1. TOPIC: CITING REFERENCES USING APA
Reference Materials
SPRING 2012
Kathy Thompson, Keri Tarpley, & Tambra Scroggins

2. INTRODUCTION
Have you ever read something and
wondered, is this accurate
information? Am I reading the author’s
opinion or did they get the information
form a reliable source that can be
verified?

3. WHY APA WORKS
It is important to remember that readers will
want to know what information came from
outside sources. Readers will also want to
know how to easily locate the included
information. The American Psychological
Association (APA) has designed specific
rules for citing sources.

4. GENERAL GUIDELINES
•The author’s last name and year of publication
should be included in the text i.e. (Martinez,
2012).
•Complete references should be included on
the Reference Page at the end of the work.
•Capitalize Proper Nouns and Names.
•Capitalize both words in a hyphenated
compound word in titles.

5. GENERAL GUIDELINES
•Capitalize the first word following a dash or
colon.
•Italicize or underline the titles of longer works.
•Put quotation marks around shorter works
such as journal articles and song titles.

6. EXAMPLE
Sconyers, J. (2010). “APA Format.” New
York Times. Retrieved on Tuesday, March
3, 2012, from: newyorktimes.com.

7. CLOSING
APA rules help to ensure that all readers
will be able to locate the information and
sources. It is also vital to give the original
author recognition for their work for legal
purposes. Using someone else’s work and
not providing proper citations is considered
Plagiarism and is illegal.

8. WEBSITES UTILIZED
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/02/