5.1 Introduction to Citing Sources Using APA

If you are writing a paper or research report for a specific course, it is important that you check with your instructor in case they have a required citation format that you need to follow. You may be docked marks if your paper does not follow the correct format.

American Psychological Association (APA) style is the most commonly-used citation format in the social sciences. It includes a set of rules about how to cite sources within the text of your paper as well as how to list these references at the end of your work. This chapter provides a basic overview of APA format, followed by recommended sources to turn to for additional help and guidance with citing properly.

These guidelines conform with the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2020).
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Navigating an Undergraduate Degree in the Social Sciences by Diane Symbaluk, Robyn Hall, and Geneve Champoux is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.