We teach you how to reference APA
All scientific articles and academic, degree and thesis works that are written under the format of the American Psychological Association (APA) must provide the necessary information so that the reader can locate the source cited in the text. This rule is known as reference list, formerly known as bibliographic references or bibliography, and it has been the backbone of this type of writing, so today we will show you how to reference apa.
APA reference? It all starts with a date
To talk about APA referencing, we must start by talking about citations. Is about brief references located within the text or story that include the idea of a third party. Whenever you paraphrase or quote directly, you should include simple facts to identify where the information came from and the reader will be able to locate all the facts from that source in the references.
Remember: you cannot make a citation without leaving the proper reference in this chapter of your academic work. If so, the quote would be invalidated because you are not respecting copyright.
According to APA format, citations will always contain two pieces of information: the last name of the author and the year in which said words were published. Sometimes you also need to add a "locator" information for that citation, such as the page number of the book you got it from.
What sources go into the references?
There are those who mistakenly add references left and right just to show that they went to many sources. The truth is that the APA format establishes quite clear guidelines in this regard: only sources that have been cited in the text should be referenced.
Personal communications that the reader cannot access (emails, telephone conversations, text messages, etc.) should not be included, since there is no way that the reader can go to that source. In fact, everything that cannot be retrieved by the reader should not be mentioned in the references, as well as mentions that are too broad and require excessive explanations.
In this sense, you should not reference:
- General mentions of complete web pages.
- Personal Communications. These are only mentioned in the text.
- Phrases of interviewees. They are mentioned and discussed in the text, but do not enter the reference list. These do not require citations because they correspond to a part of the original research.
- The quotes made in the dedication, in case you have included a foreign phrase.
presentation format
References are presented in a new and separate page of the text. Its title is “References” and it is centered and in bold at the top of the page.
The text (the references) are written double spaced and each “entry” to the list of references must have a hanging indentation of half an inch, that is, 1.27 centimeters from the left margin.
Microsoft Word offers a function so that the references of your research paper “appear” automatically, after clicking. Although it already has APA format, it never hurts to take a good look at the information, to make sure that everything is correctly written.
Elements of a reference
The data provided in the references will vary according to the type of source it comes from, but it generally includes four basic elements: the author of the quote, the date of publication of the source, the title of the source and how to retrieve it. With this point we refer to additional data of the book, web page, video, etc.
But there are cases in which not all the data is available to the researcher. Do not rack your head in these situations, nor think that you will have to lose your source. The APA also offers an alternative, depending on what information is missing.
In this sense, if you do not know the author of the information, the reference entry must begin with the title of the source, followed by the date and the data of the source. If you don't have information about the publication date, it is allowed to use the abbreviation “s.f.” which means “no date” and if you can't find the title of the source, then you should describe it in square brackets.
In that case, the reference begins with the author's name, follows with the date, and then adds a brief description of the source in square brackets. It ends with more data from the source.
How to order the references
It is very simple: references are arranged alphabetically using the initial of the author's last name as a guide. Your last name is followed by the initials of your first name.
In the event that you have a reference that has up to twenty authors, the The names of the authors are inverted and the name of each of them must be included. If the reference has more than twenty authors, then you should name the first 19 and then add an ellipsis to end with the last author's name.
numbered pages
Another frequent question is whether to include a page number in the references. This will depend on the source being cited. For example, if you are talking about a page range of a larger work or a specific chapter of a book, or an article published in a newspaper or magazine, then it is necessary to write the corresponding page numbers. In all other cases, no.
Final considerations
Reference pages are located just after the last page of the main body of the paper but before the annexes. This page is written in a legible font (Times New Roman 12 or Arial 11) and is numbered in the upper right heading.
With these general data you can build your reference page, remembering again that the Microsoft Word program can help you with this just by clicking.
Although your research is very important, the reference page is the backbone of your academic work, because through it all the research is founded and credit is given to those researchers who did hard work before you and provided relevant information. quality to give meaning to your work.