APA Style

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Most Education journals (and the CSUN Secondary Education Department) require papers to be written in APA Style - this is the style defined by the American Psychology Association. The following information and links will help you learn to format your papers in this way.

  • Note- Many of the online journals have a citation button that automatically creates a citation for you. Many times you can choose which format citation you want. So be sure to check your online source first before you spend the time typing the APA citation by scratch. I have found that I can just copy and paste the APA citation into my lit review.


Contents

Basics of APA Style

Citations in Text

In the text of your paper you must cite any non-commonsense idea that comes from another source. To cite an idea, list the authors' last names and the year of publication. For example, "Students with a good understanding of the material will produce better concept maps than a student that has a poor or weak understanding (Novak, 1991)" is a reference to a paper by Novak published in 1991. If several papers have made a similar point put the names in the same parenthesis organized alphabetically. For example (Anderson, 1992; Baker & Davis, 2004; Linn et al., 1980).

If you discuss the author by name, put only the year in the parentheses. For example "Novak & Wandersee (1993) found that when students were required to make concept maps ..."

If you take a direct quotation (use this sparingly) cite the page number of the reference. For example "Novak et al. describe the advantages of concept maps as "providing a tool for students to organize their thinking" (Novak et al. 1995, p.1124). A quote that is longer than three lines should be set apart from the text as a block quote:

Concept maps are graphical tools for organizing and representing knowledge. They include concepts, usually enclosed in circles or boxes of some type, and relationships between concepts indicated by a connecting line linking two concepts. Words on the line, referred to as linking words or linking phrases, specify the relationship between the two concepts. (Novak & Canas, 2006, p1)

For each citation you list there should be a corresponding entry in you reference list at the end of the paper (before the appendices).

Reference List

You should list all your cited references (and occasionally sources that you did not cite) at the end of your paper. The list is alphabetical by first author last name (followed by the second author last name). For two papers with the same exact authors, order them oldest first.

  • Journal Article: Last, First, MI., (year) Title of Article, Journal Title, volumenumber(issue) p. pages
  • Book: Last, First, MI., (year) Book Title, Publisher, City
  • Book Chapter: Last, First, MI., (year) Title of Chapter, in ELast, EFirst, Eds Book Title, Publisher, City, p. pages

Notice that we now use italics for book titles - not underlining!

Links to online resources

APA Style Guides

Citation Organizing and Formatting

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