Research Guides: Literature Reviews: A Resource Guide for Psychology: APA 7th Edition

What is APA Style?

Introduction to APA Style

APA stands for American Psychological Association. APA Style is a way to format your paper and give credit to your sources. This page provides resources for all the elements of preparing a research paper in APA Style, including formatting, in-text citations, and the list of references.

Many disciplines use APA Style, including business, education, nursing, psychology and others.

APA Quick Links

APA Style Website
This is the online home of APA Style.
APA Style Blog
The APA Style Blog publishes short articles about writing style guidelines and complicated citation questions you might have.
Purdue OWL Guide to APA Style
Purdue OWL has resources about many citation styles. Here is their section on APA.

APA Quick Reference Guide, page 1 of 2

APA Quick Reference Guide, page 2 of 2

Paper Formatting Guidelines & Sample Papers

Use the following materials to learn about APA guidelines for different parts of your paper, like the title page, headers and footers, and writing an abstract.

APA Sample Papers
Look at a finished paper in APA format. Use this to set up your paper.
APA Style Formatting Guide
This guide covers formatting rules for all parts of an APA paper.

Student Title Page guide (PDF)
Use this for student papers using the APA 7th Edition.

Professional Title Page
Use this to learn about the differences between student and professional paper title pages.

Abstract and Keywords Guide (PDF)
Use this if you are required to include and abstract and/or keywords for your APA Style paper.

Tables, Appendices, Footnotes, and Endnotes
If your paper has tables, appendices, footnotes, or endnotes, use these guidelines.

In-Text Citations & The Reference List

Citing sources has two elements: the in-text citation is in the body of your paper when you refer to something that you use from a source, and this citation points to the reference list, where there is more information about each source.

Purdue University's Online Writing Lab - aka Purdue OWL - is a good online source of information about many citation styles. Many of the following links take you straight to Purdue OWL pages that answer frequent questions about APA Style.

In-Text Citations

APA In-Text Citations
Basics of in-text citation from Purdue Owl.
APA In-Text Citations Author Rules
Detailed rules from Purdue Owl on how to cite multiple authors.

The Reference List

Basic Rules for the Reference List
This page gives a summary of the reference list, which is the full list of your sources at the end of the paper.
Citing Books in the Reference List
This page has rules and examples for citing books of different types in your reference list.
Citing Electronic Sources in the Reference List
This page has examples and rules for citing journal articles and other things you find through a library database or anywhere online.
Rules about Authors in the Reference List
Does your source have 3 authors? Five authors? More? No author listed? This page gives guidance on how to format author names in the reference list depending on number of authors, missing author, if an organization is an author, etc.
Citing a Government Website in the Reference List
Do you have a source from a government agency? Use these guidelines to create a citation.
Using DOIs and URLs
How to use the doi or URL in electronic journal articles.
Crossref Search
Use Crossref to search for an article's doi.

Examples of References & In-Text Citations

Article in an Electronic Journal

Reference page entry

Grady, J.S., Her, M,. Moreno, G., Perez, C., & Yelinek, J. (2019). Emotions in storybooks: A comparison of storybooks that represent ethnic and racial groups in the United States. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 8(3), 207-217. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000185

In-Text Citation

(Grady et al., 2019, p. 208)

Newspaper Article

Reference page entry

Carey, B. (2019, March 22). Can we get better at forgetting? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/health/memory-forgetting-psychology.html

In-Text Citation

(Carey, 2019)

Book

Reference page entry

Rabinowitz, F.E (2019). Deepening group psychotherapy with men: Stories and insights for the journey. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/00001132-000

In-Text Citation

(Rabinowitz, 2019)

Chapter of a Book

Reference page entry

Aron, L., Botella, M., & Lubart. (2019). Culinary arts: Talent and their developments. In R. F. Subotnik, P. Olszewski-Kubilius, & F. C. Worrell (Eds.), The psychology of high performance: Developing human potential into domain-specific talent (pp. 345-359). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000120-016

In-Text Citation

(Aron et al., 2019)

Webpage on a Website

Reference page entry

National Institute of Mental Health. (2018, July). Anxiety disorders. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders/indnex.shtml

In-Text Citation

(National Institute of Mental Health, 2018)

Software Tools for APA Style

There are many tools that can help you create, manage, and organize your citations and your references page. Here are some that the library provides or recommends for students and faculty.

Academic Writer
Many psychology courses use Academic Writer. Academic Writer is a tool that provides the resources necessary to learn, research, write, and publish in APA Style, directly from the creators of and experts on APA Style, the American Psychological Association.

You can make an account on Academic Writer with your Caldwell email address.
NoodleTools
NoodleTools is an online tool that helps you with note taking, and correctly formatting citations. MLA, APA, and Chicago/Turabian citation styles are included. Use throughout your research project to track sources, take notes, create outlines, collaborate with classmates, and format bibliographies.

Use this link to create an account.

Zotero
Zotero is a free, open-source tool that connects to your browser. You can use it to pull citation information from any page you are on and save it in Zotero. Make folders to keep track of sources and generate reference lists. Zotero also has a plug-in component that will help you create and format citations in a word processor like Microsoft Word or Google Docs.
ZoteroBib
ZoteroBib is a free service that helps you build a bibliography from any computer or device, without creating an account or installing any software. It's from the team behind the open source citation management app Zotero. ZBib can create a draft citation from a link or ISBN and has helpful templates for you to use to manually create citations. You can use it for MLA, APA, or Chicago Style.