style. This article will primarily focus on the basics of APA citation, especially regarding citation and referencing.

American Psychology Association Citations

APA guidelines include writing styles, plagiarism policies, citation, reference listing essay formatting.

Citations

When do you need to cite? Some persons may believe that they only need to cite their sources if they are using a creator’s exact words, but they are not quite right. If you change someone else’s words to your own but maintain the original meaning, this is called paraphrasing and you are still required to give credit to the original creator through citation. Also, required to cite your source if you summarize previously published material. If you quote, paraphrase, or summarize from another source, you may provide in text citation by placing the creator’s last name and comma in parenthesis beside the information like this (Powell, 2022). In the case where information from a single page is used, you should include ‘p. __’ and the page number or ‘pp.__ - __’ if the information presented is from various consecutive pages. Here are examples (Powell, 2022, p.73) or (Powell, 2022, pp. 104-111) respectively.

               Whenever you use in text citation, be sure to use signal phrases to differentiate your words from the information being taken from elsewhere. Consider the following when using signal phrases:

-        Begin the signal phrase with the author’s last name followed by the year of publication in parenthesis (Eg: Powell (2022)…).

You may choose to follow the signal phrase with the author credentials or with a relevant verb and the idea that you are borrowing from the author for your own work. In cases like these, you do not need additional parenthetical citation. In short, the simple signal phrase includes:

Author last name + (year of publication) + relevant verb

The information you wish to re-present would follow the signal phrase,

Here is a list of verbs which you may find relevant when you use in-text citations:

Figure 1: Table of sample verbs for in-text citation

Note: If you have chosen to use the signal phrase in your writing, you must still put the relevant page number or numbers at the end (p. __) or (pp.__- ___)

Additionally, you must ensure that each different in-text citation has a corresponding entry in the reference list.

 

References

The reference list is the final part of any academic paper which subscribes to APA guidelines. It lists specific details related to intellectual property belonging to various creators cited in the body of the submission.

How to Complete the Reference Entry

-        Firstly, you will place the word ‘References’ in bold and centred at the top of a new page after the completion of your essay, reaction or research paper.

-        Reference lists should be constructed in alphabetical order according to last names.

-        Last names must be listed first

-        Each entry should reflect a hanging indentation. (This means, except for the initial word -creator’s last name- all other source information should start half inch away from the margin.)

-        The entry should contain (in this same order: author(s)’ name, (publication date), article title, source, additional source information, page number(s), DOI

Peruse this example: 


How to Punctuate your Reference List

-        Use a comma to separate author initials from additional authors’ names. Use an ampersand (&) with two authors: Lee, J. T., & Albright, M. A.

-        Use a serial comma with an ampersand for three or more authors: Anderson, C. A., Brown, W. W., & Davis, A. W.

-        Follow periods with one space.

-        If no date is available, use the abbreviation “n.d.” (no date) with no space between “n.” and “d.”

-         Use a comma to separate initials from suffixes: Garcia, T. T., Jr., & Katz, S. T.

-         Enclose in parentheses additional book information that follows the title, and follow the parentheses with a period: (3rd ed., Vol. 2).

 

Typing Format

Your essay should be typed and double-spaced on standard-sized paper (8.5" x 11"), with 1" margins on all sides.  Include a page header (also known as the “running head”) at the top of every page. For a professional paper, this includes your paper title and the page number. For a student paper, this only includes the page number. To create a page header/running head, insert page numbers flush right. Then type "TITLE OF YOUR PAPER" in the header flush left using all capital letters. The running head is a shortened version of your paper's title and cannot exceed 50 characters including spacing and punctuation.

FONT

The 7th edition of the APA Publication Manual requires that the chosen font be accessible (i.e., legible) to all readers and that it be used consistently throughout the paper. It acknowledges that many font choices are legitimate, and it advises writers to check with their publishers, instructors, or institutions for guidance in cases of uncertainty.

While the APA Manual does not specify a single font or set of fonts for professional writing, it does recommend a few fonts that are widely available. These include sans serif fonts such as 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, and 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode as well as serif fonts such as 12-point Times New Roman, 11-point Georgia, 10-point Computer Modern.

 

References

Giampalmi, J. (2021). Apa Style & Citations for dummies. John Wiley & Sons.

Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.). General Writing FAQs. Purdue Online Writing Lab.                     https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/general_writing_faqs.html

Comments

  1. UnknownFebruary 5, 2022 at 5:49 PM

    Thank you so much ms Powell! This is duly informative as I have forgotten how to do citations using the APA format

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ms. PowellFebruary 5, 2022 at 7:06 PM

      It's my pleasure. I'm glad the article helped.

      Delete
  2. UnknownFebruary 5, 2022 at 6:52 PM

    This is a pretty good introduction to APA. I need more specific details now

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ms. PowellFebruary 5, 2022 at 7:06 PM

      Look out for a more detailed article coming soon!

      Delete

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