For every in-text citation in your paper, there must be a corresponding entry in your reference list. APA in-text citation style uses the author’s last name and the year of publication, for example: (Field, 2005). For direct quotations, include the page number as well, for example: (Field, 2005, p. 14).

There are three ways to use sources effectively: summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting directly.

Why citing is important

• To show your reader you’ve done proper research by listing sources you used to get your information.
• To be a responsible scholar by giving credit to other researchers and acknowledging their ideas.
• To avoid plagiarism by quoting words and ideas used by other authors.

There are (3) major citation styles used in academic writing:

• Modern Language Association (MLA)
• American Psychological Association (APA)
• Chicago, which supports two styles: Notes and Bibliography. Author-Date.

There are two methods of citing sources in your text: Parenthetical citations give a short reference in parentheses directly in the text. Numerical citations give only a number that corresponds to a footnote, endnote, or reference list entry.

How to do I choose a citation style?

• APA (American Psychological Association) is used by Education, Psychology, and Sciences.
• MLA (Modern Language Association) style is used by the Humanities.
• Chicago/Turabian style is generally used by Business, History, and the Fine Arts.

For in-text citation, the easiest method is to parenthetically give the author’s last name and the year of publication, e.g., (Clarke 2001), but the exact way you cite will depend on the specific type of style guide you follow.

The terms reference and citation are also often used to refer to the same thing although a citation tends to mean the part of the text within your assignment where you acknowledge the source; whilst a reference usually refers to the full bibliographic information at the end.

The most common citation styles are the following:

• MLA style in the humanities (e.g. literature or languages).
• APA style in the social sciences (e.g. psychology or education).
• Chicago notes and bibliography in history.
• Chicago author-date in the sciences.

APA referencing is a variant on Harvard style. Most of the conventions are the same, with brief author-date citations in brackets in the body of the text and full citations in the reference list. Citations for websites are also slightly different, with no need to include a date accessed.

Historians most commonly use Chicago’s note-style citation, based in the Chicago Manual of Style, now in its 17th ed. (U of Chicago, 2017). Notes (either footnotes or endnotes) are the single most flexible and broadly-applicable form of documentation available to academic writers.

The main differences between MLA, APA, and Chicago format are the way the title page, in-text citations, and reference lists are created. MLA uses the author-page number style for in-text citations, while APA uses the author-date citation style. Chicago offers two citation styles: notes-bibliography and author-date.

Both MLA and APA use parenthetical citations to cite sources in the text. However, they include slightly different information. An APA in-text citation includes the author’s last name and the publication year. An MLA in-text citation includes the author’s last name and a page number.

Pick among the standard styles based on discipline/area of study of the course:

1. APA (American Psychological Association) used in the Social Sciences.
2. Chicago, which supports two styles:
3. MLA (Modern Language Association) used in English, Rhetoric, foreign language, and the humanities.

An in-text citation is the brief form of the reference that you include in the body of your work. It gives enough information to uniquely identify the source in your reference list. The brief form usually consists of: family name of the author(s), and.

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About APA Style The APA referencing style is an “author-date” style, so the citation in the text consists of the author(s) and the year of publication given wholly or partly in round brackets. Reference list entries contain all the information that is required to follow up your source.

Formatting the APA Reference Page

• “References” is centered 1-inch down. It’s not capitalized, bold, or italicized.
• The reference citations are double spaced with no additional lines between them.
• References that go past the first line have a hanging indent.
• All references are in alphabetical order.

Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. APA style is a writing style and format for academic documents such as scholarly journal articles and books. It is commonly used for citing sources within the field of behavioral and social sciences.

How to alphabetize your print sources

1. Organize your Reference page by the last names of the authors (or editors).
2. If a work has no author or editor, alphabetize by the first word of the title other than a, an, or the.
3. Arrange same author sources using their last names every time.

Citing or documenting the sources used in your research serves three purposes: It gives proper credit to the authors of the words or ideas that you incorporated into your paper. It allows those who are reading your work to locate your sources, in order to learn more about the ideas that you include in your paper.

1. When using MLA style, organize your Works Cited by the last names of the authors (or editors).
2. If a work has no author or editor, alphabetize by the first word of the title other than a, an, or the.

Sort a list alphabetically in Word

1. Select the list you want to sort.
2. Go to Home > Sort.
3. Set Sort by to Paragraphs and Text.
4. Choose Ascending (A to Z) or Descending (Z to A).
5. Select OK.

EndNote: Changing bibliography sort order

1. Go to “Edit > Output Styles > Open Style Manager”.
2. Highlight the output style you would like to change, and click the “Edit” button.
3. Go to “Sort Order” under “Bibliography”.
4. Here, select the sort order you would like to use or click “Other” to choose additional sorting options.

Answer

1. Select all of the references on your page (do not select the heading on the page: References)
2. On the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, click the Sort icon.
3. In the Sort Text dialog box, under Sort by, click Paragraphs and Text, and then click either Ascending.

Answer

1. Highlight the References list.
2. Under Home tab, click on the arrow by Paragraph.
3. In the Indentation section, use the drop down under Special to choose Hanging.
4. Click OK.

Reference list format

1. The word References should appear in bold in upper and lower case and be centred at the top of the page.
2. All reference entries should be double-spaced.
3. All references should be in a “hanging indent” format.

What does a hanging indent look like? The first line of your reference citation will line up with the left margin and each line after will be indented one-half inch from the left margin. It basically is opposite of a normal paragraph where you indent the first line.

Order your reference list alphabetically by author. Apply a hanging indent to each reference list entry. This means that the first line of each entry is left aligned, while the second and subsequent lines are indented (the Publication Manual recommends 0.5″ or 1.27cm—the default in Microsoft Word).

Yes, indent the first line of every paragraph, except for the Abstract (see instructions below). Paragraphs are indented 0.5” or Tab key once. Check the APA Help guide to see a Sample Paper.