APA Style Guides
American Psychological Association (APA) style mainly refers to a standard way of writing in-text citations and listing references at the end of a paper. It is different from the Modern Language Association (MLA) style which you may have been asked to use for writing papers in other courses. Because psychology aims to be a scientific discipline, psychologists place a great deal of emphasis on evaluating the credibility of the information they use. Credibility of information is related to the people reporting the information and how recent the information is, as well as to the methods used to obtain the information. Therefore, the APA style requires that you furnish some of the most relevant information directly in the text, by listing the names of the authors and the year of publication of a paper. For example, information obtained from a paper by Tina Stern, Michael Moore, and Barbara Brown, published in 1999, would be cited as (Stern, Moore, & Brown, 1999). The page number would also be included whenever a direct quote from the original paper was used. For example, if I had a quote from page 475 of the Stern, Moore and Brown (1999) paper, it would be cited as (Stern, Moore, & Brown, 1999, p. 475).
The APA also provides a standard style for listing reference information at the end of the paper. Different journals present information in different styles. The idea of using APA style is to convert all reference information to a standard, consistent style. The web sites listed below contain information on APA style for in-text citations and for references at the ends of a paper.
American Psychological Association (APA) Format Summary - a detailed guide to using the APA style for using in-text citations, and preparing a reference list, prepared by J. Namsick of the Pima Community College Libraries http://www.library.pima.edu/apa.htm
APA Style Guide - The College of Staten Island/CUNY - A simple, single-page format that provides examples of how to do various types of bibliographic citations in APA format http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/guides/apastyle.htm (NEW - added 10/27/98)
Electronic Sources: APA Style of Citation - a guide to citing online sources of information in APA style, prepared by Nancy Crane at the University of Vermont http://www.uvm.edu/~ncrane/estyles/apa.html (NEW - added 10/27/98)
Journals Cited in APA format - a simple page which just shows how to cite sources of journal articles in APA format http://www-medlib.med.utah.edu/gerontology/apajour.html (NEW - added 10/27/98)
Laboratory Reports: APA format - information on how to write lab reports in APA style by Dr. Jan Kennedy, of Georgia Southern University http://www.psychwww.com/tipsheet/labrep.htm (updated 10/27/98)
LeHigh University APA Style Guide - mostly covers reference formats, but includes explanation of how to do in-text citations http://www.lib.lehigh.edu/footnote/apa.html (verified 10/27/98)
Model Research Paper - actually, a hypertext model research paper, prepared Paul C. Smith, of Alverno College. You can click on hot links in the paper to find out why the author did things the way that he did http://www.uwm.edu/people/pcsmith/HMRP/usergide.htm (NEW - added 10/27/98)
Ohio State Writing Lab APA Style Guide - http://osunlabs.newark.ohio-state.edu/writing-lab/apa.htm (verified 10/27/98)
Publication Manual FAQ - the APA answers FAQs (frequently asked questions) about APA style http://www.apa.org/journals/faq.html (NEW - added 10/27/98)
Using American Psychological Association (APA) Format - a detailed guide to using the APA style for handling and documenting quotes in text, using in-text citations, and preparing a reference list, prepared by the Purdue University Online Writing Lab http://own.english.purdue.edu/Files/34.html (NEW - added 10/27/98)
Web Extension to American Psychological Association Style (WEAPAS) - outlines key elements of proposed additions to APA style for documenting online sources http://www.beadsland.com/weapas/ (NEW - added 10/27/98)
Washington State University APA Citation Guide - explanations of how to do in-text citations and bibiographic references for various types of source materials http://hd.wsu.edu/resources/apa.html (updated 10/27/98)
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The author of this page is Barbara L. Brown, Ph.D.,Professor of Psychology at Georgia Perimeter College. You may e-mail me at bbrown@gpc.edu.
Last updated 7 January, 1999.