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APA Citation Guide (7th edition) CGS

Use this guide to learn how to cite using APA 7th edition

What is APA?

American Psychological Association (APA) Style is a set of writing guidelines used for clear and precise scholarly communication in fields ranging from nursing to social work, as well as student papers, dissertations, and essays (American Psychological Association 3).

In APA, you must cite sources that you have paraphrased, quoted or otherwise refer to in your research paper.

Cite your sources in two places:

  1. In the body of your paper with an in-text citation
  2. In the References list at the end of your paper

Check out these quick tips for formatting your APA Style paper!

Margins: Add 1 inch margins on all sides.

Header: Starting with your title page, add page numbers at the top right corner of the page. No running headers are required for student papers.

Line Spacing: Double-space your text.

Paragraph Alignment & Indentation: Indent the first line of each paragraph by 0.5 inch. Align your paragraphs to the left margin.

Style, Grammar, Usage:

  • Singular "they" required in two situations: when used by a known person as their personal pronoun or when the gender of a singular person is not known.
  • Use only one space after a sentence-ending period.

Recommended Fonts: Unless specified by your instructor, APA recommends the following fonts:

  • 11-point Calibri
  • 11-point Arial
  • 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode
  • 12-point Times New Roman
  • 11-point Georgia
  • 10-point Computer Modern
This research guide is based on the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). The contents are accurate to the best of our knowledge. Some examples illustrate Seneca Libraries' recommendations and are marked as modifications of the official APA guidelines. 
 

Commonly Used Terms

Citing: The process of acknowledging the sources of your information and ideas.

DOI (doi): Some electronic content, such as online journal articles, is assigned a unique number called a Digital Object Identifier (DOI or doi). Items can be tracked down online using their doi.

In-Text Citation: A brief note at the point where information is used from a source to indicate where the information came from. An in-text citation should always match more detailed information that is available in the Reference List.

Paraphrasing: Taking information that you have read and putting it into your own words.

Plagiarism: Taking, using, and passing off as your own, the ideas or words of another.

Quoting: The copying of words of text originally published elsewhere. Direct quotations generally appear in quotation marks and end with a citation.

Reference: Details about one cited source.

Reference List: Contains details on ALL the sources cited in a text or essay, and supports your research and/or premise.

Retrieval Date: Used for websites where content is likely to change over time (e.g. Wikis), the retrieval date refers to the date you last visited the website.