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WATS 6840: Citation Help

[WATS|5350/6350/5150/6150/6840/5620/5621/5622/5623/5624/5625|Joe Wheaton]

Citing Sources in APA

According to APA 7th Edition guidelines you need to find out as much information as you can about who created and published a source and when. You communicate this to your audience through in-text and Reference List citations which your readers can look up themselves.

APA Guides

Recommended sources for help with APA style guidelines:

Automatically Creating Citations in Library Article Collections

Many databases and article collections, plus many e-books, will automatically create citations for whichever article or chapter you are viewing.

Look for a “Cite,” “CiteNow,” or “Cite This Item” button on the database record for the specific article or chapter.
(Not all databases have this feature. For example, LexisNexis does not.)

Examples of citation buttons:

             Cite Button (EBSCOhost)                                      Cite Button (ProQuest)                           Cite This Item Button (JSTOR)

     EBSCOhost databases                      ProQuest databases                               JSTOR
(e.g., Academic Search Premier)
                 (e.g, Newsstand)

DOI

APA style requires that a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) be included in your citation, if available. To see if a journal article has been assigned a DOI, you can look it up on CrossRef or Ask a Librarian.

example of where to find a DOI on a journal article

For more information about the DOI system, see http://www.doi.org.

Online Citation Creators

There are plenty of citation creators online, but you always need to double-check their accuracy. Never copy and paste without reviewing the citation for accuracy yourself!

Citing Statistics and Data

The APA Style website provides guidelines for properly citing datasets and toolboxes, in APA (7th edition).

Depending on the source, you may also find the guidelines for citing a webpage on a website or a whole website helpful.