The American Psychological Association originally created a publication manual to provide a common structure for all journal manuscripts in the area of the social sciences.
Many other disciplines (including psychology, the behavioral sciences, nursing, personnel administration and many areas within education) have adopted this as their professional writing standard as well.
In an academic environment, you will often be expected to conform to this standard when writing. At this point, you should be mostly concerned with creating an accurate reference list using proper format and providing citations within the text to give credit for an idea or concept to the source from which you got it.
Remember that, with APA, capitalization, italicization, and punctuation are crucial components of citation. Check your citations against the APA Style Manual for these small, but important, details.
Important Note: There is a new citation format for articles found online (APA Style Guide to Electronic References, 2007). The biggest change is including the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) at the end of the citation instead of: Retrieved on date from name of database. A link to this resource is below.
If there is no DOI listed (look on the item record and the first & last page of the article), replace that with Retrieved from name of database.
For assistance with citations, proofreading, and more visit an NSU Writing Center Location. Online services are also available; click on the links below for more information.
You can visit the Citation Station on the 2nd floor of the John Vaughan Library in Tahlequah anytime to see a sample paper and checkout related citation resources.
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association by When using the work of other people, always remember to
Avoid accidental plagiarism through proper citation methods.
Use the following GALILEO guides to understand more about citing sources:
Check out these useful sites for additional information:
Remember, if you get stuck or need additional help, you can always contact one of NSU's Writing Centers or your friendly librarian for assistance!
Reference, or citation, managers can be useful tools for keeping track of your information resources when writing. This tutorial will teach you how to use the free reference manager, Zotero. Follow the directions below to download and use Zotero to track and manage your citations.
Remember, citation managers are not infallible. Always carefully double-check your citations for errors before submitting your paper for grading or publication. Use the resources provided in this Course Guide to help you.
To begin, download the Zotero app to your computer with the link below. Follow the prompts to install Zotero, then open the app to begin using it. You will need to sign in or create an account to use the app.
It is recommended that you create a separate collection in which to save your references for each individual project. Use the "new collection" button (symbol of a yellow file folder with a green circle and white plus sign) in the top left corner. Give your collection a relevant name to make it easier to locate later.
There are multiple ways to save items in Zotero. The most common include adding an item by its unique identifier (DOI for articles, ISBN for books) and/or adding an item manually. You can also use the Zotero browser extension; see the "Zotero Support" link at the bottom of this tutorial for more information about this method.
To add an item by its DOI or ISBN, click on the "magic wand" button at the top of the page, then type (or copy and paste) the number into the box. The item's metadata (information about the item, including title, author, and date) will be automatically added to your Zotero collection.
To add metadata manually, click on the green circle with the white plus sign at the top of the page and choose the type of item from the drop-down menu. Type (or copy and paste) the information about the item into the appropriate boxes under the "info" tab at the right of the page.
When you are ready, Zotero can create citations and a bibliography, or reference list, to add to your paper. Please note that not all citation styles are included in Zotero's basic list; however, you may add additional styles through a "Style Search" in the "Zotero Style Respository" using the following directions.
To add a new citation style to Zotero, click on "Edit" in the top left corner of the app, then select "Preferences" from the drop-down menu. In the pop-up box, select the "Cite" tab, then click on the blue "Get additional styles" link to go to the "Zotero Style Repository." In the "Title Search" box, type in the citation style you need. Choose the correct style from the results list to automatically add it to your Zotero Style Manager.
To create a citation, highlight your selected reference, or references, in the title list. Right click on the title and choose "Create Bibliography from Selected Item(s)." Select your preferred citation style, choose "citations" as your output mode, and decide on the output method you would like to use (note that "copy to clipboard" will allow you to paste directly into your document).
To create a bibliography or reference list, follow the steps for creating citations and choose "Bibliography" as your output mode.
This tutorial only covers the basic functions of Zotero; many more options for customization and use are available. For more detailed instructions, click on the link below.
