APA (or why me?) We could just go with ‘life is unfair’ and leave it at that, but there are reasons to use APA formats for citations and style guides that might make the injustice slightly more palatable…

APA vs MLA: what’s the diff? The APA format is widely used for academic and research papers in a wide variety of disciplines, while MLA is used mainly in English and Literature studies. APA wins. All is not lost, however; the graveyard of dead and moldering papers is not as populated as you might initially imagine. APA is actually pretty straightforward and clear guidelines are available… Well, relatively clear… There are some very common citations we need to cover that will get you through most of your paper unscathed.

The most common form of citation you will use is: in text citation “Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.” (Prensky, 2001, p. 1) Use quotation marks to identify the excerpt, then bracket around the author’s surname, comma, year of publication, and page. Simple as pie, right? Basic reason to cite anything? Simple – you didn’t write it in the first place! So, who the heck did??? And when?

It can’t be that easy! Well, maybe not… there are different kinds of things you’re going to quote, right? What if you pulled info from a blog? A report? Or an article on line? Or somebody’s web site? Stop. Don’t panic! The basic premise remains the same: (Author/source, year) “…students who use social networking talk about education...” (NSBA, 2007, p. 1) “APA style is widely used, not only by APA publications…” (Wikipedia, 2013)

But I didn’t quote anything… So, what if you use information from a source by writing it in your own words? Well, that’s called paraphrasing. Add your citation anyway! Remember, citations aren’t just for quotes. They also serve to validate our ideas by referring to expert’s voices. Digital natives are said to be taking their education into their own hands, albeit outside of school venues. (Prensky, 2001)

What about those pesky page numbers? If you are quoting directly from a book or paginated article, you would do as follows: We see the real potential for world apocalypse when he suggests “zombie-ism is a real and frightening possibility if certain parts of the brain are damaged via invasive viral elements. The human animal hidden in the primal brain stem takes over.” (Mercy, 2015, pp )

As long as you paraphrase, most of your in-text citations will follow a simple format: (author, date). Where you’ll run into most of your problems will be on your citations page. That’s where you’ll get stuck, particularly if you haven’t kept good track of your sources when you retrieved them. Your citation page is the sticky part!

Don’t lose your sources!!! The simplest way to make sure you can trace your sources is to add a page for your references or citations when you start your paper. Ctrl + enter to get a new page, then headline it Citations or References. Every time you quote or use a source, copy and paste the URL into this back page, or copy and paste the journal article details (and its url), or write out the info from the book’s copyright page. You’ll have all the details you need to be able to hammer your citation page into proper form!

The most common citation! Citing a book in your reference page is easy. Inside the cover of your book is all the information you need, nicely collected in one place. You will find the author’s name, the copyright year, the location of the publishing house, and the publisher’s name. Kapp, Karl M. (2012) The Gamification of learning. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer

Next in line… Journal articles will be your next most common source that you will need to cite. Essentially, the same rules apply: author, date, title, source Prensky, Marc (2001) Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, MCB University Press, Vol 9 No. 5, October 2001

Details are important… If you cite a web page, make sure you note the name of the article and where you retrieved the information. APA Style (2013: October 19) Retrieved from: For a blog you found on line, add the author and date: Norton, Bob (2013: December 10) Retrieved from:

When in doubt… look it up! Here are some excellent sources for guidance: And you can always ask your local librarian for a helping hand! Please note: Citation makers in your word processor may not be accurate!

Good luck! Don’t forget to ask for help… We’re all in this together!