APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences.
The 2nd example is an ebook. If the work is not directly available online or must be purchased, use "Available from," rather than "Retrieved from," and point readers to where they can find it. For books available in print form and electronic form, include the publish date in parentheses after the author's name.
Citing current research demonstrates to readers that you are up to date and that the topic is of timely relevance.
Selecting sources from key researchers on the topic establishes your credibility and lends authority to your writing.
Providing an overview of prior research tracks the development of the topic for your readers.
Citing sources that advocate a particular view can explicitly or implicitly demonstrate your stance on the topic.
Citing sources with similar approaches or methods gives legitimacy to your work.
Citing sources that confirm, support, or validate your claims strengthens your argument.
Citing sources that represent counter arguments presents balance to your readers and provides opportunity to respond to contending positions.
Citing sources gives your readers a roadmap to your research and allows them to respond and join the conversation with you.
Adapted from Rolf Norgaard's "Pragmatics of citation."
Looking for a way to organize and collect citation details for your research? There are numerous citation management tools available. Citation managers will help you to store citations, generate reference lists, format in-text citations, share readings with peers. This guide will introduce a few of those options and tips for using them.
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Zotero Freemium Extensive citation styles Storage 300 MB Free Word processor plug-in Desktop/ Web Access Google Doc integration Sharing & groups |
Mendeley Freemium Popular citation styles Storage 2GB Free PDF reader Word processor plug-in Desktop/ Web Access Google Doc integration Sharing & groups |
Endnote Basic Free Popular citation styles Storage 2GB Free Word processor plug-in Desktop/ Web Access |
Papers $79, $49 student Popular citation styles PDF reader Word processor plugin Desktop Drop-box integration |
In-text citations shows the reader who created, thought of, or said the information you want to use in your research. In-text APA citations follow author-year format. Examples include:
Review Purdue OWL's In-Text Citation page for more information.
Some style manuals require that a "retrieved" date be included. APA does not, except in cases where the content may change over time. Company website citations should include the date that the cited content was accessed.
In this case, treat the organization as the author. We can be fairly certain that any content (aside from reviews or blog comments) was written on behalf of the company. We would not consider the author to be "Anonymous," even though no individual author is named.
If the content is not dated, use "n.d." in the place where you would normally put the publication date.
