APA style and citations for dummies - Joe Giampalmi 2021

Eyeing the changes with citations and references
Updating and debugging: APA seventh edition
Conforming to standards: APA and the academic environment

Citations and references represent the heart and lungs of the documentation system. The heart functions well with APA’s standardized citation system, the most user-friendly system among documentation styles. The lungs, the reference system, will frustrate you. Mastery of references requires a committed effort, a common requirement among college students. The good news is the changes concerning citations in the seventh edition are easy to implement.

The simplicity of APA’s citation style (see Chapter 10) includes the author and date listed in parentheses at the end of the sentence that includes the citation. If the author is attributed in the sentence (refer to Chapter 10), include only the date in parentheses. If the cited reference contains a quotation, include page numbers. Page numbers aren’t required for paraphrase and summary, but many professors prefer to see page numbers referencing all extracted information. Page numbers for quotations, paraphrase, and summary offer insurance protection against plagiarism (refer to Chapter 4 for more about plagiarism). You’ll impress your professor with page numbers added to citations for paraphrases and summaries (in addition to their being required for quotations).

The seventh edition contains one significant citation update for citing three or more authors: Name the first author and include the abbreviation “et al.” in every citation, as in this example: (Conwell et al., 2020). Be sure to follow the abbreviation with a comma, and position the period outside the parentheses. The purpose of the abbreviation is to streamline a citation by eliminating a list of names in the citation. All author names (up to 20) are listed as references.

Reference elements (including seventh edition clarifications) cause most students’ formatting errors. Fortunately for you, most professors of undergraduates aren’t obsessed with reference perfection, but they expect mastery of reference formatting basics (detailed in Chapter 12) such as the following:

· Hanging indentations

· Alphabetizing by last name of the first author listed

· “References” bolded and centered at the top of a new page immediately following the text body, and not “Reference List,” “Bibliography,” or “Works Cited”

· Mastery of basic sources such as books, reference works, websites, and popular journals

Seventh edition updates and clarifications highlighted for references include the following:

· References standardized: Journal article references always include the issue number. See Chapter 12 for details and examples.

· Annotated bibliography: The seventh edition offers a model of an annotated bibliography, a common requirement for research papers (see Chapter 12). Avoid incorrectly typing “Annotated References.”

· Oral traditions: Oral traditions and knowledge of Indigenous peoples are listed as a new reference category.

· Multiple citation authors: Three or more authors in a citation are listed as the name of the first author and the abbreviation “et al.” Examples are included in Chapter 10.

Citations list only one author and the abbreviation “et al.” (meaning “and others”). References list up to 20 authors.

· Multiple reference authors: Include up to 20 authors in references. (See Chapter 12.)

· Paraphrasing: APA clarified paraphrasing without overciting. (See Chapter 11.)

· DOIs and URLs: Use a DOI in references when available. Avoid the phrase “Retrieved from” in almost all situations. The label “DOI” is no longer necessary.

· Media categorization: Direct quotations from audiovisual materials require a time stamp in place of a page number, identifying the beginning of the quotation (for example, 1:23).