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University of Phoenix Material

How to Use the Reference and Citation Generator

The Center for Writing Excellence provides students with an APA Reference Citation Generator that produces references and in-text citations. The following guide will take you step-by-step through how to use this tool.

Finding the Generator

Click the Library tab at the top of the student website. Next, select Tutorials and Guides under the Center for Writing Excellence heading.

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Next, select Reference and Citation Generator located under the APA Information heading.

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This link will take you to the starting screen for the generator.

Preparing to Use the Generator

Click the link titled How To Use to see some helpful tips.

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The “How to Use” directions provides invaluable advice that will save you time when you generate your sources. The following steps are recommended before you generate your sources:

Have your resources ready. This will save time because you will have all of your sources in one place.

Alphabetize the sources by the author’s last name or the article title if there is no author given. This will save you time because your reference page should be in alphabetical order.

Identify the type of resource and whether or not it is print or non-print. Printed sources are cited differently than electronic sources. Having this information handy will speed up the process.

When you are ready, click on the generator tab to start generating your citations.

Using the Generator

When you click on Generator, a list of options will be presented to you.

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The generator provides options for citing books, periodicals, websites, course materials, and other commonly used sources.

When you click on the type of source you would like to cite, you will be given a form to complete. There is an example button that you can click to see the form filled out and try the generator. Otherwise, just begin to fill out the form, paying attention to the instructions provided in red under each field.

The following is a common citation type for using a journal article from an online database. This type of citation begins by asking for information about the authors. You can choose authors if they are provided, or you can select anonymous to cite a source that does not name any authors.

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In the example, there are only two authors, so the third author’s name has been left blank. Be sure to type in the authors’ names in the order in which they appear on your source. Also note the instructions to include a period after the first and middle initials. If you have more than three authors, click the Rule for 3 or More Authors link to see how to cite the work appropriately.

Next, you will be asked information about the article including the date information, the article title, the publication title, the volume and issue numbers, and the page numbers.

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In the example, you can see the article was published in 2014. Because there was no additional information provided, that field was left blank. The title of the article was written according to the directions; only the first letter of the first word of the title and subtitle and proper nouns that appear in the title are capitalized in APA style. The title of the journal capitalizes the first letter of all words except for prepositions and conjunctions unless they happen to be the first word of the title.

Common prepositions found in titles include: at, by, for, in, of, on, to, and with. Common conjunctions found in titles include: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so.

Some publications will not provide issue numbers or page numbers. If this is the case, you can leave those fields blank.

Finally, you will fill out additional information about the source. Because the example is an electronic source from a database, it asks two additional questions.

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In the example shown, it asks whether or not the article is paginated with page numbers or paragraph numbers. If you used a quote from the source, you are asked to add the page or paragraph number in the blank. In this example, the student did not know if he would quote from the article, so he selected page and left the field blank. This will help him by showing how he would cite this using an in-text citation.

The second option asks for a URL, a DOI, or a database name.

DOI: A DOI is a document ID number. It is often found with journal articles from library databases. If a DOI is provided, use it! DOI numbers are static. No matter where that article is published, the DOI will always remain the same.

URL: If you found the article on a website that is accessible to anyone (for example, an electronic journal that can be accessed for free on the Internet), you should provide a URL website address if no DOI is given.

Database name: If you found something in the library’s databases, and no DOI is given, you should cite the database name. The web address (URL) would not be helpful in this case because only people with a database subscription would be able to use that address.

In the example, the student used a library database (Gale Opposing Viewpoints) and the article did not have a DOI. As a result, he used the database name.

When the form is complete, click the Submit button.

The Results

Once you click the Submit button, your results will be generated. You will see the reference page entry at the top, followed by three options for correctly citing your source in the text.

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You can copy and paste the reference page entry into your document. Just make sure to note that the generator does not double space or add hanging indents to your citations!

If you encounter a citation that includes a blank set of parentheses (for those instances where there might have been a volume number, but no issue number as shown below), you can delete them once you copy the source into your paper:

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Let’s take a closer look at the in-text citations. You will be given an option for inserting a paraphrase before the citation, an option where you lead into the paraphrase with the citation, and an option where you use a quotation. Here are some tips to remember:

If the in-text citation would work for a paraphrase, it would also work for a summary!

Remember to use transitions to make your prose read more smoothly. For example: According to Jones and Smith (2014), include the paraphrase here. Because there are so many transition options, the generator does not provide them for you. Refer to the Center for Writing Excellence’s Tutorials for a Writing Style tutorial that lists some common transitions: .

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