Contents

Americal American Psychological Association Style Sample .................................................................................. 2

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................... 2
Discussion ............................................................................................................................................................ 2
Examples .......................................................................................................................................................... 2
Format .................................................................................................................................................................. 3
Summary .............................................................................................................................................................. 3
 Americal American Psychological Association Style Sample

Introduction

The American Psychological Association (APA) style is primarily used in the social science disciplines. It is

formatted like Modern Language Association (MLA), and shows many similarities, but is unique in several

key points. This paper discusses the APA in detail. Addressing plagiarism has become a major challenge in

education and educating students in referencing correctly with the APA 6th is one way of trying to

overcome the problem (Bretag, 2013; Hosny & Fatima, 2014).

Discussion

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 a p. 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.

Examples

Note the difference between the following three examples:

Terrence (2007) 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 & Porter, 1998). All of the

interviewees have been called “exceptions to the norm” (Strong & Porter, 1998p. 5)

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.

Format

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. The lists are still

alphabetized 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). A good resource

to help you with referencing is Notre Dame’s referencing guide at

http://library.nd.edu.au/referencing/apa#s-lg-box-3040351. There is also a summary downloadable help

document available at: http://library.nd.edu.au/ld.php?content_id=8053459. In APA Style, you include a

reference list rather than a bibliography with your paper (APA, 2017). A reference list consists of all sources

cited in the text of a paper whereas a bibliography may include resources that were consulted but not cited

in the text as well as an annotated description of each one.

Summary

The School of Education, University of Notre Dame Australia, uses the APA 6th referencing style for all

written documents. In addition to in text referencing and the reference list there are a number of formatting

requirements to ensure your essay complies with APA standards. Get to know the APA 6th.
 References

APA.Bibliography versus reference list. Retrieved from http://www.apastyle.org/learn/quick-guide-on-

references.aspx#Bibliography

Bretag, T. (2013). Challenges in addressing plagiarism in education. PLoS Medicine, 10(12), e1001574.

Hosny, M., & Fatima, S. (2014). Attitude of students towards cheating and plagiarism: University case
study. Journal of Applied Sciences, 14(8), 748-757. doi:10.3923/jas.2014.748.757

Strong, R. L., & Porter, M. (1998). Grammatical combinations. In S. Parker, & K Gibson (Ed.), Language
and literacy (pp. 540-578). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Terrence, H. S. (2007, November 1). Student success in community colleges. The West Australian, pp. 6-8.