APA Citation is a way to document sources. Your list of references appears at the end of your paper so a reader can easily locate every source you use in the body of your paper. Every source you use must be listed in your paper and in this list of references (called References ( not bibliography or words cited )) which is the last page(s) of your paper.

 APA gives credit to sources. It is required and helps to avoid plagiarism.  You must always credit the person or source(s) where you obtain information. Correct style is expected, and helps protect YOU from plagiarism.

 Basic Rules of Citation:  Write author’s last name and then first (Brown, James).  Provide all authors (using last name and initial) included in a work unless there are more than six. If more than six use first five and then et al. (meaning and others).  Alphabetize the list of entries by last name of author for each.  If you have more than one work by the same author, start with earliest year first.  Capitalize all major words in journal titles.  If you have a long work such as a book, italicize titles.  If you have a shorter work, such as a short journal article or essay, do NOT italicize, underline or use quotes.  If you have a word that is NOT a book, journal, article or webpage, only capitalize the first letter of the first word of the title.

Book: Okuda, M., & Okuda, D. (1993). Star trek chronology: The history of the future. New York, NY: Pocket Books. Encyclopedia: Sturgeon, T. (1995). Science fiction. In L. T. Lorimer et al. (Eds.), The encyclopedia Americana (Vol. 24, pp ). Danbury, CT: Grolier. Website:  Epsicokhan, J. (2004, February 20). Confessions of a closet trekkie. Retrieved October 12, 2009, from Jammer's Reviews website:

 Your citations should be parenthetical.  Cite your resources directly after their use. This may be at the end of a block quote or the end of a paraphrased section. You will provide a parenthesis, author’s name, comma, page number and parentheses. For example,  Example: “What has been missing is a single volume providing access to Kahn's thought and, more important, his insights on how to think about public policy (Schmidt, p. 99).”  In the case of an Internet citation, you will obviously not have a page number. In this case, you will provide the date. If you cannot locate the date, provide “n.d.” for no date. This will go after the author’s name. For example:  “What has been missing is a single volume providing access to Kahn's thought and, more important, his insights on how to think about public policy (Schmidt 2009).” or  “What has been missing is a single volume providing access to Kahn's thought and, more important, his insights on how to think about public policy n.d.”

 Things to Consider…  Think about citing when you begin to research. If you have a photocopy of an article or you are searching a website, make sure you have the full list of authors, title of articles, name of the journal, volume, issue and pages. It will easier to do this the first time around. If you are on a website, you may need to follow the URL to the site’s homepage to get the author, dates, and name of the organization (if applicable, and dates.  Remember that quoting can be an over used technique in student writing. Use quotations sparingly. Use of quotations should not be more than 20 percent of your paper. Try to paraphrase and summarize, but only quote when you need the original author words. When you do quote, you will need a specific page number or paragraph number from where the quotation came.  Punctuate correctly, placing parenthetical citation before the punctuation mark. The citation comes before the period, comma semicolon. …..policy (Schmidt 2009).”

Here is a screenshot from a webpage with an article. You will want to make sure you get the organization (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research), the title of the article, Thinking Big, Herman Kahn Didn’t Shring from the Fundamental Questions. You also need to write down the date you looked at this site (September 4, 2009). If you need to go to the homepage, just click on AEI. The URL is in the address bar and you’ll need this as well.

 Here are some helpful websites on using APA citation:  a/  op/citapa.htm op/citapa.htm  ml