Learning Lab

Most students will have to reference an assignment at some stage of their studies. This unit will take you through how to use the American Psychological Association's (APA) referencing style. Work through and complete the activities to learn how to avoid plagiarism when using other people's works, e.g. words, ideas, images etc. Please note that this tutorial is based on the APA Style Manual 6th edition.

APA is an author-date system of referencing (or citing).
Referencing details must be provided in two locations:

1. In the text of your assignment, i.e. whenever another person's ideas, words, thoughts etc. has been used e.g., direct quotes, paraphrases or summaries.
2. In the reference list where full bibliographic details are provided.

APA in-text referencing

The APA system of referencing uses in text references or citations to acknowledge someone else's words, thoughts or ideas that have been included in your work. Information required in the text of your assignment includes:

• the author(s)'s surname(s)
• the year of publication
• the page number or paragraph number for non paginated sources (direct quotes only).

Punctuation in citations

Commas are used to separate information within parentheses (), e.g. author's name and date of publication. Full stops are always used after the abbreviation p for page number or pp for page numbers, e.g. p. 34 or pp. 34-35. If the citation is at the end of the sentence, it is considered to be part of the sentence, so the full stop is placed after the closing parenthesis.

Example:

Paraphrase1

Plagiarism has been identified as an area of concern for first yeay students adjusting to the expectations of writing at university (Pettigrew, 2010). [take note of the use of open and closed parentheses, the comma after the author's name and the full stop outside of the closed parentheses]

Paraphrase 2

Plagiarism in student writing is more often due to uncertainty about when and how to reference correctly than a deliberate intention to cheat (Madden, 2011; Ryan & Lee, 2009). [take note of the use of a semi-colkon in between the two citations]

Quote

Plagiarism issues are an area of confusion for mant students beginning university, resulting in "many misunderstandings, which coincide with high levels of unintentional plagiarism, bogus referencing and collusion" (Pettigrew, 2010, p. 97). [take note of the use of quotation marks around the direct quote and the use of a comm after the year and a full stop after the 'p' for page number.]

The ampersand, the symbol '&' used to replace 'and', can only be used inside parenthical citations e.g. .....for many participants (Jones & Lee, 2011). In a sentence, only use 'and' e.g. Jones and Lee (2011) point out that many participants.....

For more detailed information about how to reference, use the Library's Easy Cite referencing tool.