APA formatting and documentation
By: Matt Schering
Writing Center Assistant Coordinator
What is APA formatting?
 APA formatting is merely a set of rules to follow for
writing academic papers.
 No one is expected to memorize all of the rules of
APA, but you will find it beneficial to know where to
go to find them!
APA paper template and sample paper
 Perhaps the best tool for those new to APA style.
 This template is a mostly blank document, already
set to the standards of APA 6th edition.
 The Template can be found on the writing center’s
website.
 Additionally, a sample paper in APA style can also be
found on the writing center’s website. This is a
useful tool to acquaint yourself with how papers look
when completed in APA style.
Plagiarism and how to avoid it.
 Plagiarism (the intentional or unintentional theft of
intellectual ideas), occurs whenever any information is
used from another source without giving the author(s) of
that source credit for the information.
 You must document sources every time you borrow any
information, including facts, statistics, numbers, ideas,
concepts, names, locations, or dates.
In-text citations

Paraphrased Citation – Traditional citations will ask you to
include the author’s last name followed by the year of
publication for that particular source within the body of your
paper.
 End
of sentence, one author  ….. (Smith, 2010).
of sentence, one author  According to
Smith (2010), …..
 Beginning
In-text citations

Quoted Citation – If you are quoting information, be sure to
include the page number from which the quote originates. If
the information is coming from a website, you will use
paragraph numbers instead of page numbers.
 End
of sentence, one author  “…..” (Smith, 2010, p.
5).
of sentence, one author  According to
Smith (2010), “…..” (p. 5).
 Beginning
of sentence, (website)  “…..” (Smith, 2010,
para. 2).
 End
In-text citations

Multiple Authors – When you have exactly two authors for
one source, be sure to list both names in your in-text
citation. When you have 3 or more authors, list each
author’s last name in your in-text citation for the first time
in your paper that you use them. For each time after that,
list only the first author’s last name and then use “et al.” to
indicate that there are other authors used.
of sentence, 2 authors  ….. (Smith & Essex,
2010).
 End
of sentence, 2 authors  According to
Smith & Essex (2010), …..
 Beginning
In-text citations

Source with No Date – If your source does not provide a
publication date, use “n.d.” (indicating that no date is
provided) in place of the publication year for your in-text
citation.
 End
of sentence  ….. (Smith, n.d.).
 Beginning
of sentence  According to Smith (n.d.), …..
 The same rules apply for sources with no page
numbers as well. Use n.p. when citing direct quotes
that lack pagination.
Reference page entries



Reference Page Entries – In addition to citing your information
within the body of your paper, you should include a list of references
as the last page of your paper. References should be listed in
alphabetical order.
Though the specific information for each style of citation (i.e.
journal article, movie, book) may change slightly, you will likely
always needs the following:
Author’s name, date of publication, title of piece, medium of
publication.
Documentation styles: additional help
 For help with a variety of questions of
documentation styles, be sure to visit the writing
center’s website at govst.edu/owl
 Click on the documentation styles side bar to find the
paper template, sample paper, and a variety of links
for citations.