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Library Information Guide - Fort Wayne

The American Psychological Association has designed a style of formatting papers and citations applied to manuscripts intended for publication in the social sciences, education, social work, business, and nursing.

Since it is not specifically designed for student papers, some alteration of the official style may be necessary in completing your assignment. Please consult with your instructor for details on how to tailor APA style to your assignment.

Creating Citations

The four elements of an APA-style reference are: 

  • Author (Who is responsible for this work?)
  • Date (When was it published or reviewed?)
  • Title (What is this work called?)
  • Source (Where can I retrieve this work?)

The elements are ordered: Author, A. (Date). Title sentence style. Source Title. Publisher. https://doi.org/#

If no Author, put the work Title before the Date; but be certain it is not a corporate author.

The Source, if a periodical, may include the volume number, issue number, and pages: Source Title, 1(2), 3-4.

Publisher is omitted for periodicals and where it is the same as the Author or Source. 

Use URL if no DOI and make either a live link - Do not end with a period! Use the Permalink for database articles.

Do not include Retrieved from ... and retrieval date unless the contents will change; omit this even if a page will be deleted when obsolete.

Resources

Websites

Books

Paper Formatting

Citations