As students in Psychology, students must submit their work in APA format. This can be very daunting – the APA manual is very long and detailed. In order to help students, I’ve created this Cliffs Notes version of the APA manual, with examples to illustrate each point. It covers everything they’ll need to know for the purposes of using APA in their coursework for my class.
APA Style Info
This is some basic APA information. For a much more in-depth look at APA style see: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition (2009). Washington, DC: APA.
THE BASICS:
1” (one-inch) margins all around
Double spaced (even the title page)
Times New Roman 12-pt font
TITLE PAGE:
In the header, you will put your Running head (“R” is capitalized, “h” is not, the word is followed by a colon, then a space, then a synopsis of your title, all written in CAPS). Flush left = the Running head, which is a synopsis of your title, 50 characters max. *NOTE: A Running head is not required for the Psyc course 3991
Flush right = page number. Your title page is page 1 (*note: do not put a “p.” or “pp.” or “pg.” in front of the page number
Your title is a summary of the main idea of your paper. It is centred, in the upper ½ of the page, and in upper and lower case letters
Underneath your title is your name (First, middle initial, Last) (for our course, put a comma after your name and then put your student number)
Underneath your name is your institutional affiliation (Thompson Rivers University)
For our course, under Thonpson Rivers University, please put Psyc 3991, followed by a comma, followed by “Dr. Rourke”
For our course, under Psyc 3991, please put the date on which you handed in the paper/assignment
On the following page is an example of a title page which includes all of the info from above (the formatting does not show up properly on this blog…in the document I’ve created, it’s on its own page, just as their title page would be).
APA Style Information 6th Edition
Jane B. Doe, V0112542
Thompson Rivers University
Psyc 3991, Dr. Rourke
July 15, 2017
Body of your paper:
Your header which includes your Running head (*but no running head is needed for Psyc 3991, just the page number) and page number is to be found on each page
On the first page that you start writing your assignment (i.e., the page after your title page) start off with your title, centred, in upper and lower case letters, then begin your essay.
e.g., (*do not do your document in bold, I did it in bold here so you know where my example starts and ends)
APA Style Information 6th Edition
APA has just released its sixth edition. Following is a brief list that highlights some of the important changes from, etc. ….
Okay, continuing on with info about the body of your text:
In a list of 3 or more, put a comma before “or” and “and” (e.g., grass, sun, fog, and rain)
Punctuation = outside brackets
Anchor word (e.g., for Likert Scale) = italicized, e.g., 1 = Low Arousal 5 = High Arousal
Numbers at the beginning of a sentence are spelled, e.g., “Two ducks flew” (“2 ducks flew” would be incorrect)
Place periods and commas within quotation marks
In your text, italicize the names of books and videos, do not put quotation marks around them, do not underline them, do not bold them
You must cite the work of individuals whose ideas, theories, or research have directly influenced your work
How to cite in-text
APA uses the author-date method
Use the author’s surname (last name) without any suffixes (e.g., Jr.), followed by a comma, followed by year of publication
e.g.: Enright, 2003
If citing at end of a sentence, do so in brackets (Enright, 2003), put punctuation after the brackets
If citing at beginning of a sentence or in the middle of a sentence, only the date is in brackets, e.g., Enright and McCullough (2001) stated that…
Within the same paragraph, when you’ve already cited that author, the next time you cite them (within that same paragraph) you do not need to put the year, e.g., Enright (1995) found that APA style helped ensure… Enright also found that…
When citing 2 authors, always cite both names. In your sentence, spell out the word “and” e.g., Enright and McCullough (1992) found that…
If citing at the end of your sentence, in brackets, use “&” (no comma between first author and ampersand) e.g., Girls prefer circular shapes while boys prefer triangular ones (Enright & McCullough, 1993) *that is totally made up J
When citing 3 – 5 authors, cite all authors the 1st time, then only the 1st author followed by “et al.” (period after “al”) any subsequent times that you cite them throughout your documents
e.g., 1st time: Enright, McCullough, and Wade (1985) discovered that….
Or, …blah blah blah (Enright, McCullough, & Wade, 1985) (put a comma before the ampersand)
2nd and any other times: Enright, et al. (1985) (comma before “et al.”) or …blah blah blah (Enright, et al., 1985) (comma before and after “et al.”)
When citing 2 or more works by the same author(s) (in the same order), sort them by year of publication, earliest 1st. e.g.: if Enright and McCullough wrote something together in 1995 and 1998 and I’m referencing both for the same sentence: …blah blah blah (Enright & McCullough, 1995, 1998)
When citing works by the same author with the same year of publication, use suffixes “a, b, c…” e.g.: …blah blah blah (Enright, 2005a, 2005b)
When citing two or more works by different authors in the same parentheses, organize them by alphabetical order, separate works by a semi-colon, e.g., …blah blah blah (Enright,1985; McCullough, 2003, Wade, 1962; Worthington, 2002)
If you are directly quoting someone’s words (spoken or written) you must use quotation marks. Make sure you reference where the quote came from, including page number (your reference goes after the punctuation and is not followed by any punctuation). e.g., “There is a crack in everything. That is how the light gets in.” (Cohen, 1992, stanza 2)
When you are quoting something that is 40 or more words, don’t use quotation marks, instead, do a block quotation: start the quote on the following line, and indent it (all of it, not just the first line). If there is more than one paragraph in the block quote, indent each new paragraph by ½ an inch. Make sure you reference where the quote came from (your reference goes after the punctuation and is not followed by any punctuation)
e.g.: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah (this is your own words/thoughts, and now you want to insert a quote from someone else that is 40+ words:
start the quote on the following line, and indent it (all of it, not just the first line). If there is more than one paragraph in the block quote, indent each new paragraph by ½ an inch. Make sure you reference where the quote came from (your reference goes after the punctuation and is not followed by any punctuation). (Doe, 1999, p. 10)
When quoting in the middle of a sentence that is your own, do not use punctuation at the end of the quote
If you start quoting from the middle of someone’s sentence, use 3 ellipse points … to lead into it
If you are omitting stuff from within the sentence (e.g., the middle) you are quoting, then use 3 spaced ellipse points to indicate that you have omitted something …
If you are quoting from an on-line source and there are no page numbers, put the number of the paragraph (para. 4); or if the source is broken down into sections, put the name of the section and then the paragraph number (Discussion section, para. 1)
Reference list (last page of your document – list of all the references you cited in-text)
The word “References” is centered at the top of the page (there are no quotation marks around the word)
Organize by alphabetical order (surname/last name)
1st line of each citation is flush left, all others underneath it are indented
e.g.,
Enright, R. D.,…blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
McCullough, W. R., … blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah
Authors last name, comma, their initials (put a period followed by a space after each initial), comma, year of publication in brackets, period.
If journal article, then include: Title of article with only first word capitalized (and word after colon, and proper nouns), period. Title of Journal in upper and lower case letters, comma, volume number, all italics. (If the pages in the journal are paginated separately by issue, then include the issue number in brackets immediately after the volume number, but do not italicize it), comma, page numbers of the article, period. Then, include the Digital Object Identifier (doi) (type “doi” then put a colon) – the doi can usually be found in the upper right hand corner of the first page of the article, and it begins with the number 10. On-line, it can also be found in the data bases (e.g., Psyc Info) if you click on the “full record display” for that article. Do not put a period after the doi
e.g.,
Enright, R. D., McCullough, Q. X. (1999). The old lady swallowed a fly. Social
Sciences Quarterly, 5, 88-97. doi: 10.1097/0399-845.22.6.675
If there is no doi, and you are using an on-line source, then include the home page URL of the journal/book/report publisher (do not put a period after it)
e.g.
Enright, R. D., McCullough, Q. X. (1999). The old lady swallowed a fly. Social
Sciences Quarterly, 5, 88-97. Retrieved from http://wisewords.com
If citing a book chapter instead of a journal article, after the author’s names and date of publication, put the chapter title. Capitalize only the first word, a word after a colon, or proper nouns. If there are editors to the book, write “In” then put the names of the editors (first initial followed by surname/last name) followed by brackets and the letters Eds., e.g., (Eds.), comma, title of book in upper and lowercase letters and italicized, period. Then put the City and State/Province where published (city, comma, state), followed by a colon, and the name of the publisher, period.
e.g.,
Enright, X. Y. (1977). The grass is never greener on the other side. In J.
Worthington and S. Crosby (Eds.), Common Myths Debunked. New York, NY:
Potter-House Publishing.
In your reference list, if citing works by the same author, but different dates of publication, work with earliest year of publication comes first
Referencing a video
Name of whomever produced it goes first (last name first), then in brackets write “Producer,” period, year came out (in brackets), period. Name of movie in italics, upper and lower case letters, then DVD in square brackets, period.
e.g., Kovalev, A. (Producer). (2009). A Player’s Story: The Year I left the Habs. [DVD].