APA Style: Using Sources

Using Source Material:

Quotations

When you use the author’s exact words, even for a short phrase, you must identify the material as a quote and include the exact location of the quote.

• For sources with page numbers (e.g. print sources or pdf versions) use the page number:

(Terrell & Watson, 2018, p. 149)

• For web pages without page numbers use the section heading or paragraph number:

(Olsen, 2017, When to Change section);

(Olsen, 2017, para. 2);

• For videos, use the time stamp:

(Expert Vagabond, 2016, 1:04).

A direct quote of fewer than 40 words begins and ends with quotation marks and should be incorporated into the text:

Ablon (1971) stated that the wave of emigration from American Samoa began in 1951, when the U.S. Navy “closed the naval base at Pago Pago on the major island of Tutuila” (p. 71).

A direct quote of 40 words or more begins on a new line, is indented half an inch from the left-hand margin, and does not use quotation marks:

According to Ablon (1971), the population of American Samoa dropped dramatically as a result of a wave of emigration following the withdrawal of the Navy from Pago Pago in 1951:

Many Samoan naval personnel and their dependents were then moved to Honolulu and from there to the West Coast cities in the late 1950’s. Many of these naval personnel have since retired and their families have remained in California. Other Samoans who are currently in the various branches of the service are based in California cities where their wives and children establish homes and reside during their tours of duty. (p. 77)

 

To omit unnecessary wording within a quote, use an ellipsis; to add material within a quote, use brackets:

According to James (2017), “Dishonesty . . . is never [emphasis added] acceptable.”

Using Source Material:

References Page

The list of References begins on a new page. Center the title References in bold at the top of the page. The page should be double-spaced, and entries should use a hanging indent (the first line of each entry begins at the margin, but the second and all subsequent lines are indented an additional half inch.)

List the references in alphabetical order by the authors’ last names; alphabetize unsigned articles by the first word of the title (except for A, An, and The).

Each entry should contain the author, the date, the title, and the source.

Authors’ Names

List authors by last name, followed by a comma and the authors’ initials. For sources with two to twenty authors, include the names of all the authors, using an ampersand (&) before the final name:

Marcek, V. I., Lewis, M. J., & Han, H.

For sources with more than twenty authors, list the first nineteen names, followed by an ellipsis, followed by the final author’s name:

Abbot, A., Ross, L. B., Toma, J. J., Fresquez, M., French, P. F., Stoll, G. D., Schram, M., Eisen, I. F., Nelson, A. B., Tannen, B., Entwhistle, B. J., Tredwell, P. E., Thrisk, N. S., Fiorelli, G., Feldman, R. S., Stuyvesant, P., Southworth, R., Ellington, D., Nordyke, L. N., . . . Takahashi, M.

Dates

Place dates in parentheses after the authors’ names. For journal articles, use only the year; for other sources begin with the year, followed by a comma and the month and day.

Titles

Use sentence case capitalization for titles of works on the references list; that is, capitalize the first letter of the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. Use italics for titles of self-contained works (such as books, webpages, and plays).

Journal article title - Plastic legacies: Pollution, persistence, and politics

Book title - Plastic soup: An atlas of ocean pollution

Webpage - Project: Protecting Australia's nature

Sources

The source for a self-contained work (such as a book) is the publisher. The source for a short work contained within a longer work (such as an article in a periodical) is usually the title and publication information for the longer work in which it appears. The source for a webpage is the name of the website, which should be written in title case without italics; omit the source if the name of the website is the same as the name of the author.

Sample References and In-Text Citations

Books

Author’s last name, initial(s). (Year of publication). Title of book in italics. Publisher.

Book with One Author:

Macdonald, H. (2014). H is for hawk. Grove Press.

In-text citation: (Macdonald, 2014).

Book with Two Authors:

Owens, M., & Owens, D. (1984). Cry of the Kalahari. Houghton Mifflin.

In-text citation: (Owens & Owens, 1984).

Book with Three to Twenty Authors:

Dunne, P., Sibley, D., & Sutton, C. (2012). Hawks in flight: The flight identification of North American raptors. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

In-text citation: (Dunne et al., 2012).

       Book with an Editor:

Jung, C. G. (1953). The collected works of C. G. Jung (H. Read, M. Fordham, & G. Adler, Eds., Vol. 1). Pantheon Books.

       Chapter or Article in a Book or Entry from a Reference Book:

Storck, T. (1997). Censorship can be beneficial. In B. L. Stay (Ed.), Censorship: Opposing viewpoints (pp. 17-24). Greenhaven Press.

       Electronic Version of a Print Book:

Huxley, T. H. (2005) The advance of science in the last half-century. D. Appleton and Company. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15253/15253-h/15253-h.htm (Original work published 1889).

Periodicals

Author’s last name, First Initial., Middle Initial. (Publication date). Title of article. Title of Magazine or Journal, volume number(issue number), page numbers.

Journal Article in Print: (Include a DOI beginning with https://doi.org/ when available)

Merskey, H. (1996). Ethical issues in the search for repressed memories. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 50(3), 323-335.

Journal Article from an Academic Database: (Include a DOI beginning with https://doi.org/ when available; do not include a URL)

Ablon, J. (1971). The social organization of an urban Samoan community. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 27(1), 75-96. https://doi.org/10.1086/soutjanth.27.1.3629186

Journal Article Online: (Include a DOI beginning with https://doi.org/when available; otherwise include a URL formatted as a hyperlink)

Bregant, J. (2014). Critical thinking in education: Why to avoid logical fallacies? Problems of Education in the 21^st Century, 61, 18-27. http://www.scientiasocialis.lt/pec/files/pdf/vol61/18-27.Bregant_Vol.61.pdf

Magazine Article in Print:

Yeager, A. (2015, August 22). Maestros of learning and memory. Science News, 188(4), 18-21.

Magazine or Newspaper Article Online:

Olsen, P. (2017, September 4). 5 things to know about oil changes for your car. Consumer Reports. https://www.consumerreports.org/car-maintenance/things-to-know-about-oil-changes-for-your-car/

Natanson, H. (2019, September 6). Forget what you may have been told. New study says strangers step in to help 90 percent of the The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2019/09/06/high-level-help-was-surprising-new-study-says-strangers-step-help-percent-time/

Other Online Sources

Webpage:

Author’s Last Name, Initial. (year, month day). Title of document. Name of Website. URL formatted as a hyperlink

Munger, M. (2019, November 4). Starbucks too has surge pricing. American Institute for Economic Research. https://www.aier.org/article/starbucks-too-has-surge-pricing/

Webpage with No Author Named:

Guideline for online shopping. (2018). Shop Online. https://shoponline.support/online-shopping-guide

In-text citation: (Guideline for Online Shopping, 2018).

Webpage with Site Name Used as Author’s Name:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019, January 24). Tuberculosis (TB) disease: Symptoms and risk factors. https://www.cdc.gov/features/tbsymptoms/index.html

YouTube Video:

Screen name. (year, month day). Title of video [Video]. YouTube. URL formatted as a hyperlink

Expert Vagabond. (2016, March 9). Mayan ruins of Coba – Mexico [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMf_WpepQP0

Dictionary or Encyclopedia: (Include retrieval date if source is continuously updated)

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved February 13, 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/

Tweet:

Author. (year, month day). Up to the first 20 words of the post [Audiovisuals if present] [Tweet]. Twitter. url

The Colourblind Guy [@Osariik]. (2020, November 9). The magma chamber of the Yellowstone volcano is believed by scientists to be crystallized 

[Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/osariik/status/1325796660346195968

Facebook Post:

Author. (year, month day). Title of post [Audiovisuals if present]. Facebook. url

US Forest Service. (2020, November 10). Mullen fire information [Image attached] [Status update]. Facebook. https://Facebook.com/MullenFire/

Online Forum Post:

Author. (year, month day). Title of post [Online forum post]. Name of Site. url

Moneypenny, M. (2019, October 28). How do you identify a scam or phishing email message? [Online forum post]. Quora. https://Quora.com/How-can-I-identify-phishing-Emails

Content Generated by AI 

Notes on using AI:

• When you incorporate any material generated by AI in your paper, you need to acknowledge it:

1. Describe how you used AI in the introduction, methods, or other comparable section of your paper
2. Include the prompt or the question you used in your AI chat before incorporating the resulting content in the paper

• Follow the links to the sources provided by the AI tool you use to verify the credibility of the content and to identify the exact source of specific information or quotations. 
• It is usually better to use the original source than the material generated by the AI tool.
• Since your AI chats cannot be accessed by your reader, your instructor may require you to include the full text of any AI generated content as an appendix to your paper.

 AI References Entry:

Company responsible for the AI tool. (year of version). Name of the AI Tool (date of version) [other information about the AI tool]. URL of AI tool   

   OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

 AI In-text Citation:

When asked to summarize David Hume’s philosophy regarding inductive reasoning, ChatGPT indicated that Hume denied the validity of induction (OpenAI, 2023). According to OpenAI (2023), Hume believed that there is no rational basis for expecting future events to replicate past events.

Citing Social Media

Use the following References formats when citing original content from social media sites. The title may be the content of a post up to the first 20 words; if there are audiovisuals, their presence should be noted in brackets. Do not change spellings and capitalization from social media sources; replicate emojis when possible, or provide the name of the emoji in brackets.

Tweet

Author. (date). Content of up to the first 20 words of the post [Description of audiovisuals] [Tweet]. Twitter. url.

The Colourblind Guy [@Osariik]. (2020, November 9). The magma chamber of the Yellowstone volcano is believed by scientists to be crystallized [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/osariik/status/1325796660346195968

Facebook Post

Author. (Date). Title in sentence style capitalization [Description of audiovisuals]. Facebook. url.

US Forest Service. (2020, November 10). Mullen fire information [Image attached] [Status update]. Facebook. https://Facebook.com/MullenFire/

Online Forum Post

Author. (date). Title of post [Online forum post]. Name of Site. url

Moneypenny, M. (2019, October 28). How do you identify a scam or phishing email message? [Online forum post]. Quora. https://Quora.com/How-can-I-identify-phishing-Emails