APA style and citations for dummies - Joe Giampalmi 2021

Coordinating citations: common elements
Gaining insight: to cite or not to cite
Practicing safe cites: writing and citing sources

Coordinating citation elements is like getting everyone on the bus when it’s time to return from a road trip. You can easily misplace someone or something. Coordinating citations requires knowing your options — no author, no date, and no title? No problem. These sections show APA preferences (and options) for citing and when citing elements are unavailable.

Meanwhile, Table 10-1 shows how to cite when key information is missing.

TABLE 10-1 Citations with Missing Elements

Citing author-date format

The author-date format is one person and date you don’t want to miss. APA requires the author-date format for in-text citations. The in-text citation consists of the author’s last name and the source’s publication date. The template looks like this: (author, date).

Citations are written as a narrative style (the author’s name written as part of the narrative and the date written in parentheses) or parenthetical style (both the author’s name and the date written within parentheses). Note that end punctuation is positioned after the parentheses.

· Narrative-style examples:

· Windstorm (2015) explains rammed-earth building is an environmentally friendly technique adaptable to conditions in the Northwest.

· Hennessy (2019) found that the percentage of fresh water in the Great Lakes has remained stable in recent decades.

· Parenthetical-style examples:

· Rammed-earth building is an environmentally friendly technique adaptable to conditions in the Northwest (Windstorm, 2015).

· The percentage of fresh water in the Great Lakes has remained stable in recent decades (Hennessy, 2019).

Positioning end punctuation outside the parentheses represents punctuation accuracy, an expectation valued by your professor. Take a look at the end punctuation in the last two parenthetical examples.

Citing repeated narratives

Repeating offenders need to be silenced. When repeating a narrative citation in the same paragraph, avoid repeated uses of the date. Use that author’s name only. The following example paragraph shows repeated narrative citations and represents an informal APA adaption in an essay that is acceptable in many first-year university writing programs. Similar to all citations, the complete source is required in the reference list. This example of narrative style citation contains repeated author references (DeCarlo) that avoid repeating the date:

DeCarlo (2019) endorses LinkedIn as the premier social networking site for reaching business professionals and establishing contacts for job searchers. DeCarlo suggests posting a profile with information similar to resumes. She references a recent social networking survey that says 95 percent of recruiters use LinkedIn in their recruiting process.

Sections of a source

May the source be with you. Some citations reference a specific section of a source such as page sequences, chapters, figures, and tables. Include a brief description with the author-date citation. Here are some examples:

· (Sitwell, 2007, Part II)

· (Newson, 1981, Chapter 4)

· (Wellington & Jackson, 2012, Author’s Note)

· (Winston, 2008, Glossary)

· (T. Beall & S. Beall, 2020, Appendix B)

(Wills, 2019, Notes)

(Callow, 1995, pp. 35—67)

(O’Donnell, 2001, References)

This citation strategy also applies to referencing text for quotations and paraphrases when page numbers are unavailable, such as in some converted electronic documents.

Citations are written as either narrative or parenthetical, as I discuss in the section, “Citing author-date format,” earlier in this chapter. The example citations are shown in parenthetical style, but are easily converted to narrative style.

Citing an unknown author

APA doesn’t send an APB (All Points Bulletin) for missing or anonymous authors, but it does employ replacement elements. When the author is listed as anonymous, use “Anonymous” in the author position in the citation and reference list. If the author is a known group with an abbreviation for its name, use the abbreviation. When the author is unknown, such as in a periodical or magazine that’s staff written, the periodical title becomes the first element of the citation and reference entry. Because most titles are long, professors generally accept the first three words of the title followed by an ellipsis. If the citation includes a page number for a quotation, include the page number. Here are some samples of citations without author names:

· (Anonymous, 2020)

· (CDC, 2020)

· (Financial Instruments Accounting, 2020)

· (Campaign Strategies of Special Interest Groups, 2020)

· (Escaping Cold Weather…, 2014)

· (Activities for Inactive Hearts, 2020, p. 358)

Citing numerous authors

When a research reference is written by a pair of authors, write both names joined by an ampersand (&). In the world of APA, three or more’s a crowd, but APA calls in the romans (et al.) for crowd control. When a reference is written by three or more authors, write the name of the first author and the Latin abbreviation “et al.” (and others):

· (Fisher & Young, 2006)

· (Brown et al., 2002)

When two authors are written in narrative style, “and” is used in place of ampersand, like this:

Fisher and Young (2006) argue …

The abbreviation “et al.” is used in both parenthetical style and narrative style.

Citing works by multiple authors looks like this:

(Bicker et al., 2015; Conway & Dixon, 2017; Kitchens, 2017)

Citing same author, same date

Some productive authors write two books in the same year. To distinguish each of two books in the same calendar year, cite and reference one book with the year, followed by lowercase “a,” and the second book with the year, followed by lowercase “b.” For example, if author Giampalmi wrote a second book in 2021, the in-text citation would appear as follows:

· (Giampalmi, 2021a)

· (Giampalmi, 2021b)

Citing authors with the same surname

If two authors share a surname, APA has you covered. Write each author’s first initial with the date.

(J. Giampalmi & B. Giampalmi, 2015)

Citing organization authors

Many organizations write group documents. For example, the charitable organization CFC (Citizens for Citizens) regularly publishes research documenting its work. The first use of the citation appears with the full name (Citizens for Citizens, 2012). Subsequent citations appear abbreviated (CFC, 2012). In the reference list (see Chapter 12), spell out the organization’s name.