Citation and style manuals

APA (American Psychological Association)

American Psychological Association (APA) style is a widely accepted style of documentation, particularly in the social sciences. APA style specifies the names and order of headings, formatting, and organization of citations and references, and the arrangement of tables, figures, footnotes, and appendices, as well as other manuscript and documentation features. APA style uses the author-date style of parenthetical referencing, with such source citations keyed to a subsequent list of "References." Also known as the Harvard Style.

The sixth edition of the APA style guide was published in July 2009. Many online guides have not yet been updated to reflect the changes in this edition. Be aware of what edition is required for your paper and what edition you are using.

The APA has published several corrections to the sixth edition: Errors in APA Style Rules, Errors in Examples, Clarifications, and Nonsignificant Typographical Errors.

Online guides

• American Psychological Association official site, includes print product information and information on the latest updates to the format.

Example sites

• APA Style.org from the American Psychological Association. Excerpts from the APA Style Guide to Electronic References and the 6th edition of the Publication Manual. The material provided covers frequently asked questions regarding how to cite electronic media.
• APA Citation Fox from the University at Albany, State University of New York, based on the 6th edition of the Publication manual of the American Psychological Association.
• APA Documentation Style (University of Wisconsin - Madison Writing Center site based on information from the 5th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. (Includes information on citing electronic and print sources)
• APA Format University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign, Writer's Workshop site based on information from the 5th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. (Includes information on citing electronic and print sources).
• APA Style Essentials - from Vanguard University of Southern California. Core elements of the 6th edition.
• APA Research Style Crib Sheet from Psych Web. A summary of rules for using APA style as documented in the 5th edition of the APA publication manual.
• APA Formatting and Style Guide from the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University. A thorough guide on the 6th edition APA style including print and electronic sources.
• Flowchart for using DOIs and URLs in citations from APA.org

Print style guides

EndNote output styles

• APA 6th edition output style (2/28/2012) for EndNote.