DOCUMENTING SOURCES WITHIN THE PAPER - APA
- NOTE:
- Titles have been highlighted. When writing your papers, either
underline or italicize titles.
The American Psychological Association (APA) format requires you to put
basic information about your source in parentheses within the text (no
footnotes) of the paper. Remember, the reader needs to be able to separate
your ideas and information from the source's ideas and information.
Therefore, you must identify the beginning and end of any material that is
not your own. If you use a direct quotation, the reader can identify where
it begins and ends by your use of quotation marks. Immediately following
the end quotation mark, and before the period at the end of the sentence,
include parentheses with the author's last name, the publication year, and
the exact page number. This information should be separated by commas.
For example, if you quoted from page 10 of a 1994 book by Mary Smith, the
citation would look like this:
". . . the final decision must be made by the
consituents" (Smith, 1994, 10).
Most of the time, you will not use direct quotations, but will
SUMMARIZE and PARAPHRASE ideas from the source. Let your reader know the beginning of
the summary or paraphrase by identifying the author. For example, start the
summary by saying "
Smith states," or "According to Jones." Since you already identified the
author at the beginning of the summary or paraphrase, you only need to
include the publication date right after the author's name in the text:
According to Philip Jones (1995) summer school should be mandated for any student who fails to maintain a C average.
If you are using a source that has no author, such as a newspaper article, you must use a shortened form of the title in the parentheses, along with the date and the page number:
According to a New York Times editorial, there is something deeply troubling about the way we are avoiding the plight of Bosnians. ("See No Evil" 1995, p. B16).
Here is the format for some of the other kinds of sources you will most often need to document.
- A book with two authors: put the names of both authors either in the text of your paper or in the parentheses, with the date and the page number, at the end of the material from that source. In the parentheses use "&" between the authors' names.
- A book with an editor: use the same documentation as for one author.
- An article by one author: use the same documentation as for
one author.
To learn the correct format for kinds of sources (such as a corporate
author, a work in an anthology, a multivolume work, etc.) consult any recent
handbook for samples of all types of entry formats in APA style. A
handbook that we recommend is:
- Diana Hacker's A Writer's Reference
It is available from the ESC Distribution Center (518-587-2100). It includes
both the MLA and APA formats.
EXERCISE 12: DOCUMENTATION WITHIN THE PAPER - APA