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APA Citation Style 7th Ed. (other styles too)

In Text Citations

To cite correctly you need to provide both IN TEXT CITATIONS and REFERENCES.

In Text citations are placed in your text (the body of your paper) to identify the words and ideas of others. These In Text citations will point the reader to the Reference List citations at the end of your assignment or paper. 

Special Note...

  • include page numbers when quoting the exact words (or specific ideas) from a source
  • indent second and following lines for each citation in the reference list
  • punctuation is particularly important in the APA style, right down to the last dot/period in each citation!

In Text Citations (in the body of the paper) 

Refraining from killing other humans, for example, is often a critically important rule in societies, although circumstances such as self-defense and war may be acceptable departures from adherence (Forsyth, 2006; Frederick, 2002; Pojman, 2004)...

An important, foundational principle of ethical absolutism, however, is the idea that the rules will be observed and enforced (Forsyth, 2006; Frederick, 2002; Micewski & Troy, 2007). In a situation involving student plagiarism related to a college course assignment, the professor is critically important in the enforcement of the related college rules...

Hoover found that some economists will engage in plagiarism ‘‘with impunity’’ (Hoover, 2006, p. 453).

 

Reference List Citations (at the end of the paper)

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Lewis, B., Duchac, J., & Beets, S.D. (2011). An academic publisher’s response to plagiarism. Journal of Business Ethics, 102(3), 489–506. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-0827-8

Various Examples

 

Multi Works

When the in text citations are referring to more than one author or work...

  • use the ampersand (&) not the word (and)
Second, our results tie in with the large literature on mental shortcuts in voting. This literature has shown that candidate characteristics such as gender (Holli & Wass, 2010)...
 
  • arrange the authors alphabetically
  • separate each in text citations with a semi-colon ;
Studies show that stereotypes about race, gender, and other attributes may affect candidate evaluation and vote choice (Holli & Wass, 2010;  Huddy &  Capelos, 2002; Jacobsmeier, 2015; Koch, 2002; McDermott, 1997, 2007; Olivola, et al., 2012)...
 
  • include initials for authors with the same family name even if the publication dates are different
T. A. White (2018) and J. E. White (2019) have also found that voters rely upon...

Herrmann, M., & Tepe, M. (2018). Does exposure to stereotype‐disconfirming politicians reduce the effect of stereotypes on voting? Evidence from seven plagiarism scandals in Germany. Political Psychology, 39(2), 303–324. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12408

 

More than 1 Author

  • when a work has 2 authors, cite them both every time
...stereotypes about race, gender, and other attributes may affect candidate evaluation and vote choice (Holli & Wass, 2010;  Huddy & Capelos, 2002; Jacobsmeier, 2015; Koch, 2002; McDermott, 1997, 2007). This literature has also shown that candidate characteristics such as race (Pasek et al., 2014), gender (Holli & Wass, 2010), religion (McDermott, 2007), age (Marcinkiewicz, 2014), birthplace (Tavits, 2010) affect...

 

  • when a work has more than 2 authors, use only the name of the first author followed by et al. 
...stereotypes about race, gender, and other attributes may affect candidate evaluation and vote choice (Holli & Wass, 2010;  Huddy & Capelos, 2002; McDermott, 1997, 2007; Olivola et al., 2012; Pasek et al., 2014)...

Herrmann, M., & Tepe, M. (2018). Does exposure to stereotype‐disconfirming politicians reduce the effect of stereotypes on voting? Evidence from seven plagiarism scandals in Germany. Political Psychology, 39(2), 303–324. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12408

 

Same Author, Multiple works

  • with two sources by the same author, write the author once, followed by the dates
Studies show that stereotypes about race, gender, and other attributes may affect candidate evaluation and vote choice (Holli & Wass, 2010; Huddy & Capelos, 2002; Jacobsmeier, 2015; Koch, 2002; McDermott, 1997, 2007; Olivola et al., 2012; Pasek et al., 2014)...

 

  • if there is more than one source with the same date by the same author, use lower case letters (a, b, c). In the reference list or bibliography, order alphabetically by the title of the work
...(McDermott, 1997a, 1997b, 2007)...

Herrmann, M., & Tepe, M. (2018). Does exposure to stereotype‐disconfirming politicians reduce the effect of stereotypes on voting? Evidence from seven plagiarism scandals in Germany. Political Psychology, 39(2), 303–324. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12408

 

Organizations as the Author

  • if the author is an organization or government agency
  • if the organization has a well-known abbreviation, include the abbreviation in square brackets in the first citation, and use the abbreviation only thereafter
According to the Singapore Ministry of Health (2018)

 

...where many useful links are provided (Ministry of Health [MOH], 2018)  
...where guidelines, statistics, and policies can be found (MOH, 2018)...
 
  • with standards, use the standards organization as the author
...where specifications usually follow industrial standards (Singapore Standards, 2015)

 

No author

  • for In Text citations use the title or the first few words of a long title (in italics) and the date. If the title is not italicized in the Reference List, like a newspaper article for example, then use double quotation marks 
Of course, the Internet makes copying and pasting so easy ("Plagiarism and the Web," 2019).

No date

  • use the letters n.d.
To re-use one's own previously published work is also an example of plagiarism (Middleton, n.d.).

 

No page numbers

  • when quoting the exact words of an author, you always need to supply a page number. Some online sources have no page numbers, so use a paragraph or chapter number or a section name - you may have to count the paragraphs or chapters yourself. If there is a heading, include the heading for more clarity
As Chan (2017, para. 5) so aptly described the situation, plagiarism is rampant. On the other hand, plagiarism software can wreak havoc, especially when it comes to the use of templates (Nguyen, 2019, Discussion, chap. 1).

 

Sources Cited Within a Source

Always try to find and cite the original source instead of citing from indirect sources. This is because the original author's words may be colored by the perceptions of the citing author in the secondary source. See FAQ for more details.

If you cannot get hold of the original work (even after asking your Friendly Librarian) list the secondary source in your references and cite in text as follows...

Ong (1976) as cited in Tan (2016, p. 73) argued that plagiarism...
 
...it was argued that plagiarism...(Ong, 1976, as cited in Tan, 2016, p. 73).

Direct Quotations

  • Direct quotations and specific ideas need to be further identified with pages numbers
  • Short direct quotations are usually included inside quotation marks
  • Use pp. for more than 1 page
...the authors hypothesized that "females would find the tasks easier" (Whitfield et al., 1965, p. 151). 
...the "gender-based hypothesis" as put forward by Whitfield et al. (1965, pp. 151-152)
 
  • For quotations more than 40 words long, separate from the rest of the text and indent
  • No quotation marks are needed in this case

Herrmann and Tepe concluded that:

If public scandals such as the ones studied here do not change voters’ reliance on academic credentials, incentives for politicians to commit academic fraud will persist. Removing titles from ballot papers might be one way to reduce their effect in elections, but as long as voters value titles, candidates will have an incentive to use them in electoral advertising. (2018, p. 316).

Herrmann, M., & Tepe, M. (2018). Does exposure to stereotype‐disconfirming politicians reduce the effect of stereotypes on voting? Evidence from seven plagiarism scandals in Germany. Political Psychology, 39(2), 303–324. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12408