APA

The APA referencing style has been developed by the American Psychological Association, and is published in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. The most recent edition of this book is the 7th (2019) edition.

Students studying Psychology should use the American Psychology Association (APA) referencing style for all PSY modules.

Like CTR Harvard, APA is an author-date referencing system that uses an in-text citation followed by a full reference list, organised alphabetically.

You should consult the APA Style Website directly as this is the most comprehensive APA support resource.

Cite Them Right Online

At Abertay, you have access to Cite Them Right Online (CTRO) which is our primary referencing support tool. There are a large number of APA resources available on CTRO, including templates and examples of citations and reference list entries for most types of information sources. Ensure that you select 'APA 7th' referencing style.

APA Resources on CTRO

Further APA Guidance

APA have their own online tutorial - Academic Writer Tutorial: Basics of APA 7th ed style. As well as information on referencing, this tutorial covers content on academic writing style, grammar, and punctuation specific to APA.

Or, alternatively, the full print APA Publication Manual is available:

The 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association is available in the Library at shelfmark 808.066 PUB.
APA have also produced a number of resources available from their website, including a number of handouts and guides.

Reference Types

Books

An example of a book reference and citation would be:

In-text citation:

... (Cottrell, 2013).

You should include the author and year in brackets, linking multiple authors with &, eg:

... (Corder & Arif, 2017).

Or, if the author's name is already part of your sentence, only include the year in brackets linking multiple authors together with 'and', eg:

Research by Corder and Arif (2017) suggests...

Always include a page number in your citation if you have used a direct quotation eg "..." (Cottrell, 2013, p. 23).

Reference list:

Cottrell, S. (2013). The study skills handbook. Palgrave.

You must include each part of the reference, in the correct order, and with the correct formatting. Book references should be formatted:

Surname, Initial(s). (Year). Title of book. Publisher.

Each reference should have a hanging indent ie the first line should touch the left margin, but the rest of the reference should be indented to 0.5".

See APA's guide for more info.

Chapter from an edited book

An example of a chapter from an edited book reference and citation would be:

In-text citation:

... (Holtzman, 2018).

Or, if the author's name is already part of your sentence, only include the year in brackets linking multiple authors together with 'and', eg:

Research by Holtzman (2018) suggests...

Always include a page number in your citation if you have used a direct quotation eg "..." (Holtzman, 2018, p. 174).

Reference list:

Holtzman, N. S. (2018). Did narcissism evolve? In A. D. Hermann, A. B. Brunell & J. D. Foster (Eds.), Handbook of trait narcissism: Key advances, research methods, and controversies (pp. 173-181). Springer. 10.1007/978-3-319-92171-6

You must include each part of the reference, in the correct order, and with the correct formatting. APA have an excellent guide that breaks down each part of a reference for books, chapters from edited books, and journal articles:

Reference Guide for Journal Articles, Books, and Edited Book Chapters

Each reference should have a hanging indent ie the first line should touch the left margin, but the rest of the reference should be indented to 0.5".

See APA's guide for more info.

Journal Articles

An example of a journal article reference and citation would be:

In-text citation:

(Loes et al., 2015)

Citations with 3 or more authors should name the 1st author followed by et al.

Reference list:

Loes, C. N., Salisbury, M. H., & Pascarella, E. T. (2015). Student perceptions of effective instruction and the development of critical thinking: A replication and extension. Higher Education, 69(5), 823-838. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-014-9807-0

Journal article references should be formatted:

Surname, Initial(s). (Year). Title of journal article. Title of Journal, volume(issue), page numbers. doi.

Include the doi (digital object identifier) if one is available.

Check out APA's guide - Journal Article Reference Checklist for more information on formatting references to journal articles.

Remember, in your reference list each reference should have a hanging indent ie the first line should touch the left margin, but the rest of the reference should be indented to 0.5".

Websites

An example of a website reference and citation would be:

In-text citation:

(Bowler, 2018)

If the webpage you're using doesn't have a named author, use the organisation name eg (BBC, 2018)

Reference list:

Bowler, T. (2018, November 12). Can listening to bees help save them - and us? BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46131255

Website references should be formatted:

Surname, Initial(s). (Year/Date). Title of page/document. Website name. URL

Where the author and the website name are the same, omit the website name, eg:

BBC. (2019, January 7). Bafta film awards 2020: Joker leads nominations amid diversity row. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-51009468

Only add a retrieval date for websites that are designed to change over time eg online dictionary entry. The retrieval date should be added before the url eg:

... Retrieved May 6, 2020, from https://xxxx

Each reference should have a hanging indent ie the first line should touch the left margin, but the rest of the reference should be indented to 0.5".

APA FAQs

How many authors do I include in my citation and reference list?

For works authored by:

1 or 2 authors

First and all subsequent citations, name each author, eg:

(Gleason & Kalpidou, 2014) or Gleason and Kalpidou (2014)

Reference list, name each author, eg:

Gleason, T. R., & Kalpidou, M. (2014). Imaginary companions and young children's coping and competence. Social Development, 23(4), 820-839. doi:10.1111/sode.12078

3 or more authors

First and all subsequent citations, name the first author followed by et al. eg:

(Morris et al., 2011) or Morris et al. (2011)

Reference list, up to and inc. 20 authors, name each author, eg:

Morris, A. S., Silk, J. S., Morris, M. D. S., Steinberg, L., Aucoin, K. J., & Keyes, A. W. (2011). The influence of Mother–Child emotion regulation strategies on children's expression of anger and sadness. Developmental Psychology, 47(1), 213-225. doi:10.1037/a0021021

Reference list, 21 or more authors, name the first 19 authors,...then the last in a similar way to the following:

Eggum, N. D., Eisenberg, N., Reiser, M., Spinrad, T. L., Valiente, C., Sallquist, J., . . . Liew, J. (2012). Relations over time among children's shyness, emotionality, and internalizing problems. Social Development, 21(1), 109-129. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9507.2011.00618.x

How do I cite a citation from somebody else's work?

For example: the book you have read is by Mustard 2017, but Mustard refers to a work by Grover 2015 that makes a point you would like to use. This is called secondary referencing.

Ideally, source the original work by Grover and reference that as you would anything else
Alternatively, reference it as a secondary reference, eg

In-text citation: (Grover, 2015, as cited in Mustard, 2017) or Grover (2015, as cited in Mustard, 2017)

Reference list: Mustard, C. (2017). etc

This way, your citation nods to the work that you want to use, but your reference list indicates the work you have actually read.

Secondary referencing is considered to be poor academic practice. Sometimes, however, it's just not possible to track down the original work, and the point you're trying to make is too important to miss it out. That's fine; just try to avoid too many secondary references.

For APA 7th ed, which option should I choose?

For APA 7th ed. in RefWorks, you'll notice there are a number of options to choose from. Choose the option:

APA 7th - Sentence Casing, DOI: https://doi.org/

This version has been confirmed for use by the Psychology Division. Students are asked to put a footnote at the end of the Reference List to say they were generated in RefWorks.

How do I create a hanging indent?

Remember, your reference list should be double spaced, and each entry have a hanging indent of 0.5" or 1.27cm.

In Word, to apply a hanging indent to text:

go to Paragraph
choose Hanging from Special, and 1.27cm
choose Double for line spacing

Hanging indent

The process is similar in PowerPoint:

go to Paragraph
in Before Text, up this to 1.27cm
choose Hanging from Special, and 1.27cm
choose Double for line spacing, if required.

APA PP handing indent

When should I reference a chapter as a chapter?

Chapters tend only to need referenced as such when they are from edited books as each chapter is often written by a different author. If you're referring to more than one chapter from the same book, that's fine; reference each chapter separately in the reference list.

Remember, if the entire book was authored by the same person/people, there's no need to reference these as chapters and the book would only appear once in the reference list.

What’s different between CTR Harvard and APA?

Some students will be required to use APA for some assignments and Harvard for others. The two referencing styles are very similar, but students should make every effort to reference accurately according to the module requirements.

CTR Harvard and APA are both author-date systems that use in-text citations followed by a full reference list. However, each have their own set of formatting rules which should be consistently applied.

By no means an exhaustive list of differences, but some of the key ones to look out for are:

How the reference list is formatted: APA requires the reference list to be double spaced with a hanging indent. This is not required for Harvard.
How et al is applied: mostly in relation to the number of authors.
How the DOI is formatted.
How and when to apply the accessed/retrieval date for websites

These are just a few of the key differences, but please refer to the Harvard and APA pages for examples and links to guides.

Full details can be found on Cite Them Right Online

Last modified 1 week ago by Student and Academic Services

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