APA REFERENCING

APA Reference Style

Emily Edwards
University of Western Australia

APA REFERENCING

APA Style Sample

Contents
Overview ...................................................................................................................................................... 3
Summary ...................................................................................................................................................... 4
References ................................................................................................................................................... 4

APA REFERENCING

APA REFERENCING

Overview

APA (American Psychological Association) style is primarily used in the social science
disciplines. It is formatted like MLA, and shows many similarities, but is unique in several key
points.
APA uses parenthetical (or in-text) citations within sentences, but rather than indicating
the author's name and page number, APA includes author's name and date of publication. The
page number, represented with ap. or a pp., is only added to the citation when using a direct
quote (not a summary or paraphrase). If the author's name is mentioned in the sentence, then
place the date of publication in parentheses directly after the name. If the name is not mentioned
include the author's name and date in parentheses at the end of the source material. And, if you
use a direct quote, place the page number after the publication date within the parentheses. Note
the difference between the following three examples:
Terrence (1999) has presented poignant examples from 150 interviews. However, it has
been pointed out that the research was conducted in a selective, highly biased, way. (Strong,
1998) All of the interviewees have been called 'exceptions to the norm' (Strong, Porter).
Note the first example paraphrases an author that is named in the sentence, the second
example paraphrases authors that are not named in the sentence, and the third example provides
a direct quote (thus the inclusion of the page numbers) but also does not identify the authors
within the sentence. If the authors were identified within the sentence in the third example, the
authors' names would be followed by the year of publication and only the page numbers would
be in the parentheses at the end of the quote.

APA REFERENCING

Summary

Finally, the bibliographic page in APA style differs from MLA, what APA calls the
Reference page. You will notice a few immediate differences from the MLA Works Cited
format. With APA you include the initial of the author's first name rather than the complete
name, the publication date immediately follows the author's name in parentheses, and titles of
articles are not surrounded with quotation marks (however titles of books, magazines, journals,
etc. are still underlined). The lists are still alphabetised by author's last name (or title in the
absence of an author) and the first line is flush left while subsequent lines in the same entry are
indented in (approximately 5 spaces or one tab). For journals and magazines, publication title
and volume number are both underlined, followed by the issue number (not underlined) in
parentheses. Only use a p. or a pp. to indicate page numbers with newspapers. The only other
time you would use a p. is to indicate what pages an article is on within a collection or
anthology. Again, if you have any questions or need further assistance, come in to see us at the
Writing Desk.

References

Booth, W. (1979). Writing Essays: Secrets of the Trade. Composition Today, 13(1), 78-91.
Eckholm, E., & Gibbons, A. (1991). Guide to APA Style. Journal of Style Manuals, 18(1),
1561-1562.
Strong, R. L., Porter, M. (1998), Grammatical Combinations. In S. T. Parker & K. R. Gibson
(Eds.), Language and Literacy (pp. 540-578) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Terrence, H. S. (1999). Student Success in Community Colleges. Oregonian, p. A6.
White, A., & Long, B. (Eds). (1993). Praise for America's Literacy. Westport, CT: Greenwood.