The APA style of Formatting

What is APA Format?

APA format is the official style of the American Psychological Association (APA)
It is commonly used to cite sources in psychology, education, and the social sciences
The APA style originated in a 1929 article published in Psychological Bulletin that laid out the basic
guidelines. These guidelines were eventually expanded into the APA Publication Manual
As with other editorial styles, APA Style consists of rules or guidelines that a publisher observes to
ensure clear and consistent presentation of written material

It concerns uniform use of such elements as:

1. Selection of headings, tone, and length
2. Punctuation and abbreviations
3. Presentation of numbers and statistics
4. Construction of tables and figures
5. Citation of references

WHAT IS A REFERENCE?
- The action of mentioning or alluding to something
- The use of a source of information in order to ascertain something

E.g. When you are writing an assignment or an essay, you are usually required to acknowledge the
influence of other authors on your work or your sources of information

WHAT RERENCING STYLE? Not necessary to be cited: Necessary to be cited:

- It is a specific format for presenting in-text Dates in History Opinions
references (e.g. endnotes or foot notes) and Scientific truths Theories
bibliography/reference list Election results Statements
- Simply put, it is an act of referring Gen. Knowledge Claims

Data:
WHY IS REFERENCING ESSENTIAL?
Statistics
-Distinguish ideas
Graphs
-Shows range/marker or quality Population Figures
-Directs readers to the source/s you use Financials
-Avoids plagiarism

Any reference occurs in two places in your academic or scientific paper;

1. In-text Referencing appears in the text
a. Direct quotation using the author's exact words you will use quotation marks. Immediately
after the close quotation, indicate the source, date of publication and the page number
E. g., Observation learning can be defined as "the phenomenon whereby people develop
patterns of behavior by observing the action of others"(Mowen & Minor. 2008. p 147)
 b. Summarizing the use of someone else's ideas, concepts. or data but not their exact words.
You use your own words using your own sentence structure
E. g. According to Ailes(2005). this theory 11 identifies two ways in which people's behavior can
be affected The first is where a person perceives positive consequences resulting from he
observed behavior, they are more likely to imitate such behavior The second is where a person
perceives negative consequences of an observed behavior they are likely to attempt to avoid
such behavior(p 23)

2. End-of-text Referencing appears at the end of the text or the "Reference List"
E g. Mowen. J C & Minor M (2008) Consumer behavior(5th edition) Upper-Saddle River, NJ. -Prentice Hall

Reference Elements
Author's surnames & initial
Year of publication
Title of the book in Italics '
Place of publication
Name of publisher

TYPES OF REFERENCES
1 Book Reference
2. Journal Reference
3. Internet Reference

REFERENCE ELEMENTS
Author's surname & initial
Year published
Article title(Italicized)
Journal name
Volume
Page number/s

Two Most Common Referencing Styles

1. MLA Style
otherwise known as "Humanities Style"
this is often used in Literature. History, and Arts
it provides bibliographic citation in notes that correspond to reference number in the body of the
paper
these notes are called footnotes when they are printed at the foot of the page, endnotes when they
are printed at the back of the book or at the end of a chapter
Here are some examples of the MLA style:
Book: Finance Malta. Sliema: CountryProfiler Ltd, 2014. Print.
Journal: hughes, wllliam. (2014). n. pag. Print
Website: Fao.org, '3. Global And Regional Food Consumption Patterns And Trends'. N.p., 2014. Web. 5
June 2014.

2. APA Style
also called the "Author-Date" based style often used by researchers in the field of natural and social
sciences there are two parts of the APA referencing style that are very essential,

1. In-text citation is enclosed in a parentheses and is found in the body of the text