• Increase font size
  • Default font size
  • Decrease font size
E-mail Print

APA Style

APA (American Psychological Association) is most commonly used to cite sources within the health and social sciences disciplines. The following examples use APA 6th edition. For more information about citing electronic resources consult the American Psychological Association's APA Style Guide to Electronic Resources (PDF).

Citation Examples

In-Text Citations

An in-text citation is a brief mention within the body of your paper that leads the reader to the complete information about that reference. It usually appears at the end of a sentence. In-text citations include the author of the source (often in a signal phrase), the year of publication, and if it is a direct quote, the page number in parentheses.

Examples:

Yanovski and Yanovski (2002) reported that “the current state of the treatment for obesity is similar to the state of the treatment of hypertension several decades ago” (p. 600).

OR

Obesity treatments are not being taken seriously and it resembles the way people viewed hypertension many years ago (Yanovski & Yanovski, 2002).

OR

Yanovski and Yanovski (2002) found that obesity treatments are not being taken seriously.

List of references

Every APA paper must include a list of references. References are listed in alphabetical order, using the author's last name (if there are multiple authors, follow the order provided in the source). Each reference citation will include the author's name, date of publication, title, publisher, and place of publication.

Interactive Example

Here is a simple example citation in APA format. Move your mouse over the different parts of the citation to see what they represent:

Smith, J. A. author's name (2010). year Student search strategies. title of article College Research Quarterly, name of magazine or journal

79 volume number (23), issue number 42-49. page numbers

Examples by Type of Source:

(Click to show)

Articles

Articles in library databases

Eskritt, M & McLoed. K. (2008). Children's note taking as a mnemonic tool. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 101, 52-74. doi:10.1016/jecp.2008.05.007

If no DOI (digital object identifier) is provided, give the exact URL for the home page of the journal, preceded by "Retrieved from".

Print articles

Smith, J. A. (2010). Student search strategies. College Research Quarterly, 79 (23), 42-49.

Books

Jones, R. A. (2011). Children in the schoolyard. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

If there is no author, begin the entry with the work's title:

New concise world atlas. (2007). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

eBooks

eBook

Huddleston, R. (2012). Android fully loaded. Retrieved from http://www.web.ebscohost.com

Kindle eBook

Huddleston, R. (2012). Android fully loaded [Kindle DX version]. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com

Websites

Smith, N. (2010). Obesity and children. Retrieved from http://www.letsmove.gov/

You may need to use an organization as the author. If there is no author, begin the citation with the work's title. Include as much information as you can find:

Ben & Jerry's. (n.d.). Our history. Retrieved from http://www.benjerry.com/company/history

Videos

Streaming Video

Jones, S. (2012, September 11). Technology rules [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com

DVD

Guggenheim, D. (Director), & Bender, L. (Producer). (2006). An inconvenient truth [DVD]. United States: Paramount Home Entertainment.

Images

Image Posted Online

Wolff, M (2010, November 15). Mussels in a creamy garlic sauce [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://www.whatsforlunchhoney.net

Map, chart or illustration

Ukraine [Map]. (2008). Retrieved from the University of Texas at Austin Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection website: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/cia08/ukraine_sm_2008.gif

Video Tutorial

Style Guides & Additional Writing Resources

For a comprehensive overview of APA paper and source citation format, we recommend you use these style guide websites:

APA 6th Edition

APA 5th Edition