Rules for writers, Tenth edition - Diana Hacker, Nancy Sommers 2021

Understand how the APA system works
Citing sources; avoiding plagiarism
Writing Papers in APA Style

✵ How to be a responsible research writer

In a research paper, you draw on the work of other researchers and writers, and you must document their contributions by citing your sources. Sources are cited for two reasons:

1. to tell readers where your information comes from — so that they can assess its reliability and, if interested, find and read the original source

2. to give credit to the writers from whom you have borrowed words and ideas

You must include a citation when you quote from a source, when you summarize or paraphrase, and when you borrow visuals, statistics, and facts that are not common knowledge. Borrowing another writer’s language, sentence structure, or ideas without proper acknowledgment is plagiarism. The only exception is common knowledge — information that your readers may know or could easily locate in any number of reference sources.

60a Understand how the APA system works.

The American Psychological Association (APA) recommends an author-date system of citations. Here is how the APA citation system works.

1. The source is introduced by a signal phrase that includes the last name of the author followed by the date of publication in parentheses.

2. The material being cited is followed by a locator (such as a page number, paragraph number, or heading) in parentheses.

3. At the end of the paper, an alphabetized list of references gives complete publication information for the source.

IN-TEXT CITATION

Lanier (2018) argued that through the pervasiveness of social media, “what once might have been called advertising must now be understood as continuous behavior modification on a titanic scale” (p. 6).

ENTRY IN THE LIST OF REFERENCES

Lanier, J. (2018). Ten arguments for deleting your social media accounts right now. Henry Holt and Company.

NOTE: This basic APA format varies for different types of sources and situations; for example, a locator is not required for a summary or paraphrase. For a detailed discussion and other models, see 62.