SI: Citations & Plagiarism -- APA

Welcome to the mini tutorial on APA Citation Style!

This guide will give you an overview of APA citation style and will help you learn to use this format to avoid unintentional plagiarism.

(The guide should appear in the main window. If it does not, click this link.)

What is APA Style?

APA (American Psychological Association) developed this style for citing sources within scholarly writing. The APA is a national professional organization for those who study psychology. APA style is typically used in research papers within the Social Sciences.

The authoritative resource for APA style is the APA Manual (7th edition). You can access this book in the reference section on the first floor of the CSI library. You can also consult the library's Citing Sources guide (the webpage you are currently on) or the APA Style Center website.

You will likely have professors who require any assignments that you submit to be in proper APA format.
Let's take a look at why format matters.

Why do Citations Matter?

Citing is an important part of the research process because:

• It allows others to identify and locate the materials used in your work. Many readers rely on citations and footnotes to identify other relevant literature on a topic.
• It shows that you have read the relevant literature on your topic. This indicates that you have an informed understanding of your subject and enhances the credibility of your findings.
• It allows you to give proper credit for the ideas of others and to avoid plagiarism.

Plagiarism refers to the act of copying another's work or using another's ideas and submitting it as one's own. Plagiarism is a violation of the CUNY's Academic Integrity policy. To learn more about what constitutes plagiarism and tips on how to avoid plagiarizing, check out the Library's Plagiarism Tutorial, and the Plagiarism.org website.

APA Style: General Format Overview

APA style includes standards for the format of citations, the overall formatting of research papers, and stylistic conventions (abbreviations, quotations, etc).

Here are some general guidelines for APA papers:

• They should be typed, double spaced, in a size 12-pt standard font such as Times New Roman.

• Have 1-inch margins all around

• Have a left-aligned header, .5 inches from the top of the page, with the TITLE OF PAPER in all-caps and right-aligned page number

• Have a title page, which includes the paper's title, the author (you!), department affiliation, course, instructor, and due date

• Have the first sentence of each paragraph indented by .5 inches

Let's look at an example of this on the next page.

Paper Example

Here is an example of the opening of a paper in APA style (click the image to enlarge):

https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/title-page

In-Text Citations:

Now let's take a look at citations that are within the text.

What Needs to be Cited?

Whenever you quote, paraphrase, summarize, or otherwise refer to the work of another, you must cite the source using either an "author-date" in-text citation, which matches a full citation at the end of the paper.

Times to cite include:

• Direct quotes

• Paraphrasing significant ideas

• Images, graphs, illustrations that are not your own

This is commonly done with a parenthetical citation at the end of a sentence with the author's name and date of publications.

Let's look at a few examples of this:

• This point has already been argued (Hays, 2019).

• Hays has argued this point (2019).

• Hays maintained that “when you don't know what you don't know, find someone who knows . . .” (2019).

• Others hold the opposite point of view (Jacobson & Waugh 2018)

  It is only considered plagiarism if you include a direct quote from an outside source without a citation.

  True False
  .

References Page:
The final page of an APA-formatted paper should be the References page. This is the page where all of the outside sources that are referenced in the paper are listed.

Here are some general formatting instructions:

• Start on a new page.

• The title, (References) should be centered.

• The citations are listed in alphabetical order by author's last name.

• Except for the first line of each citation, all lines are indented.

References Examples

https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/basic-principles

Let's learn a bit more about the components of a citation.

One of the most common resources that you will likely cite is a scholarly journal article. Here is the basic format of a scholarly article, according to APA format (note that in your paper, the 2nd and 3rd lines must be indented):

Last, First. (year). Title of article. Title of Journal, (vol)issue, pages. Link to source if online.

Smith, Jaime. (2012). Writing well: The way to tell our stories in words. Wordsmithing, 56(2), 202-212.

Now let's look at another common resource:

Books

Last Name, First Name. (year) Title of book. Publisher.

Smith, Jaime. (2016) This book is great. Random House.

We have gone through the basics of APA format. You are almost done with this mini-tutorial and should now have a basic understanding of APA format and avoiding plagiarism. For more comprehensive information, please continue to explore to the library's Citing Sources webpage.

https://library.csi.cuny.edu/citing-sources

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact a librarian.

Now let's test your knowledge to see what you've learned from this tutorial with a short quiz:

Certificate

Please enter your name and email address to retrieve a copy of your completed quiz.

You can enter multiple email addresses separated by commas. If you are doing this for a class, you may need to enter your instructor's email address also.