APA REFERENCING 7TH EDITION

The American Psychological Association (APA) style provides a foundation for effective professional communication because it helps writers present their ideas clearly, concisely and clearly in an organized manner.

Academic Writing

Academic writing refers to a particular style of expression.

Characteristics of Academic Writing Include

• a formal tone
• use of the third-person rather than first-person perspective
• clear focus on the issue or topic rather than the author’s opinion
• precise word choice
• Avoid jargon, slang, and abbreviations. 

Academic writing is formal writing. Many new writers have trouble distinguishing informal writing from formal writing. They resort to informal writing because it is easier and more familiar. Characteristics of informal writing include the use of colloquial expressions and jargon, writing in the first person or “I” statements, direct personal statements, and imprecise word choice.

What is APA Referencing?

Referencing in the APA style is a two-part process:

In-text Citation 

APA is known as an author-date style of referencing because only the author’s surname and the year of publication are necessary to refer to in the body of the essay itself. The rest of the information can be found in the reference list, at the end of your essay. Source material must be documented in the body of the paper by citing the author(s) and date(s) of the sources. The underlying principle is that the ideas and words of others must be formally acknowledged. The reader can obtain the full source citation from the list of references that follows the body of the paper. You don’t need to put the full title of the book or article into your essay paragraphs. All you need is the author’s surname, the year it was published, and the page number (most of the time).

Types 

There are two types of in-text citations that can be used within the body of an APA paper to help the reader locate the corresponding reference in the reference list. The two types of in-text citations are

• Parenthetical Citation

A parenthetical citation is a type of citation where the author and date are listed at the end of the sentence in parentheses.

• Narrative Citation

Narrative citation identifies the author’s name as part of the sentence with the date immediately following the author’s name in parentheses.

Reference List

A complete list of all the cited references used in your work with full bibliographic details, allows the reader to follow up on these references and find the original text.

It is important to be consistent and accurate when citing references. The same set of rules you should follow every time you link, including layout and punctuation. Punctuation should be used to clearly separate each link element.

• Citations – occur within the body of your essay.
• References – occur at the end of your essay, in a specially formatted list.

 Creating A Citation And Reference List

Creating a Citation 

APA is the author/date method. Sources are cited in the text by the attribution of the name of the author(s) followed by the date of publication. All other details about publications are listed in the references or bibliography at the end.

Rules about citing

• One author or creator 

The first use of the citation:

Author Surname (Year) or (Author Surname, Year)

Second and further uses of the citation:

Author Surname (Year) or (Author Surname, Year)

• Two authors or creators

The first use of the citation:

Author Surname and Author Surname (Year) or (Author Surname & Author Surname, Year)

Second and further uses of the citation:

Author Surname and Author Surname (Year) or (Author Surname & Author Surname, Year)

• Three or more authors or creators

The first use of the citation:

First Author Surname et al. (Year) or (First Author Surname et al., Year)

Second and further uses of the citation:

First Author Surname et al. (Year) or (First Author Surname et al., Year)

• If the author(s) name appears in the text as part of the body of the assignment, then the year will follow in rounded brackets e.g. According to Smith (2015).
• If the author(s) name does not appear in the body of the text then the name and date should appear in rounded brackets separated by a comma, e.g. (Smith, 2015).
• If more than one of your citations is written by the same author and has the same year of publication, then use a lowercase letter after the publication date. The letter should be assigned in the reference list by the order of your references, e.g. (Smith,2015a) (Smith, 2015b).
• Some authors have the same surname, if this occurs you should add the initial(s) of the author in all of your citations even if the year of publication is different, e.g. (Williams, A., 2009), (Williams, J., 2010).
• You may need to cite more than one piece of work for some ideas. If this is the case you would list the author(s) in alphabetical order (by the first author of each piece of work) with a semicolon separating the citations, e.g. (Jones, 2014; Smith, 2015).
• When a work has been designated Anonymous, you would cite this in the text as Anonymous followed by the date, e.g. (Anonymous, 2008).
• If no date of publication or copyright can be found, use n.d. for “no date”, e.g. (Wilkinson, n.d.).

Author type	Parenthetical citation	Narrative citation
One author	(Smith, 2020)	Smith (2020)
Two authors	(Smith & Jones, 2020)	Smith and Jones (2020)
Three or more authors	(Smith et al., 2020)	Smith et al. (2020)

Creating a Reference List

A list of references should be presented at the end of your paper as it will allow readers to follow your references. Your list of references should be listed alphabetically by last name, and if the same author is listed more than once, they should be listed in chronological order.

Rules about referencing

• One author or creator

In the reference list:

Author Surname, Initial(s)

• Two to twenty authors or creators

In the reference list:

Author Surname, Initial(s), & Author Surname, Initial(s). (Include all authors, with the final author listed after an ampersand)

• Twenty-one or more authors or creators

In the reference list:

Author Surname, Initial(s), Author Surname, Initial(s), Final Author Surname, Initial(s).

(Include the first nineteen authors, insert an ellipsis (but no ampersand) and add the final author’s name)

• Authors’ names should be given in the following format: Surname, Initial(s), e.g. Smith, G. A.
• When citing a chapter in a book, the initials of the editor(s) are presented before the surname e.g. G. A. Smith
• Multiple references by the same author are listed chronologically.
• References relating to authors with the same last name should be ordered by their initial(s), e.g. Williams, A. (2009), Williams, J. (2010).
• References with the same first author and different subsequent authors are arranged alphabetically, using the second author to determine the order. If the first and second authors are the same, use the third author to determine the order, e.g. 

•  Smith, A., & Jones, B. (2005).
•  Smith, A., & Wilkinson, C. (2004) 

Or

• Smith, A., Jones, N., & Adams, B. (2005)
• Smith, A., Jones, B., & Wilkinson, A. (2005)

• References by the same author, with the same date, should be ordered by title (excluding ‘A’ and ‘The’). Add a lowercase letter to the date in order to differentiate. This should match your citation in the text, e.g. Smith, A (2015a), Smith, A. (2015b).
• Capitalize the first word of the title in the reference list (unless otherwise stated), and capitalize the first word after a colon or dash in the title.

 

Example

• Journal article

A basic reference list entry for a journal article in APA must include:

• Author or authors. The surname is followed by the first initials.
• Year of publication of the article (in round brackets).
• Article title.
• Journal title (in italics).
• Volume of a journal (in italics).
• Issue of a journal (no italics).
• Page range of the article.
• DOI (presented as a hyperlink, for example, https://doi.org/xxxxx).
• The first line of each citation is left adjusted. Every subsequent line is indented 5-7 spaces.

We hope this guide helps you in understanding how to do referencing in APA 7th edition format.