ENGL 107 College Composition: Citing- APA

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The following are some of the most popular source types for citing. If you have a question about a particular type of source not listed or a special case, please consult the APA Publication Manual, or contact the library or Writing Center.

In-text Citations

In-text citations follow a basic format of (Last Name, Year, Page #). If your source is an online document or webpage without page numbers, you can count the paragraphs until you get to the paragraph with your quote or paraphrase. Your instructor may not require a page number or paragraph number for in-text citations, so be sure to check with them. 

Articles in Scholarly Journals

Reference List: Last Name, A. A., Last Name, B. B., & Last Name, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume                                                         number(issue number), pages. http://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyyy (if available)

              Sledge, S. (2015). An examination of corporate social responsibility practices and firm preferences in U.S. corporations. 

                         Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 14(2), 171-184. 

Newspaper Articles (Note that in newspaper article citations, the page numbers are preceded by p. or pp. for multiple pages if you used the physical newspaper. If you found the article online, do not include the pages at the end of the reference. Instead, use a "Retrieved from" statement with the URL of the article.)

Reference List: Last Name, A. (Year, Month Day). Title of article.  Title of Newspaper. pp. #- #. 

Levy, J. A. (2017, October 8). Good corporate citizenship won't end racism. The Washington Post, pp. 3A-4A.

Webpages

Reference List: Last Name, A. (Year). Title of webpage article or post. Retrieved from http://Web address

Robb, W. (2015). Our animal welfare standards: Separating fact from fiction. Retrieved                                                                        from http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/blog/our-animal-welfare-standards-separating-fact-fiction

Reports

Reference List:  Last Name, A. (Year). Title of report. Retrieved from http://Web address

Fair Trade International (2017). Creating innovations, scaling up impact: Annual report 2016-2017. Retrieved from 

https://annualreport16-17.fairtrade.net/en/

Books

Reference list: Last Name, A. A. (Year). Title of work: Subtitle. Location: Publisher.

Chandler, D. (2016).  Strategic corporate responsibility: Stakeholders, globalization, and sustainable value creation.

                    Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.

APA style is more than just citing, you also have to format your paper to APA guidelines. Here are the basics to keep in mind:

• Use 12 pt Times New Roman font
• Use 1" margins on all sides of the paper (Note: this is already the default setting for margins in Microsoft Word)
• Double-space your lines
• Insert a header with your running head title aligned to the left, and page numbers on the right
  • Running heads will look like Running head: TITLE OF YOUR PAPER on your first page, and then just TITLE OF YOUR PAPER  for each page after
    • Use the "different first page" option in Microsoft Word to do this
• If you have a title page, include your title, name, course number, professor's name, and date using the center alignment in the middle of the page
• Your references sheet should start on a new page at the end of your paper
• Center "References" at the top line, then use left-alignment for the actual citations
• Use a hanging indent for all references, which is a type of indentation that starts one-half inch from the left margin
  • Hanging indents should be used with each line after the first line of your citation

I can't find an author!

If no author is listed (remember, sometimes the author can be an organization!), skip it and go straight to listing the title.

There's no date on my source.

No date? Use (n.d.) to signify that the date is missing. (n.d.) can be used both in your in-text citation and your reference list entry. Example: (Porter's 5 Factors Model, (n.d))

What do I do if there are no page numbers, like on a website?

When there are no page numbers, you can count the paragraphs until you get to your quote or paraphrased information for your in-text citation. Example: (Smith, para. 4)

What do I capitalize when it comes to titles?

Titles of works in your references list use sentence casing, where you only capitalize the first word of the title, the first word of the subtitle (what comes after a colon (:)), and any proper nouns. Example: Strategic corporate social responsibility: Stakeholders, globalization, and sustainable value creation. When you use the title of a source in your paper, use title casing, where you capitalize all major words (words over 4 letters) in the title. Example: Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders, Globalization, and Sustainable Value Creation 

(P.S.! If a source stands on its own, like a report or a book title, use italics. If it is a part of a greater work, like a chapter in a book or an article from a scholarly journal, do not use italics)