Welcome to SMIRK Unit 5
APA (American Psychological
Association) referencing


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SMIRK - APA referencing by Cardiff University Information Services, adapted by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/citingreferences/apatutorial/index.html.

What is it?

picture of libraryIf you are submitting a piece of work to the Psychology department of GCU, you may be asked to use the APA style of referencing. These pages will help you reference using the APA 5th edition style.

Here is an example of APA style:

Text including citations

The most influential theory of associative learning has been the Rescorla-Wagner (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972) model (RWM). Although originally proposed to describe Pavlovian conditioning, a number of researchers have adopted the RWM to explain human causal reasoning (e.g., Shanks, 1985; Shanks & Dickinson, 1987; Wasserman, Elek, Chatlosh, & Baker, 1993).

References

Rescorla, R. A., & Wagner, A. R. (1972). A theory of Pavlovian conditioning: Variations in the effectiveness of reinforcement and nonreinforcement. In A. H. Black & W. F. Prokasy (Eds.), Classical conditioning II: Current theory and research (pp. 64-99). New York: Appleton-Century Crofts.

Shanks, D. R. (1985). Continuous monitoring of human contingency judgment across trials. Memory & Cognition, 13, 158-167.

Shanks, D., & Dickinson, A. (1987). Associative accounts of causality judgment. In G. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation (Vol. 21, pp. 229-261). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Wasserman, E. A., Elek, S. M., Chatlosh, D. L., & Baker, A. G. (1993). Rating causal relations: Role of probability in judgments of response-outcome contingency. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 19, 174-188.

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Extract taken from: Buehner, M. J., Cheng, P. W., & Clifford, D. (2003). From Covariation to Causation: A Test of the Assumption of Causal Power. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 29, 1119-1140.

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SMIRK - APA referencing by Cardiff University Information Services, adapted by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/citingreferences/apatutorial/index.html.

 

Should I cite?

Cite your source when you...

...another work in your assignments.

Use this diagram to help you decide when you need to cite:

APA flowchart

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SMIRK - APA referencing by Cardiff University Information Services, adapted by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/citingreferences/apatutorial/index.html.

 

Using the APA style

If you include the author's last name in your sentence, write the date in brackets immediately after:

According to Sternberg (2001), the behaviourist approach was criticised for undervaluing the importance of studying cognition, leading to the rise of the cognitivist movement.

Alternatively, write both the author's last name and the date of publication in brackets after you have finished the paraphrase:

The behaviourist approach was criticised for undervaluing the importance of cognition. This led to the rise of the cognitivist movement (Sternberg, 2001).

You don't need to repeat the date if you refer to the same author again in the same paragraph but if you mention information from this source again later on in your work you will need to repeat the full citation.

If you are citing two or more different works by the same author, you only need to mention their name once followed by the years of publication:

(Gattis, 2002, 2004)

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SMIRK - APA referencing by Cardiff University Information Services, adapted by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/citingreferences/apatutorial/index.html.

 

Multiple authors

When two authors have written the source, include both their last names in your citation. If you refer to them in your sentence write the word 'and' between their names. If you write their names in brackets use &.

Hogg and Vaughan (2002) argue that aggressive behaviour can be reduced by techniques such as anger management.

and,

Aggressive behaviour can be reduced by techniques such as anger management (Hogg & Vaughan, 2002).

For three to five authors include all their last names the first time you cite the source. From then on you can just write the last name of the first author and then the abbreviation et al. which means 'and others'.

When there are six or more authors just write the last name of the first author, followed by et al. whenever you cite the source.

Sometimes you may find the information you are discussing has been written in several different sources. In this case cite them all in one set of brackets.

(Sternberg, 2001; Hogg & Vaughan, 2002; Seifert et al., 2000)

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SMIRK - APA referencing by Cardiff University Information Services, adapted by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/citingreferences/apatutorial/index.html.

Have a go!

Using the information contained in the list of references below this text, fill in all the gaps indicated by the green questionmarks. Then check your answers.

The ability to predict the likelihood of criminals returning to crime is vital to those responsible for determining the release and management of offenders (Andrews & Bonta, ???? ). Bonta, Law, and Hanson ?????? assert that it is now possible to accurately assess the risk of offending "especially...when predictions are based on actuarially derived information rather than professional and clinical judgement" (p.124). Measures such as previous offences, age, income and drug or alcohol dependency have been used successfully to predict criminal behaviour (??????? ? ?????, 2003; Blackburn, 1993; Bonta et al., ????; Webster & Bailes, 2004). Despite this evidence many violent offenders are still being assessed using professional judgement rather than by actuarial measures (Polaschek ? ????????, ????). 

References

Andrews, D. A., & Bonta, J. (2003). The psychology of criminal conduct (3rd ed.). Cincinnati, OH: Anderson Publishing.

Blackburn, R. (1993). The psychology of criminal conduct: Theory, research and practice.Chichester: Wiley.

Bonta, J., Law, M., & Hanson, K. (1998). The prediction of criminal and violent recidivism among mentally disordered offenders: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 123, 123-142.

Polaschek, D. L. L., & Reynolds, N. (2004). Assessment and treatment: Violent offenders. In C. R. Hollin (Ed.), The essential handbook of offender assessment and treatment (pp. 201-218). Chichester: Wiley.

Webster, C. D., & Bailes, G. (2004). Assessing violence risk. In C. R. Hollin (Ed.), The essential handbook of offender assessment and treatment (pp. 1-13). Chichester: Wiley.

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SMIRK - APA referencing by Cardiff University Information Services, adapted by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/citingreferences/apatutorial/index.html.

Answers

The answers are in green:

The ability to predict the likelihood of criminals returning to crime is vital to those responsible for determining the release and management of offenders (Andrews & Bonta, 2003). Bonta, Law, and Hanson (1998) assert that it is now possible to accurately assess the risk of offending "especially...when predictions are based on actuarially derived information rather than professional and clinical judgement" (p.124). Measures such as previous offences, age, income and drug or alcohol dependency have been used successfully to predict criminal behaviour (Andrews & Bonta, 2003; Blackburn, 1993; Bonta et al.,1998; Webster & Bailes, 2004). Despite this evidence many violent offenders are still being assessed using professional judgement rather than by actuarial measures (Polaschek & Reynolds, 2004).

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SMIRK - APA referencing by Cardiff University Information Services, adapted by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/citingreferences/apatutorial/index.html.

When to quote

It is usually best to paraphrase or summarise information from other sources rather than to directly quote it, as this demonstrates your understanding of the information and your ability to apply it to your own work.

It may be more appropriate to quote directly from the text if:

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SMIRK - APA referencing by Cardiff University Information Services, adapted by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/citingreferences/apatutorial/index.html.

How to quote

When you are quoting another person word for word you should distinguish their words from your own writing. For a short quote (less than 40 words), enclose the writer's words in double "quotation marks"within your sentence:

According to Hogg and Vaughan (2002) "self-esteem is closely associated with social identity" (p. 133) and so feelings of high self-esteem give people a sense of fitting into society.

Separate longer quotes from the body of your text, indented 1.3cm or 5 spaces and double spaced. In this case you do not need to use quotation marks and you should write the page number in brackets immediately after the quote. An example:

Hogg and Vaughan (2002) suggest the following ways in which aggression can be reduced:

In families, parents can raise more peaceful children by

not rewarding acts of violence, by rewarding behaviour

that is not compatible with violence, and by avoiding the

use of punishing behaviour themselves. At the

interpersonal level... techniques of behaviour

modification, social skills training, non-aggressive

modelling, anger management and assertiveness

training have been shown to be effective in teaching

people self-control. (p.477)

These examples of tackling aggression demonstrate...

If you need to leave out some words from the quote replace them with ... (three dots). To insert your own words into the quote to ensure it makes grammatical sense in your work, write your words in [square brackets] to distinguish them from the author's. In both cases be careful not to alter the meaning of the quote by removing or adding too many words.

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SMIRK - APA referencing by Cardiff University Information Services, adapted by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/citingreferences/apatutorial/index.html.

Citing quotes

As shown in the examples on the previous page, when citing quotes you must include the page number containing the quote as well as the author's last name and the date of publication. This is to help the reader find the quote:

"Self-esteem is closely associated with social identity" (Hogg & Vaughan, 2002, p. 477).

and/or

According to Hogg and Vaughan (2002) "self-esteem is closely associated with social identity" (p. 133).

Sometimes, particularly if the source is a web page, it may not be possible to include a page number. In this case, if there are paragraph numbers cite those instead. If no paragraph numbers are available, note the heading of the section and count the paragraphs to identify the paragraph number containing your quote:

"An emphasis on habit formation was probably the characteristic with which early behaviorism was most closely associated" (Wozniak, 1997, Areas of Emphasis section, para. 34).

If there are no sub-headings in the document, you can leave out the location information.

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SMIRK - APA referencing by Cardiff University Information Services, adapted by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/citingreferences/apatutorial/index.html.

List of references

At the end of your work, under the heading References, list in full all of the sources that you have cited. Your references list should be:

Here's how:

And finally....

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SMIRK - APA referencing by Cardiff University Information Services, adapted by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/citingreferences/apatutorial/index.html.

How to reference a book

You need to include the following information:

Author. (Year). Book title. Place: Publisher.

Example:

Pashler, H. E. (2004). The psychology of attention. Cambridge, MA: MIT.

If there is more than one author, insert an & before the last author's name. If the book is in its second edition or beyond, you also need to include this information in the reference:

Seifert, K. L., Hoffnung, R. J., & Hoffnung, M. (2000). Lifespan development (2nd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 

Tip: All the information you need to reference a book is usually on the title page. This is usually one of the first pages and has the copyright information on the back.

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SMIRK - APA referencing by Cardiff University Information Services, adapted by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/citingreferences/apatutorial/index.html.

How to reference a chapter in an
edited book

Sometimes books contain collections of chapters which are written by different authors and collated by an editor or editors. To reference a chapter in an edited book you need to record the following details:

Chapter Author. (Year). Title of chapter. In Book Editor (Ed.), Book title (chapter page numbers). Place: Publisher.

Cooke, D. J., & Philip, L. (2001). To treat or not to treat? An empirical perspective. In C.R. Hollin (Ed.), Handbook of offender assessment and treatment (pp. 3-15). Chichester: Wiley.

Tips:

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SMIRK - APA referencing by Cardiff University Information Services, adapted by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/citingreferences/apatutorial/index.html.

How to reference a journal article

To cite a journal article you will need to record the following information:

Author. (Year). Article title. Journal Title, Volume Number, pages.

Heinze, H. J., Mangun, G. R., Buchert, W., Hinrichs, H., Scholz, M., & Munte, T.F. (1994). Combined spatial and temporal imaging of brain activity during visual selective attention in humans. Nature, 372, 543-546.

Tips:

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SMIRK - APA referencing by Cardiff University Information Services, adapted by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/citingreferences/apatutorial/index.html.

How to reference an electronic
journal article

If the electronic journal article is also available in paper format and if the layout, page numbers, text and images are exactly the same, you can just reference it as you would a print journal article. If you have only looked at the electronic version you should add [Electronic version] after the article title.

For a journal article which is only available online or differs from its print version you will need to include the date when you found it and the URL:

Author(s). (Year). Article title. Journal Title, Volume Number, pages. Retrieved month day, year, from URL

Brown, S. L., & Bedi, G. (2001). The relationship between coping style and affect in recovering cardiac patients. Current Research in Psychology, 6, 151-165. Retrieved September 3, 2005, from http://www.uiowa.edu/grpproc/crisp/crisp.6.11.htm

Tip: If page numbers are not available for an electronic journal article, they can be omitted. In such cases, it may be helpful to include a paragraph number instead.

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SMIRK - APA referencing by Cardiff University Information Services, adapted by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/citingreferences/apatutorial/index.html.

How to reference a web document

To cite a document from a web page (that is not an electronic journal) you should record the following information in the reference: Author or Editor (if available). (Year, if available). Title. Retrieved month day, year, from organisation Web site: (if applicable) URL

Wozniak, R. H. (1997). Behaviourism: The early years. Retrieved May 31, 2005, from Bryn Mawr College Psychology Department Web site: http://www.brynmawr.edu/
Acads/Psych/rwozniak/behaviorism.html

Tips: Citing web pages can be problematic:

If you quote from a web page with no page numbers, remember you can use the paragraph numbers or sub-headings in your citation.

Above all, a good web site should have sufficient ownership information to enable you to cite. Detective work may be required, but in cases where no ownership can be found, you should question whether the source is of sufficient quality to cite in support of your research.

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SMIRK - APA referencing by Cardiff University Information Services, adapted by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/citingreferences/apatutorial/index.html.