APA (American Psychological Association) is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. There are two major components to APA citation style: in-text citation and detailed reference list.

     When your work has been influenced by someone else's work, insert an in-text citation which consists of author surname(s) - in the order that they appear on the actual publication, followed by the year of publication of the source that you are citing. The in-text citation is placed immediately after the text which refers to the source being cited. It is highly recommended to include page or paragraph numbers for direct quotes, and for paraphrasing where appropriate. If quoting or citing a source which is cited within another, secondary reference, it is necessary to mention the source with the secondary reference details: e.g. Smith (as cited in Jones, 2010).

     Begin your reference list on a new page and title it 'References,' and centre the title on the page. APA requires only a reference list, not a bibliography; therefore one should list only works actually cited in the text. A hanging indent is where the first line of each reference is fully left justified while subsequent lines are indented to the right. The width of the hanging indent should be 5-7 spaces or 1.25 cm. Hanging indents and double spacing are set by the word processors. Reference list format is: author's name, publication date, title of work, and publication data, with periods separating each item. When authors have the same last name, there is a need to alphabetize the initials of the first name, and include the initials when citing in the text. It should be kept in mind that nothing precedes something, e.g., Brown would precede Browning.  And there is a demand on providing organization names in full, unless they are obviously recognizable as abbreviations, e.g. APA for American Psychological Association. While referring to an internet web page, addition of full stops to URLs is strictly forbidden, e.g. http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/.

 

     Borrow ideas (words, findings, numbers, graphs, etc.) from a source whenever they will support, clarify, or enrich your meaning. When you borrow the words, give credit to the original author in your paper. Every time you quote directly or you paraphrase from a source, you must acknowledge the author.