APA - How to cite sources in American Psychological Association Format

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 and other professional fields.

This format was first developed in 1929 to form a standardized way for researchers in science fields to document their sources.

Prior to the inception of these standards and guidelines, individuals were recognizing the work of other authors by including bits and pieces of information in random order. There wasn’t a set way to format citations and references. You can probably imagine how difficult it was to understand the sources that were used for research projects!

Having a standard format for citing sources allows readers to glance at a citation or APA reference and easily locate the title, author, year published, and other critical pieces of information needed to understand a source.

Citing your sources...

• helps readers of your paper to identify the sources of the information you used

• helps you find the information you used, later on

• helps you avoid plagiarism because it shows which ideas are yours and which ideas belong to another person

• is expected for college-level and professional-level academic work

Plagiarism

"Plagiarism" means submitting work that is someone else's as one's own. For example, copying material from a book or other source without acknowledging that the words or ideas are someone else's, and not one's own, is plagiarism. If a student copies an author's words exactly, he or she should treat the passage as a direct quotation and supply the appropriate citation. If someone else's ideas are used, even if it is paraphrased, appropriate credit should be given. Lastly, a student commits plagiarism when a term paper is purchased and/or submitted which he or she did not write.