Understanding Plagiarism and Citation
APA Style Guide
The American Psychological Association (APA) provides a method for source documentation that is
used in most social sciences courses. The social sciences place emphasis on the date a work was
created, so most APA citation involves recording the date of a particular work in the physical text.
The date is usually placed immediately after the author’s name in the “References” page at the end
of an essay.1
How to Create an APA In-Text Citation2
When using APA format, follow the author-date method of in-text citation. This means that the
author’s last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text.
If you are directly quoting from a work, you will need to include the author, year of
publication, and the page number for the reference (preceded by “p.”) as follows:
According to Jones (1998), “Students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it
was their first time” (p. 199).
Jones (1998) found “students often had difficulty using APA style” (p. 199); what
implications does this have for teachers?
She stated, “Students often had difficulty using APA style” (Jones, 1998, p. 199), but she did
not offer an explanation as to why.
If you are paraphrasing an idea from another work, you only have to make reference to the
author and year of publication in your in-text reference, but APA guidelines encourage you to
also provide the page number (although it is not required) as follows:
According to Jones (1998), APA style is a difficult citation format for first-time learners.
APA style is a difficult citation format for first-time learners (Jones, 1998, p. 199).
If within the same paragraph, you are citing the same source twice, but are citing from
different pages of this source, you may do one of the following for the second citation:3
1. If in the first citation, the author’s name only appears in the parenthetical, like this:
you must repeat the author and the date and page number for the second entry, as follows:
Text adapted from:
1 “Citation Style Chart.” The Purdue OWL, Purdue U Writing Lab, owl.english.purdue.edu/media/pdf/20110928111055_949.pdf.
2 Paiz, Joshua M., et al. “In-Text Citations: The Basics.” The Purdue OWL, Purdue U Writing Lab, 11 Nov. 2014,
owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/2/.
3 Publication Manual of the APA. 6th ed., APA, 2010, p. 174.
(Jones, 1998, p.199).
(Jones, 1998, p.199)
