APA Style & Formatting

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APA Style  a set of rules made by a professional organization for formatting documents.
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It includes rules for the way an academic paper should look & how outside sources should be cited within a paper.

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What does APA stand for?
What does it look like?
Why do we use it?

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APA stands for the American
Psychological Association. This formatting style was created 80 years ago by a group of scientists, most of whom focused in psychology, and this style is used by the social and behavioral sciences today (“About APA Style”, 2010, para. 3).

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While it was developed for the social sciences, it is one of the most popular formatting styles in use
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Teachers in a number of fields may require you to use APA format for their classes.

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Plagiarism is when you use the words or ideas of others as your own.
To avoid plagiarism, you should always cite:
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Quotations—when we use the words of others directly
Summaries—when we recount the main ideas of others
Paraphrases—when we reword other’s ideas

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In APA Style, there are two kinds of citations:
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In-text, or parenthetical ( )
○ These are found within the paper itself
Reference list
○ These come at the end of the paper in a special section marked ‘References’

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Whenever you mention a source within your paper, you should use an in-text citation.
 In Bottlemania, Royte (2008) observes that drinking directly from the source of a spring is a rare opportunity today.
APA always wants the author and year.
If quoting a specific passage, you should include page number of a source.

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There are ways to create in-text citations.
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One mentions the author and the date in the sentence, not in parentheses.
○ In Bottlemania, Royte (2008) observes that drinking directly from the source of a spring is a rare opportunity today.
The other places the full citation at the end.
○ Drinking directly from the source of a spring is a rare opportunity today (Royte,
2008).

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Furthermore, when quoting a source there are two major types of quotations:
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A block quotation
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40 words or more
Is a separate and indented paragraph
An embedded quotation
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39 words or less
Is a part of the paragraph

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A block quotation should include the following:
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A sentence that introduces the quotation and ends in a colon (:)
No quotation marks around the quotation
Period, then citation

In Chapter 1, Royte (2008) reflects on her chance to drink straight from a spring:
I can only say that I feel privileged to be drinking straight from the ground, a rare possibility in this age of ubiquitous animalborne diseases and pollution. I can choose from nearly a thousand types of bottled water on store shelves but I can’t . . . drink from a naturally occurring body of water. (p.3)

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An embedded quotation should include the following:
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A phrase that introduces the quotation
Quotation marks around the quotation
 Citation, then period

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Considering the scarcity of freshwater,
Royte (2008) remarks on the value of such a resource as a spring: “Magically appearing from inside the earth, springwater has always had a powerful mystique. Civilizations have fought over such resources” (p.3).

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This comes at the end of your paper, and documents the source mentioned within the paper.
The list should be in alphabetical order, and after the first line, each entry should be indented ½”.

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For Bottlemania, the reference would look like this:
 Royte, E. (2008). Bottlemania. New York,
NY: Bloomsbury USA.
For an article it would look like this:
 Howard, B. (2003). Message in a bottle. E -
The Environmental Magazine, 14(5), 26.
Retrieved from MasterFILE Premier database.

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A Pocket Style Manual
The APA Style website: http://apastyle.org/
Purdue OWL Website

About APA style. (2010). American Psychological
Association. Retrieved from http://www.apastyle.org/about-apa-style.aspx
APA paper format. (April 30, 2008). Retrieved from Pasadena City College, WAC Health
Sciences website: http://www.pasadena.edu/hstutoringlab/apa/ paperformat.cfm
Hacker, D. (2006). A writer’s reference. Boston,
MA: Bedford St. Martin’s.
Howard, B. (2003). Message in a bottle. E - The
Environmental Magazine, 14(5), 26.Retrieved from MasterFILE Premier database.
Royte, E. (2008). Bottlemania. New York, NY:
Bloomsbury USA.