APA Format Essentials

APA Format helps you ethically use other people's ideas in your papers. The four main ways to incorporate sources are avoiding plagiarism, paraphrasing (rewording ideas), summarizing (condensing longer passages), and quoting (using exact words).

When citing sources within your text, place the citation after you've used someone else's ideas. The basic format includes the author's last name and publication year in parentheses, like this: "Studies show improved learning outcomes" (Martin, 2020). You can also incorporate the author's name into your sentence with the year in parentheses: According to Martin (2020), learning outcomes improved significantly.

Your Reference List goes on a separate page at the end of your paper, with entries alphabetized by author's last name. For basic websites, include: Last name, First initial. (year). Web page title. URL. When there's no author, start with the title instead. If no publication date exists, use (n.d.) which stands for "no date."

Pro Tip: Always keep track of your sources as you research rather than trying to find them again later. This saves time and ensures you don't accidentally miss citing something!