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Citation Help and Style Guide

This guide will provide information on APA, MLA, and Chicago/Turabian citation styles.

Top Citations Format Examples

Article from a Database

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year of publication). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume(issue), page range.

 Website

Author's Last Name, First Initial. (Year, Month, Day). Title. Name of  website. https://www.xxxxxxx.full.url

Book 

Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. J. K. Editor (Ed.). Publisher.

 

Citations in your reference list should be double spaced. The second, third, fourth, etc., line of the citation should be indented 1/2 inch.

 

NEW EDITION ALERT

APA has published an updated edition of their Publication Manual as of October 2019.

  • MSU librarians have updated this guide to reflect the new manual (changes indicated by **). 6th edition help will remain available.
  • Academic Writer has also updated their resources.
  • 17 Most Notable Changes - APA 7th edition

Please review the Publication Manual for the American Psychological Association (7th edition) for full and complete citation guidelines.

American Psychological Association (APA) Style Guide

APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. This resource, based on the 6th edition, second printing of the APA manual, offers examples for the general formatting of in-text and reference citations.

In-Text Citations

When using APA format, follow the author-date method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text, for example, (Jones, 1998), and a complete reference should appear in the reference list at the end of the paper.

**The in-text citation for works with three or more authors is now shortened right from the first citation. You only include the first author’s name and “et al.”  (Taylor et al., 2018)**

If you are referring to an idea from another work but NOT directly quoting the material, or making reference to an entire book, article or other work, you only have to make reference to the author and year of publication and not the page number in your in-text reference. All sources that are cited in the text must appear in the reference list at the end of the paper.

In-text citation capitalization, quotes, and italics/underlining

  • Always capitalize proper nouns, including author names and initials: D. Jones.
  • If you refer to the title of a source within your paper, capitalize all words that are four letters long or greater within the title of a source: Permanence and Change. Exceptions apply to short words that are verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs: Writing New Media, There Is Nothing Left to Lose.

(Note: in your References list, only the first word of a title will be capitalized: Writing new media.)

  • When capitalizing titles, capitalize both words in a hyphenated compound word: Natural-Born Cyborgs.
  • Capitalize the first word after a dash or colon: "Defining Film Rhetoric: The Case of Hitchcock's Vertigo."
  • Italicize the titles of longer works such as books, edited collections, movies, television series, documentaries, or albums: The Closing of the American Mind; The Wizard of Oz; Friends.
  • Put quotation marks around the titles of shorter works such as journal articles, articles from edited collections, television series episodes, and song titles: "Multimedia Narration: Constructing Possible Worlds;" "The One Where Chandler Can't Cry."

Short quotations

If you are directly quoting from a work, you will need to include the author, year of publication, and page number for the reference (preceded by "p."). Introduce the quotation with a signal phrase that includes the author's last name followed by the date of publication in parentheses.

According to Jones (1998), "Students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time" (p. 199).

Jones (1998) found "students often had difficulty using APA style" (p. 199); what implications does this have for teachers?

If the author is not named in a signal phrase, place the author's last name, the year of publication, and the page number in parentheses after the quotation.

She stated, "Students often had difficulty using APA style" (Jones, 1998, p. 199), but she did not offer an explanation as to why.

Long quotations

Place direct quotations that are 40 words or longer in a free-standing block of typewritten lines and omit quotation marks. Start the quotation on a new line, indented 1/2 inch from the left margin, i.e., in the same place you would begin a new paragraph. Type the entire quotation on the new margin, and indent the first line of any subsequent paragraph within the quotation 1/2 inch from the new margin. Maintain double-spacing throughout. The parenthetical citation should come after the closing punctuation mark.

Jones's (1998) study found the following:

Students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time citing sources. This difficulty could be attributed to the fact that many students failed to purchase a style manual or to ask their teacher for help. (p. 199)

Summary or paraphrase

If you are paraphrasing an idea from another work, you only have to make reference to the author and year of publication in your in-text reference, but APA guidelines encourage you to also provide the page number (although it is not required.)

According to Jones (1998), APA style is a difficult citation format for first-time learners.

APA style is a difficult citation format for first-time learners (Jones, 1998, p. 199).

Source: APA In-Text Citations: The Basics

Citation Formatting Exceptions

**More Than Twenty Authors

Surnames and initials for up to 20 authors (instead of 7) should be provided in the reference list.

Miller, T. C., Brown, M. J., Wilson, G. L., Evans, B. B., Kelly, R. S., Turner, S. T., Lewis, F., Lee, L. H., Cox, G., Harris, H. L., Martin, P., Gonzalez, W. L., Hughes, W., Carter, D., Campbell, C., Baker, A. B., Flores, T., Gray, W. E., Green, G., … Nelson, T. P. (2018).

No Author

Begin your citation with the title of the work followed by the year.

Academic Writer

Need help to cite sources in APA style?