Once you've determined which style guide you need to use, that's the format style you will use to format source citations throughout your paper and in your works cited page or bibliography.
If you're not sure which style guide to use, check with your faculty member or check your assignment.
APA style, developed by the American Psychological Association, is often used for subject areas related to psychology, sociology or social work, and some of the general sciences.
For a paper, you will need to include both an in-text citation, within the body of your paper, and a citation in your list of references or bibliography.
For a presentation or a project, the citations will be within the presentation itself - this is especially true for diagrams, charts, graphics, or images of any kind.
If your presentation or project will also include a separate bibliography or references page, you can use in-text citations throughout your presentation, and then include the complete citation in that separate document.
If you are quoting the source directly, an in text citation will look like this. You're referring to the author, the date of the work is in parenthesis and the page number follows the specific quotation.
If you are paraphrasing or summarizing the source, you would include the same reference to the author and the date of the work but in a slightly different configuration depending on your sentence structure.
You wouldn't need the page numbers unless you are going to multiple ideas or concepts from the same source throughout your paper.
The basic format for a book in your references page contains the name of the author or editor, the date, the title of the book, and the location of the publisher and publishing company.
The basic format for an article will include the names of the authors, the year of publication, the title of the article, the name of the journal, the volume and issue, page numbers, and a digital object identification number if you accessed it online.
The basic format for a website includes the author or institution behind the website, the date the information was posted or updated, the title of the page or document, and the top level Web address for that website.
Your bibliography will include several different types of sources and, though the details of the formatting for APA citations may be different for each type of source, it's important that they are all consistently in APA style.
You can find specific examples of APA citation format for books, magazine and journal articles, and websites on the library's website in the Guides & Help section.
