How to Use APA Style
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
- Explain how accurately citing sources can impact your ethos as a professional communicator.
- Identify the four parts of a reference: the author, the date, the title, and the source.
- Differentiate between a parenthetical and narrative citation, and explain how they are examples of the author-date citation system.
- Create narrative citations that use signal verbs to identify an author’s rhetorical purpose.
It’s time to talk about citing sources. You’ve seen citations in action throughout this text; we mentioned it briefly in the previous chapter. It’s time to review how to put them in your paper. This chapter will focus on how you do that from a mechanical perspective. Specifically, we will look at how you can use in-text citations and create reference entries using the American Psychological Association Style Guide, better known as APA Style.
Why Did We Pick APA Specifically?
It’s important to note that the APA style is one of several citation styles for students and professionals engaging in academic conversations. You may have already encountered these styles if you have taken classes in different departments at Pikes Peak State College. For example, the English department uses the Modern Language Association (MLA) style, whereas the History department uses the Chicago Manual of Style. Combined with APA style, these are the three most well-known citation styles used in North America.
Do you have to learn all the different styles in the world to be a successful student and professional? Depending on the classes you take and your career choice, you might. If you are transferring to a program at a university, your upper-division courses will most likely only use one style guide throughout. However, what further complicates this issue is that, even within the same department, individual programs can have their preferred citation style that you might have to learn. For example, journalism programs use a different citation style than English or communication programs. Though these programs may be in the same department, students use different styles in each class.
In communication courses, APA style is similar to citation and referencing in scientific fields. You’ll see what that means in a moment. Still, if you can handle citation and referencing in APA style, you should be able to handle citations in your field, whether it’s engineering, agriculture, kinesiology, or another field.
One important note about all style guides is that they receive quarterly updates. This means the rules and expectations will change somewhat with each new edition. For this chapter, we are using the 7th of edition of the APA style guide, which came out in 2020.
Why do style guide publishers do this? While having to relearn the rules every ten years or so may seem like a hassle, there are two main reasons to keep these style guides up to date: 1) keeping up with the evolution of research and 2) keeping up with the evolution of the English language. For example, the first edition of the APA style guide came out in 1953. Back then, researchers didn’t need to worry about citing sources such as YouTube videos, websites, or social media. Now, in the latest edition, there are rules for how to cite those sources.
The second reason is to keep up with the evolution of the English language. In previous editions, there was no guidance around gender and preferred pronoun usage. There is specific guidance on both topics and how to avoid implying gender binaries in your writing.
Why Use a Style Guide At All?
Using APA Style, or any style guide for that matter, is essential for establishing your credibility, or your ethos, as a professional communicator. Every in-text citation you use will correspond to an entry on the references page at the end of your essays, papers, speech outlines, and reports. This allows readers to quickly check the final page to see where your sources are from. You show the reader that you have taken the report seriously by engaging with legitimate, professional sources.
Additionally, style guides ensure that your report is consistent. You may think that having slight differences in how you use an in-text citation may seem like a non-issue, but people notice these things! If they see you are not paying attention to specific details, they may wonder where else you are not paying attention, and you will lose credibility.
As a professional communicator, you must ensure you understand these guidelines and can apply them in your writing.
Exercise #1: Citation Pre-Assessment
Let’s begin with a quick pre-assessment. You probably already have some idea about how to cite sources. Below are five multiple-choice questions. At the top of each question, you will see the full reference entry for a source we have used in this text. Pick the example in-text citation that cites that source correctly. If you’re not sure which is correct, that’s okay. This is just for you to see what you already know.
How to Use APA
For the remainder of this chapter, we will discuss the mechanics of APA style. There will be two parts:
- How to create a references page
- How to add in-text citationsto your paper
Before we go into each part, please note that the rules we show you are basic requirements. Depending on the source, you may need to add more information to your reference entry or adjust how you write the in-text citation. To learn more about all these differences, check out Purdue OWL. Their website provides a good overview, with examples, of the different ways to write your references and in-text citations.
References Page
Perhaps surprisingly, we are going to start with the end of your paper, the references page. This is because all in-text citations are based on this section of a paper.
The references page allows your reader to easily find any work you cite in your paper. This is because all of your sources will be written up as reference entries on the page. These works should only be the ones that you used in your paper. This means you must include entries for all the sources that support the ideas, claims, and concepts you are presenting.
Please note that a reference page is different from a bibliography (which you may have had to create in high school). While both will include the sources you used to write your paper, a bibliography will also include works you used for background reading, even if they’re not cited in your paper. Put another way, if you use a source for background research but don’t use its content to write your paper, it doesn’t go to your references page.
In the next section, we’ll look at the basic principles of a reference entry. If you need help citing specific resources, we highly recommend checking out the Purdue Owl, visiting the PPSC Learning Commons, or speaking with your instructor.
What’s in a Reference Entry?
In APA style, a reference entry needs at least four elements. These elements tell the reader specific information about where you got your source. They are:
- The author (who wrote the work?)
- The date (how recent is the information you are using?)
- The title (what is the name of the source?)
- The source (where can the reader find this work if they want to use it for their research?)
Every reference entry you write should have these four elements. However, each type of reference entry ( a book, a journal article, an online video, etc.) can slightly vary on what those four elements look like.
Exercise #2: Identify the Four Elements of a Reference Entry
Look at the three reference entry examples below from sources we’ve used in this course. Can you find all four elements? How are all three references similar? How are they different?
MacLennan, J. (2009). Effective communication for the technical professions (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
(2) Journal Article
Booth, W. C. (1963). The rhetorical stance. College Composition and Communication, 14(3), 139-145. https://doi.org/10.2307/355048
(3) YouTube Video
Wordvice Editing Services. (2018, April 1). How to paraphrase in research papers (APA, AMA) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VACN6X2eF0
You should notice that each source type differs slightly from the others. For example, (1) and (2) use an author name, but (3) uses an organization name. The titles for sources (1) and (3) are italicized, but not for (2). Instead, the name of the journal is italicized. There are other differences, but the point is that you realize that how you format a specific reference entry will depend on the source type.
This is because there are dozens of different source types, and one might be formatted slightly differently from another. To be clear, we don’t expect you to know how to format every source type. That’s why there are citation managers and citation creator websites (more on below). We want you to know what information to include when you make your reference pages and where to go when you have questions.
To make this easier for you, there are websites like CiteFast and Citation Machine that will help you generate reference entries. The “References” tab in Microsoft Word can help create and manage your in-text citations and references page once you enter the relevant information.
One word of caution, though. Though these services make writing reference entries easier, they are not always perfect. Sometimes, they make mistakes, and it is up to you to check to make sure the reference entry is written and formatted correctly.
Formatting Your References Page
Exercise #3: Comparing Reference Pages
Below are two examples of the same reference page. One follows the correct formatting rules, and the other does not. Can you tell which is better and why?
Fortunately, the two rules for formatting a references page are pretty simple they are:
- Put references in alphabetical order by the author’s last name or the organization’s name
- If the reference runs over multiple lines, indent each successive line in the reference.
In-Text Citations
An in-text citation is a mechanical way that a writer (you) acknowledges the work of others. That means you should “cite the work of those whose ideas, theories, or research have directly influenced your work” (American Psychological Association, 2019, p. 253). The information that follows the quote in the previous is an example of a citation.
APA style uses what is known as the author-date citation system for citing references in texts. This means that, at minimum, your citations will have:
- The last name of the author (or authors)
- The year the source was published
If you include a direct quote, such as the sentence above, you will also need to include the page number.
An in-text citation is commonly found in the body of your report. However, they can also be found in tables, appendices, and figures. They are essential because they show the reader where your information comes from for your claims. If the reader is interested in the source, they can then flip to your references page at the end of your report and learn more about the source.
Here are two versions of what an in-text citation can look like using the same information. The first one is known as a parenthetical citation and the second is a narrative citation:
1. A concept that will directly impact your relationship with someone is your footing, which is the “foundation upon which your credibility rests in a given interaction” (MacLennan, 2009, p. 10).
2. MacLennan (2009) explains that one concept that will directly impact your relationship with someone is your footing, which is the “foundation on which your credibility rests in a given interaction” (p. 10).
The first example, a parenthetical citation, is the one that most people are familiar with. The second one, a narrative citation, is probably unfamiliar, but it is not difficult to apply once you know how. Ideally, you should use a combination of both methods in your writing.
Parenthetical Citation
First, let’s start with parenthetical citations because they are the ones most students are already familiar with. At its core, a parenthetical citation needs the surname of the author (or authors) who wrote the source material you are using and the year the information was published.
For example, when using a direct quote, include the “p” for page number:
If the information you are citing goes onto more than one page, the citation will look like this:
And that’s it.
Parenthetical citations are almost always placed at the end of the sentence. One thing that students often mistake is where to position the period in a parenthetical citation. Notice in example (1) in the previous section that the period goes after the citation, not before the closing quotation mark. Some individuals will try to put a period before the quotation mark and after the citation, but this is wrong! You only need one period, and it goes after the citation.
One important note is that the content of your citation will change depending on the number of authors and if there is a group author, such as an organization. The year will also change slightly if you cite the same author who published multiple papers in the same year. This page from Purdue OWL provides guidelines on how to format these situations.
Narrative Citation
A narrative citation uses the same author-date citation system as a parenthetical citation. The difference is that instead of the citation occurring at the end of the text, it occurs in the text itself. The author’s name will be in the text, and the publication year will be in parentheses. The page number will come at the end of the sentence:
Jones (1994) advocates…theory (p. 41).
Tanaka (2020) agrees… study (pp. 245-246)
Using Signal Verbs
(2) Smith (2020) illustrates…
(3) Smith (2020) verifies…
| Making a claim | Recommending | Disagreeing or Questioning | Showing | Expressing Agreement | Additional Signal Verbs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| argue
assert believe claim emphasize insist remind suggest hypothesize maintains |
advocate
call for demand encourage exhort implore plead recommend urge warn |
challenge
complicate criticize qualify counter contradict refute reject deny question |
illustrates
conveys reveals demonstrates proposes points out exemplifies indicates |
agree
admire endorse support affirm corroborate verify reaffirm |
responds
assumes speculates debates estimates explains implies uses |
How Do I Choose Which Citation To Use?
One thing to keep in mind is that you will never mix parenthetical citations and narrative citations in the same sentence. You will only use one.
But how do you know which one to use? There are several reasons why you would use one over the other, but here are the main two:
- If you want to highlight the author, use a narrative citation. You might do this because the author is well-known and wants to add some authority to your argument. Alternatively, if you are arguing against something the author is saying, you may want to mention it directly.
- If you want to highlight the information, use a parenthetical citation. You might do this if you try to make a point about the topic or provide general information. Also, if you want to focus on the argument a source is making and not who made the argument, you should use this form.
Key Takeaways
- When writing a report, it is essential to establish your ethos by consistently and accurately citing your sources. Using a style guide can help you do this.
- In communication courses, use APA style for your reference entries, references page, and in-text citations.
- A references page is a list of all the sources you are citing in your paper. Each source is turned into a reference entry.
- The in-text citations go into the body of your report. Anytime you use information that is not yours, you must cite it either using a parenthetical citation or a narrative citation. Though both types of citations are formatted and implemented differently, both follow the author-date citation system.
- A parenthetical citation goes at the end of a sentence, with the author’s date and page number in parentheses. For example: (MacLennan, 2010, p. 10).
- A narrative citation is embedded in the text. The author’s name is combined with the date of publication, followed by a signal verb. For example, MacLennan (2010) demonstrates…
References
American Psychological Association. (2019). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.).
Attributions
This chapter contains material from Technical Writing Essentials (on BCcampus) by Suzan Last and Candice Neveu. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
also called a "citation," in-text citations are a mechanical way that a writer acknowledges the work of others. An in-text citation can take two forms: a parenthetical citation or a narrative citation.
detailed information about your source that a reader can use to find the information on their own. A reference entry should include, at minimum, the author(s) who generated the source, the date the source was published, the title of the source, and information on where the source can be found.
a rhetorical appeal that addresses the values of an audience as well as establishes authorial credibility/character
a section of your report that will have reference entries for all of the sources you cite in your paper. All reference entries should be organized in alphabetical order by author last name or organization name, and, if the reference runs on to multiple lines, each successive line should be indented.
the American Psychological Association (APA) Style is a style guide that provides guidance on how to format papers. For this course, we are using it only for rules on citing sources and creating reference entries.
a quality that allows others to trust and believe you
a system for creating in-text citations that requires the inclusion of the author(s) last name, and the year the source was published. For RCM 200, we want you to also include the page number.
a word-for-word copy of someone else's words and/or ideas.
an account of your investigation into a subject, presented in a written document or oral presentation that has conventional formatting
a type of citation that comes at the end of a sentence where an outside source is used. The author, date, and page number go inside the parenthesis. For example: (MacLennan, 2009, p. 10)
a type of citation where the source information is embedded into the text. The author's name is in the text and is then followed by the year in parenthesis. The year is then followed by a signal verb. Include the page number at the end of the sentence in parenthesis. For example: MacLennan (2009) argues....(p. 10).
a special verb that show the reader how an author is expressing their ideas
