What is APA Style?
APA Style is a writing and formatting system developed by the American Psychological Association. It provides a standardized set of guidelines for presenting academic and scholarly work.
Style guides exist to promote consistency and clarity in academic writing. By following a common set of rules, writers make their work easier to read, evaluate, and understand across disciplines. Using a recognized style guide also helps strengthen the credibility of academic work by clearly documenting sources and maintaining professional standards.
Several style guides are commonly used in higher education, including APA, MLA, and Chicago styles. You may encounter these formats when reviewing sources in the library’s research databases.
APA Style is primarily used in the social, behavioral, and health sciences and is the official writing style required at American National University. ANU follows the most current edition of the APA Style Manual.
APA guidelines provide direction on how to properly credit sources through citations, how to format and organize academic papers, and how to create an accurate and complete references page.
Why do we cite sources?
Citations serve two important purposes in academic writing. First, citing sources is an ethical practice that acknowledges the ideas and intellectual work of others. Giving proper credit helps maintain academic integrity and shows respect for original authors.
Second, citations guide readers to the sources used in a paper. Much like a hyperlink on a website, in-text citations and reference lists allow readers to locate additional information and explore the topic in greater depth. As you progress in your academic studies, reviewing the reference lists in scholarly articles can also help you identify new sources and expand your own research.
What is a citation?
When writing an academic paper, you are often required to support your ideas with information from outside sources. This means using credible, expert materials to strengthen your arguments and then acknowledging those sources within your paper through citations and references.
A citation generally refers to a quotation or idea taken from a book, article, or other source. A reference directs the reader to the full details of that source so it can be located and reviewed. Together, citations and references provide essential information—such as the author, title, and publication details—needed to identify a specific work.
Citations and references serve to credit authors for their original ideas and research. Anytime you rely on another author’s work, whether by quoting directly or paraphrasing their ideas, you must acknowledge the source to maintain academic integrity.
APA Style requires two forms of citation for every source used: an in-text citation within the body of the paper and a full reference entry on the references page.
What is an in-text citation?
An in-text citation is used within the body of your paper to show where information from an outside source appears in your writing. APA Style requires that an in-text citation be included immediately after any idea, quote, or information taken from another author.
In-text citations typically include the author’s last name and the year of publication, such as (Smith, 2010). This allows readers to quickly identify the source and locate the full reference on the references page.
Examples:
- Profit is “directly tied to employee motivation” (Mathias, 1984, p. 64).
- Several studies (Anderson & Yost, 2014; Benson, 2001; Zimmerman & Ross, 1999) indicate that…
You can learn more about how to create in-text citations using the APA’s In-Text Citation Checklist.
What are reference page citations?
Reference page citations appear on the references page of your paper and provide complete details about the sources used in your work. Their purpose is to help readers identify and locate the materials you relied on during your research and writing.
Each reference entry includes key information about the source, such as the author, publication date, title of the work, and publication details. Together, these elements ensure that readers can easily find the original source and review it for themselves.
Examples:
Gore, A. (2006) An Inconvenient Truth: The planetary emergency of global warming and what we can do about it. Rodale Press.
Carolina, D. (2014). A model-driven methodology for developing secure data-management applications. IEEE Transactions of Software Engineering, 40(4), 324-337. 10.1109/TSE.2013.2297116
You can learn more about how to create a reference list using the APA’s Reference List Guide.
