Writing
Center
Northern State
University
APA Documentation System
The system of documentation adopted by the American Psychological Association
of America (APA) consists of two components:
1.
At the end of each passage
in the text that requires documentation, the last name of the author is
inserted in parentheses, followed by a comma and the year of publication.
Page
numbers are included only for material within quotation marks.
2.
At the end of the paper, a complete bibliographical entry is provided for
each source.These entries are arranged alphabetically on a separate page
under the heading References.
1.
The Parenthetical Citation
A typical
citation follows the last word of the passage (or the closing quotation
marks) and precedes the final punctuation.
For
example:
.
. . regarding the problem (Jones, 1981).
. . .
no easy solution” (Jones, 1981, p. 222).
If the
name of the author is introduced in the text of the paper, it is deleted
from the citation to avoid unnecessary repetition. In addition, the
year (and page number for a quote) is included immediately after the name
of the author.
For
example: Jones (1981) has a similar view of the problem. He
believes that . . . appropriate solution.
If
more than one work of a given author published in the same year is used,
differentiate by adding an identifying letter to each date to avoid confusion.
The
letters also appear in the reference list, where the works are alphabetized
by title.
For
example: (Smith, 1997a); (Smith, 1997b)
If the author of the source is
unknown, a shortened version of the title is used in the text to identify
the work. The title of a book is underlined; the title of an
article appears in quotation marks.
For
example: (Surprising Solution, 1988, p. 8); (“Surprising Solution,”
1988, p. 8).
2.
References
(The format is
correct for the following examples but the spacing and indentations may
be incorrect! The list should ALWAYS be double spaced throughout
and the first line should be indented (like a paragraph).)
The list should be double-spaced
throughout, each entry using paragraph indentation (the first line of each
entry indented five spaces and the following lines at the left margin).
A
typical entry consists of four elements, each ending with a period:
the author’s last name and initials, the publication date in parentheses,
title, and facts of publication. The following is a sample of typical
entries.
Book by one
author:
Vogt, P. (1997). Tolerance & education: learning to live with
diversity and difference. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage Publications.
Book by two
authors (note that both names are reversed):
Guild, P. B., & Garger, S. (1998). Marching to different drummers.
Alexandria, VA:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development.
Book without
an author:
Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary (10th ed.).
(1993). Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster.
An anthology
or compilation:
Allen, R. C. (Ed.). (1987). Channels of discourse: television
and contemporary criticism. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina
Press.
Essay in an
anthology (note page numbers are included):
Martin, W. (1979). Anne Bradstreet’s poetry: a study of subversive
piety. In S. Gilbert and S. Gubar (Ed.).
Shakespeare’s
sisters: feminist essays on women poets (19-31). Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.
Article in a
weekly or monthly magazine:
Cotter, J. F. (1973, February 17). Women poets: malign neglect? America,
262, 140-142.
Article in a
professional journal:
Laughlin, R. M. (1970). Anne Bradstreet: poet in search of form.
American
Literature, 42, 1-17.
Newspaper
article:
Schwartz, J. (1993, September 30). Obesity affects economic,
social status. The
Washington Post,
pp. A1, A4.
Internet home page:
The H.D. International Society. (1998). [On-line].
Available: http://www.well.com/user/heddy/hdsoc.html
Journal article from an on-line
database:
Joyce, M. (1991). Notes toward an unwritten nonlinear electronic
text, the ends of print culture. Postmodern
Culture [On-line], 2.1.
Available: http://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/postmodern_culture/v002/2.ljoyce.html