Citation Resources: APA

Click here to check out our new APA Step-by-Step guide! You'll find sections from the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, video tutorials, handouts, and other guidance to help you with formatting and citation.

Citing your work is about more than just fulfilling the requirements for your assignment; it is a legal and ethical issue.

Under U.S. Copyright Law, the creator of an original work (for example, an author) has the right to be credited for their work. Citations help to give credit where it is due and tells readers where the information came from.

• APA Style Central: The official APA database. Includes quick guides, tutorials, samples, templates, and more.
• APA Style Website: You'll find additional APA information here, including tutorials and quick answers about references and formatting.

Other Resources:

  APA Guide: Created by the Library and Writing Center that highlights common reference and in-text citation examples.

         Citation Resources Guide: Guide provides information on the different citation formats and citation managers.

         Purdue Online Writing Center (OWL): Provides examples for nearly every type of APA reference and much more.

Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) are unique alphanumeric codes used to identify and link to articles.  New citation rules for APA require that DOIs be listed, if available, in place of the database availability phrase previously used. 

   ...If a DOI is not available, the journal publisher's URL is used.  

Try the free DOI Look-up service below from CrossRef.org

Below is a reminder of some common formatting details that sometimes are overlooked.

• Spacing: Citations need to be double-spaced.

• Hanging indent: Indent all but the first line of each citation (the opposite of how you indent a paragraph!).

• Capitalization: For book or article titles, only capitalize the first word of the title, and subtitle. Also capitalize proper nouns.

• Italicization: Book titles and journal titles with the volume number need to be italicized; do not italicize article titles.

• DOI: For electronic materials, if you have a doi#, you do not need to include the database name.

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Open the template that is linked below, save it to your own document name and location and start typing your paper.

[Template based on document prepared by Aurora University]