LibGuides: APA Citation & Formatting: About APA Style

About APA Style

APA Style originated in 1929 in an effort to provide structure and guidelines for scholarly communication and to facilitate reading comprehension of scientific writing. It has evolved and grown in response to changing needs but continues to provide the essential guidance that allows readers to focus on the content of a scholarly work without the distractions of style and formatting inconsistencies. It is used primarily in the social sciences, but may also be the preferred style for other academic disciplines. Always ask your instructor's preference about which formatting and citation style to use for your research papers.

The APA Style website is a comprehensive source for guidelines, tips, and examples of APA citation and formatting.

Resources for APA Style

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association by American Psychological Association
Call Number: BF76.7 .P83 2020
ISBN: 9781433832161
Publication Date: 2019-10-01
The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition, was published in 2019. The official source for APA style, it is intended to be used by graduate and undergraduate students, instructors, researchers, and editors. It contains guidelines for professional papers, student papers, and annotated bibliographies, along with a sample professional paper and a sample student paper.
Concise Guide to APA Style by American Psychological Association Staff (Contribution by)
Call Number: BF76.7 .C66 2020
ISBN: 9781433832734
Publication Date: 2019-12-01
The Concise Guide to APA Style, 7th edition, was published in 2019. The official APA Style resource for students, it is designed specifically for undergraduate writing. It is intended to be used by high school and undergraduate students, instructors, and other new writers who are learning APA style. It contains guidelines for student papers and annotated bibliographies, along with a sample student paper.

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APA Style Citation Tutorial, 7th Edition

Open Educational Resource created by staff at the University of Alberta Library to support students and faculty. Importance of citations, elements of common source types, and how to create reference and in-text citations based on the 7th edition APA guidelines. This tutorial can also be used a reference resource.

Freely available and fully accessible online. Sections include:

Exploring Source Types
Why Do We Cite?
Reference List Citations
In-Text Citations
How It All Works Together

What's New? Updates from APA 6th edition:

Formatting: New Guidelines for Student Papers

Title Page
- format for student papers differs from that of professional papers
- new guidelines for author information
- title is bolded and separated from other information by an extra line
Header
- no running head for student papers unless requested by instructor
- header contains only page number flush with right margin

Language

Use the singular "they" for persons whose gender is unknown or irrelevant, or who use "they" as their personal pronoun
Use "person-first" language (ex: student with autism as opposed to autistic student)
Use appropriate level of specificity when describing people - if race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. isn't relevant, don't mention it

Citations

In-Text Citations

For one or two authors, list both authors by last name (Strunk & White, 2019)
For more than two authors use et al. after first author name (Strunk et al., 2019)

Reference List

Include up to 20 author names in a reference entry
Book Citations
- Format eBooks the same as print books
- Don't include publication location for books
Article Citations
- Include a DOI (digital object identifier) at the end, formatted as a hyperlink (ex: https://doi.org/xxx)
- If no DOI is listed, end the citation after the page numbers and do not include a URL
- Don't include a database name unless the source can only be found in that database
Web Page Citations
- Don't use "Retrieved from" before a URL unless a date is included in the citation