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Sociology Senior Seminar: APA Style

APA Style

The following citation examples follow the method recommended by the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA). The Publication Manual is the style usually preferred for social science disciplines such as psychology, education, social work, etc.

Refer to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association for guidelines on citation, paper format, writing style, and how to quote works within your paper.

A basic APA Tutorial is available here.

When quoting works within your paper:

  • Use parenthetical citations. For example:

Phillips (2003) discovered that he could “run faster after eating five banana sandwiches” (p. 25).

“I ran a mile in four minutes after eating five banana sandwiches” (Phillips, 2003, p49).

  • Use block quotes for quotes with 40 words or more.
  • Quoting from a secondary source. For example,

Phillips (as cited in Higgins, 2003) concludes that there is a direct correlation between bananas and speed.

Only cite Higgins in the reference list at the end of your paper since you have read the work by Higgins but not the work of Phillips.

  • For Internet documents that do not have page numbers but do have paragraph numbers:

Use the following paragraph symbol: ¶ For example:

Phillips recommends a “ full diet of banana sandwiches and chocolate milk” (2003, ¶ 2).

To make the paragraph symbol in Microsoft Word:

  • Click on “Insert”
  • Click on “Symbol”
  • Click on “Special Characters”
  • Click on the “Paragraph” symbol.

Format for the reference list at the end of your paper:

  • When using APA style, your list of resources used in your paper are called References.
  • Double space your reference list.
  • Alphabetize references by last name. If the publication does not have an author, use the first word in the title. If the title begins with an article (e.g., the, a) start with the next word in the title.
  • Use hanging indents (see examples below)

After the first line of the citation, indent the following lines 0.5. This is called a hanging indent. You can format your references page to create hanging indents in Microsoft Word by following the following steps:

  • Click on “Format”
  • Click on “Paragraph”
  • Under “Indents and Spacing” click on “Special”
  • Click on “Hanging”
  • Make sure the indent is set at 0.5

Examples of Reference Citations

In order to illustrate and include spacing in our examples for citations, the following Word document was created.

APA Tutorials

The following will provide tutorials for APA: