The APA citation style is the official citation style of the American Psychological Association. The style provides guidance on how to format and place in-text citation and how to style the reference citations. Though created to support psychology, this author-date format is a great style for any social science subject. The APA citation style formatting is updated from time to time; this site currently supports APA 6th edition.
Here are some important characteristics of APA to keep in mind as you get started:
- References contain four main parts: Author, Date, Title of work, and Source
- The author's last name comes first; Use initials only for first and middle names
- Italicize titles of whole works, but not chapter or article titles
- In-text citations include an author/date combination and must also appear in the reference list
- The Reference list is organized alphabetically by author
To view all APA citations click here
