APA 6TH Style Citation Guide: Start Here

This is a guide for citing resources using the American Psychological Association (APA) style of citation. Use APA to cite sources within the social sciences, education and business subjects. Please refer to your class syllabus or consult your professor to see if this is the correct citation style for your class.

Why Cite Sources?

• Citations allow readers to locate and further explore the sources you used to develop your thoughts and outcomes expressed in your paper. They are a measure of the depth and scope of your research.
• Citations are the method used to give credit to authors for their ideas and research.
• Citations provide the evidence for your arguments and establish your credibility by documenting that you have searched for and considered a number of resources during researching and writing of your paper.
• Citing enable you to have your own original ideas and outcomes standout from the other's research.
• Citing is standard practice in the world of academia.

When do I need to cite?

You need to acknowledge whenever you borrow quotes or ideas. The following are when you need to cite:

• Whenever you use direct quotes.
• Whenever you paraphrase.
• Whenever you use an idea that someone else has already expressed.
• Whenever you make specific reference to the work of another.
• Whenever someone else's work has been critical in developing your own ideas.

American Psychological Association Citation Style

This is a guide for citing resources using the American Psychological Association (APA) style of citing. APA is used to cite resources within the social sciences. Please refer to your class syllabus or consult your professor to see if this is the correct citation style for your class.

This guide will provide you with examples of the most used commonly used resources.  If you do not see a resource represented on these pages, please refer to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association 6th edition. This manual can be found in the library, in the citation center bookcase, located between across study room 102. This guide also provide the user with a link to the Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL), and a link to RefWorks, an online citation tool.

Each entry has a pattern, a diagram of what bibliographic information is needed to create a citation for the References section of your paper.

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• Zotero/ZoteroBib

  Zotero is an application that collects, manages, and cites research sources. It's easy to use and connects with your web browser to dowload citation information from books, journal articles, web pages, and other sources. Best of all it's free. ZoteroBib is a free, fast citation generator similar that is similar to (but in our experience, more accurate and reliable than) tools such as EasyBib and NoodleTools. Our Zotero LibGuide explains how to use these tools.