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APA 6th ed. Style Guide: Getting Started

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Additional APA Style Resources

Basic APA Format

APA formatting is based on citing scholarly journal articles. All reference list citations follow the same basic format: 

who-when-what-where

For scholarly journal articles, this means: 

who = author 

when = date

what = title of the article

where = name of journal, volume, issue number, page numbers, doi

Here is a sample reference list citation: 

Drapalski, A., Bennett, M., & Bellack, A. (2011). Gender differences in substance use, consequences, motivation to change, and treatment seeking in people with serious mental illness. Substance Use & Misuse, 46(6), 808–818. https://doi.org/10.3109/10826084.2010.538460

Here is are some examples of how to cite this source in text: 

Drapalski, Bennett, and Belack (2011) found....

...as a recent study concluded (Drapalski, Bennett, & Balack, 2011). 

Drapalski et al. (2011) discovered....


While the specific elements will differ based on what you are citing (book, book chapter, website, blog, etc.), they all follow this same order. The tabs above provide guidelines for citing different kinds of sources.

Drapalski, A., Bennett, M., & Bellack, A. (2011). Gender differences in substance use, consequences, motivation to change, and treatment seeking in people with serious mental illness. Substance Use & Misuse, 46(6), 808–818. https://doi.org/10.3109/10826084.2010.538460