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APA 7th edition - Citations: Home

APA 7th edition

What is APA?

The American Psychological Association (APA) style sets out rules for writing research papers and citing sources.

This guide provides examples of how to cite common source types, as well as information on how to format your paper in APA style. 

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How to use this guide

For APA citations - review the In-Text Citations and Reference List pages for general instructions on citations. For citation examples, use the resources pages (Articles, Books, Websites, etc.) to find specific examples for how to cite a type of resource. 

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For APA formatting - review the Formatting Your Paper pages or contact the Writing Centre

Why do we Cite?

The purpose of citations: 

  • Credit your sources
  • Avoid plagiarism
  • Direct reader to original source
  • Give credibility to your papers

Review the Academic Integrity guide to ensure you avoid plagiarism. 

How do we Cite?

There are two parts to every citation: 

  1. In-text citation
  2. Reference entry

Review the accompanying pages on this guide for more information on each part of a citation.

What do we Cite?

Every time you take information from someone's work, you always include a citation. The only time you do not include a citation is for common knowledge. 

There are two ways to incorporate someone's information into your writing: 

  1. Paraphrase (summary)
  2. Direct quote

The majority of your assignment should be paraphrased, where you re-write the information completely in your own words. Changing just a word or two in a sentence is not enough. Visit the Writing Centre for more information on paraphrasing

RefWorks

RefWorks is a web-based citation management tool. It helps you organize your references and it produces an APA Reference List!

Learn more about RefWorks.