← Back to HCC Main Site |
The following resources contain examples and/or information to assist in preparing a research paper in APA Citation Style.
This resource guide will focus on the 7th edition of the APA publication style developed by the American Psychological Association, which is used by the Social Sciences and other curricular areas.
Take a look at the links on the left for examples of APA 7 in-text citations, reference pages, and some useful sites and tutorials.
Before you begin writing your research paper, it is important to have it correctly formatted following APA guidelines. This includes setting up a title page, correcting line spacing, text font, and margins in a paper.
To set up your paper for APA formatting you will complete the following:
To create a title page for your paper, or to see a visual of any of the above formatting guidelines, check out the library's APA 7 video tutorials.
The Document Formatting guides prepared by HCC Learning Support Center staff are a great tool to help you step-by-step through the process of setting up your document. We recommend you use these guidelines to set up your paper before you begin writing.
Citations are tricky, and there are lots of questions you may have when creating your citations. This guide covers the basics of APA, but for more detailed questions about specific citations, make sure to check out the resources along the left. The Excelsior OWL citation guide is especially helpful for creating citations for different sources.
Once you have completed your research and have gathered the information you would like to use to write your paper, your next step should be to create the list of the resources you will use in your paper. This list is called a Reference List and includes any source (publication, video, lecture, etc.) that you are using information from in your paper. It is very important that you cite sources in your paper because you want to show where you are getting your information from and avoid Plagiarism!
For help with creating citations, or how to set up your references page, watch the library's APA Citations Video Tutorials!
Use the examples shown below to help you format correct citations for the most popular sources.
Elements: Author's last name, Author's first and middle initials. (Date). Title of article. Title of Journal, Volume number(issue number, if any), Page numbers.
Mershon, D.H. (1998, November). Star trek on the brain: Alien minds, human minds. American Scientist, 86(6), 585.
Elements: Author's last name, Author's first and middle initials. (Date published). Title of webpage. Website Name. URL.
Price, D. (2018, March 23). Laziness does not exist. Medium. https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01
Elements: Author's last name, Author's first and middle initials. (Year of Publication). Title of book. Publisher.
Rivano, N. S., Hoson, A., & Stallings, B. (2001). Regional integration and economic development. Palgrave.
Elements: Author's last name, Author's first and middle initials. [@username]. (Year, Month, Day published). Content of the post up to the first 20 words [description of type of post]. Site name. URL.
Sulic, L. [@lukasulicworld]. (2019, December 31). We wish you a happy new year! [Photograph]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/B6vTyaZHNU9/?igshid=141g9y12b4gfn
For more examples of how to cite specific formats, or more specific help with citations, visit the Excelsior Online Writing Lab for detailed descriptions!
In-text citations are the second way you will cite your sources in a research paper. Unlike the citations found in the References page, in-text citations are shorter and appear in the body of the text. Any time you use information from a source (whether you paraphrase it or use a direct quotation), you must include an in-text citation. So you will have multiple in-text citations for one source.
APA in-text citations will appear in parentheses within the paper you are writing, and will appear at the end of the sentence where the source is being cited. You will include only the author's last name, followed by the date of publication. If a source has two authors, list both names separated by an ampersand (&). If there are more than two authors, list only the first author's last name followed by the phrase 'et al'.
The concept of social class is rapidly becoming obsolete (Calvert et al., 1987).
Calvert (1982) argued that it is impossible to measure social class.
Two techniques that have been associated with reduced stress and increased relaxation in psychotherapy contexts are guided imagery and progressive muscle relaxation (McGuigan & Lehrer, 2007).
For more examples of creating in-text citations, check out the library's video tutorials or the Excelsior OWL citation page for help! Or explore the resources on this guide for more information!
M-Th: 8 am - 6 pm
Fri: 8 am - 4:30 pm
Weekends: Closed
LRC-200
240-500-2237
301-393-3681
library@hagerstowncc.edu
hagerstowncc.edu/library
MD Voter Registration Public Disclosure Privacy Policy Terms of Use