APA style is the American Psychological Association style recommended for referencing in scientific papers. This variation is very common in the world, although it is not the only one possible. The scope covers the social sciences, including law, history, and sociology. The realities of practice show that APA rules are quite clear and convenient, but they need to be understood, which we will do in this article.
Rules for citations in the text
Formation of scientific work is based on this basic principle: each time the author cites a source, provides for the use of references in the text of the work. And it does not matter in what form someone else’s material is mentioned – a block citation, direct quotation in the middle of the line or a paraphrase. Help on how to properly format an APA-style paper can be found at https://studycrumb.com/apa-table-of-contents-writing-guide, where you can also find a lot of other useful information.
Intra-text references must contain the following elements:
- Author of the work;
- The editor/author/name of the cited source, if the author is absent;
- The material cited (what exactly);
- Year of publication;
- Page spacing – can be omitted if an idea is cited rather than a specific phrase, or if the reference refers to the entire work.
How are block citations designed?
The specifics of such quotations is their volume. This is a minimum of three rows of text. Such quotations are set out on a new line, separated by a paragraph for the entire quoted text and are not enclosed in quotation marks. Double line spacing is used for formatting. A period is placed after the text and the original source is given in parentheses.
For example:
Public danger of encroachment on social relations lies in the contradiction between the interests of society and the state. And also in the objective and subjective side of the behavior of a citizen guilty of causing, creating a real threat of causing harm to certain social values. (Sabitova, 2019, p. 23).
How to indicate citations in the middle of the line?
Such quotations are enclosed in quotation marks. Two options for indicating the name and surname are allowed. The first is in parentheses after the quotation, along with the year of publication and pages, separated by a comma. The second is in the sentence itself, and after the surname in parentheses spelled out the year of publication, and the line spacing is given in parentheses after the quotation.
How does one frame a paraphrase?
Paraphrases are not enclosed in quotation marks. Authors’ names are either in the sentence itself, in which case the year of publication is placed in parentheses immediately after, or in parentheses at the end of the sentence along with the year.
Arranging the list of references
In accordance with APA recommendations, style is always placed on a separate page at the end of the scholarly work. This is an informative part, allowing at any time to get the necessary primary source, find it and use the data. Each source mentioned in the text is reflected in the bibliographic list and vice versa.
The list of references is directly the list of sources used. Formatting implies the placement of the title in the center of the ordinary type without quotation marks. Double line spacing is used for the entire volume of such material.
