Summary of the Essentials of APA Style



Summary of the Essentials of APA Style

Please refer to the 5th Edition of the Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association (2001) for complete guidelines concerning writing papers, citing references, and formatting rules. Graduate students should acquire the latest edition of this manual. All graduate papers for the Counseling & Development program are to follow APA guidelines.

Citing sources within the body of your paper.

Remember, failure to reference authors’ works (i.e., ideas, direct quotations, etc.) constitutes plagiarism! (See Sample Paper for examples of citing sources within your paper):

Sources must be cited when you have used the author’s idea or concept explicitly but do not quote it directly. Failure to reference authors’ works constitutes plagiarism!

▪

Examples:

Dreikurs (1975) compared the use of encouragement to ....

The use of encouragement was found to motivate students (Dreikurs, 1975).

▪ Reference citations include the author and date of publication. When there are more than two authors, they are all listed the first time the source is cited. Subsequent references to sources of more than two authors are listed by the first author’s name followed by et al. Failure to reference authors’ works constitutes plagiarism!

Examples:

Later studies by researchers show that........(Jones, Smith, & Lee, 1993).

This same study also found......(Jones et al., 1993).

▪ If the information appears as a direct quote, the page number is included. Failure to reference authors’ works constitutes plagiarism!

Example:

“Another key concept is unfinished business” (Corey, 1996, p. 226).

References (See Sample Paper for example of references):

▪ A list of all books, journal articles, on-line sources used in the paper is included at the end of the paper. References read, but not used to contribute to ideas in the paper, and not cited within the paper, are not included in the reference list.

▪ Reference page begins with the title, “References,” centered at the top of the page.

▪ References are listed alphabetically by author’s last name, followed by the date of publication, the name of the article or chapter, the name of the book or journal, and the publication information.

▪ Double-space references and use a hanging indent format.

▪ Book titles are not capitalized except for first word, proper nouns, and the first word after a colon.

▪ The title of a journal article is not capitalized except for the first letter of the first word, proper nouns, and first word after a colon, but the title of the journal is capitalized.

Book format:

Corey, G. (1996). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy (5th ed.). Pacific Grove,

CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing.

American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American

Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Chapter from an edited book:

Bjork, R. A. (1989). Retrieval inhibition as an adaptive mechanism in human memory. In H. L.

Roediger III, & R. I. Craik (Eds.), Varieties of memory and consciousness (pp. 309-

330). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Journal article:

Fife, B., Norton, J., & Groom, G. (1987). The family’s adaption to childhood leukemia. Social

Science Medicine, 24(2), 159-168.

Electronic references:

• Electronic references (on-line references) can be used, but caution must be exercised to assure that the resource is a legitimate one and that retrieval information is accurate. Here are some guidelines for use of electronic references:

o To direct readers to an entire Web site (but not a specific document on the site), it is sufficient to give the address of the site in the text.

Example:

Kidspsych is a wonderful interactive Web site for children (). No reference at the end of the paper is needed.

o Web documents share many of the same elements found in a print document (e.g., authors, titles, dates). Therefore, the citation for a Web document often follows a format similar to that for print, with some information omitted and some added. The basic retrieval statement for on-line databases is: Retrieved [month, day, year,] from [source] on-line database [name of database], [item no.-if applicable]

Example:

Jacobseon, J. W., Mulick, J. A., & Scwartz, A. A. (1995). A history of facilitated

communication: Scientific, pseudoscience, and antiscience: Science working group on

facilitated communication. American Psychologist, 50, 750-765. Retrieved January 25,

1996, from

Internet articles based on a print source

At present, the majority of the articles retrieved from online publications in psychology and the behavioral sciences are exact duplicates of those in their print versions and are unlikely to have additional analyses and data attached. This is likely to change in the future. In the meantime, the same basic primary journal reference (see Examples 15) can be used, but if you have viewed the article only in its electronic form, you should add in brackets after the article title "Electronic version" as in the following fictitious example:

VandenBos, G., Knapp, S., & Doe, J. (2001). Role of reference elements in the selection of

resources by psychology undergraduates [Electronic version]. Journal of Bibliographic

Research, 5, 117-123.

If you are referencing an online article that you have reason to believe has been changed (e.g., the format differs from the print version or page numbers are not indicated) or that includes additional data or commentaries, you will need to add the date you retrieved the document and the URL.

VandenBos, G., Knapp, S., & Doe, J. (2001). Role of reference elements in the selection of

resources by psychology undergraduates. Journal of Bibliographic Research, 5, 117-123.

Retrieved October 13, 2001, from

Article in an Internet-only journal

Fredrickson, B. L. (2000, March 7). Cultivating positive emotions to optimize health and well-

being. Prevention & Treatment, 3, Article 0001a. Retrieved November 20, 2000, from



Article in an Internet-only newsletter

Glueckauf, R. L., Whitton, J., Baxter, J., Kain, J., Vogelgesang, S., Hudson, M., et al. (1998,

July). Videocounseling for families of rural teens with epilepsy -- Project update.

Telehealth News, 2(2). Retrieved November 20, 2000, from



▪ Use the complete publication date given on the article.

▪ Note that there are no page numbers.

▪ In an Internet periodical, volume and issue numbers often are not relevant. If they are not used, the name of the periodical is all that can be provided in the reference.

▪ Whenever possible, the URL should link directly to the article.

▪ Break a URL that goes to another line after a slash or before a period. Do not insert (or allow your word-processing program to insert) a hyphen at the break.

Nonperiodical documents on the Internet or Stand-alone document, no author identified, no date

GVU's 8th WWW user survey. (n.d.). Retrieved August 8, 2000, from



▪ If the author of a document is not identified, begin the reference with the title of the document.

Other Electronic Sources

Electronic copy of a journal article, three to five authors, retrieved from database

Borman, W. C., Hanson, M. A., Oppler, S. H., Pulakos, E. D., & White, L. A. (1993). Role of

early supervisory experience in supervisor performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 443-449. Retrieved October 23, 2000, from PsycARTICLES database.

▪ When referencing material obtained by searching an aggregated database, follow the format appropriate to the work retrieved and add a retrieval statement that gives the date of retrieval and the proper name of the database.

Citations in Text of Electronic Material

Some elements of the 5th edition of the Publication Manual (© 2001) style guidelines for electronic resources differ from previously published guidelines.

To cite a specific part of a source, indicate the page, chapter, figure, table, or equation at the appropriate point in text. Always give page numbers for quotations (see section 3.34). Note that the words page and chapter are abbreviated in such text citations:

(Cheek & Buss, 1981, p. 332) (Shimamura, 1989, chap. 3)

For electronic sources that do not provide page numbers, use the paragraph number, if available, proceeded by the paragraph symbol (¶) or the abbreviation, para. If neither paragraph nor page numbers are visible, cite the heading and the number of the paragraph following it to direct the reader to the location of the material (see section 3.39).

(Myers, 2000, ¶ 5) (Beutler, 2000, Conclusion section, para. 1)

Appendix

Double-space the appendixes and begin each one on a separate page. Type the word Appendix and the identifying capital letters (A, B, etc., in the order in which they are mentioned in the text) centered at the top of the page. If there is only one appendix, do not use an identifying letter; the word Appendix is sufficient.

Other reminders for producing high quality papers:

▪ Use APA Publications Manual (5th ed.) as your primary guide for writing APA style papers.

▪ All papers must be typed/computer-produced using a readable font such as Times New Roman, font size 12. Do not use bold print or more than one font style. Leave uniform margins of at least 1 inch at the top, bottom, left, and right of every page.

▪ A title page should be typed using the following format centered on the page. Use a running head. A running head appears on each page of the paper five spaces before the page number. It is either a part of the title or the entire paper title. On the title page a statement alerting reader to the running head appears in the upper left-hand corner of the page. Title of the paper, your name, and university are centered on the page. Do not use bold or large font. Do not submit papers in plastic covers or folders.

▪ Number the pages of the paper in the upper right hand corner beginning with the title page.

▪ Include an abstract. An abstract summarizes the paper in 120 words or less. It appears as the second page of the paper after the title page. It is headed by the title: Abstract. The first sentence of the abstract is not indented.

▪ Use the Tab to indent space for a new paragraph.

▪ Note: There is only one space after most punctuation marks.

▪ Use headings to organize your paper. There are five levels of headings. Be sure to check the Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th ed., for specific directions for using headings (pp. 111-115). The headings are italicized but the title is not.

▪ Every paper should include an introductory paragraph. This paragraph should tell the reader what the purpose of the paper is and how the purpose will be accomplished. The body of the paper should follow the ‘plan’ described in the introductory paragraph. The conclusion should be a summary of the points discussed, a restatement of the purpose, and concluding remarks.

▪ Generally, the papers you will write for graduate courses will require you to integrate the references you have found in a way that supports the thesis of your paper. Avoid using a book report format where you discuss each reference source separately. You will use the authors as the authorities you cite and rarely will name the book or article they have written, their title, or their professional association in the text of your paper.

▪ Subtitles or headings are unnecessary for short papers. When you do need to use headings be sure to refer to the APA Publications Manual (5th Ed.) for specific guidelines.

▪ Read and reread your paper. Becoming a good writer is a life-long pursuit. Quality papers are produced through careful editing and attention to detail. Correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar are important. Check for run-on sentences, agreement, tense, proper use of words like there, their, and they’re, affect, and effect.

▪ Have another graduate student read your paper for clarity and meaning, or consider submitting your paper to the GMU Writing Center for a consultation. The Writing Center is located on the first floor of Robinson A. The Writing Center conducts regular writing tutorials on a variety of topics and will work with you one-on-one.

APA’s website answers many questions:

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