In the same way that we would tell a friend what newspaper or from whom we heard a certain piece of information, when writing we need to identify where we got a particular piece of information, idea, or quote. Failure to give this credit in an academic context is called plagiarism and is understood as claiming responsibility for someone else's ideas and work. This is not looked upon very kindly.
However, beyond plagiarism, there are many reasons why citing properly is important. A few of these are that giving credit:
Citations are given in the body of the paper when we are referring to another work. They are also given as a bibliography at the end of our work, listing all works that were cited in the paper itself.
American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the american psychological association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
American Psychological Association. (2012). APA style guide to electronic references (6th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
APA: Getting Started. Quick Reference from the UBC Library.
Core components:
Format options:
Examples
Yang, Scott, Mao, Tang, and Farmer (2014) concluded that there is minimal clinical significance to aerobic versus resistance exercise in the treatment of type 2 diabetes.
A recent systematic review concluded that there is minimal clinical significance to aerobic versus resistance exercise in the treatment of type 2 diabetes (Yang, Scott, Mao, Tang, & Farmer, 2014).
Cheat Sheet:
# of Authors | Example |
1 |
(Yang, 2014) |
2 | (Yang & Scott, 2014) |
3-5 | First citation: (Yang, Scott & Mao, 2014) Subsequent citations: (Yang et al., 2014) |
6 or more |
(Yang et al., 2014) |
Core components:
Format
Note: What is and what is not italicized. There is not always an issue number.
Examples
Issue number
No issues number