Introduction to Library Research
& APA Style
Dual Enrollment Psychology
Selecting Sources
• The sources you select should be
SCHOLARLY or PROFESSIONAL
– This means…
• No newspapers or magazines
• Use books, credible online sources, but especially
JOURNAL ARTICLES
– Empirical information
Organization of Journal Articles
• Summary of a research study that has been done:
–
–
–
–
–
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References
• We will look at some samples next week…
Selecting Sources
• Use the a college or university’s online
databases to locate PROFESSIONAL or
SCHOLARLY sources to use in your
paper.
http://www.capella.edu
Selecting Sources
• ProQuest Social Science Journals
– Select “full-text”
– Select “peer-reviewed”
– Sources should be recent
• BE SELECTIVE!!!!!!!
APA Style
• Same purpose as MLA style…
• Some subtle differences in CITATIONS
and REFERENCE PAGE
• We use APA Style in Psychology!
Using APA Style
• Use of APA style in your research project:
– Within-text CITATIONS
• Used to indicate when material is borrowed
• Author and Year
– REFERENCE PAGE
• Complete information about each source
• Each citation should have a matching reference
– (Smith, 2005) citations…Smith on ref. page
Using APA Style
http://citationmachine.net/
A Final Note
• If you do not cite sources in your paper
and/or do not include a reference page,
your work could be considered
PLAGIARISM.
DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN!