American Psychological Association Style

Rocky Mountain College follows the APA (American Psychological Association) formatting guidelines for all academic writing submissions. Please refer to the Academic Research Resource course in your Course Platform for more important writing and research support and a more detailed look at APA style.

Below is a summarization of APA style and the RMC Writing Style Guide.

Details can be found in the RMC Writing Style Guidelines.

 

Basic In-text Citations

For in-text citations the basic style is: (Last name, date, p. page number OR pp. for listing multiple pages)

1. If there are two authors, both names are listed joined by ampersand (&)—(e.g., Smith & Jones, 2004,p.7). For three or more authors list the name of the first author followed by "et al." (e.g., Smith et al.,2015,pp.8-10).
2. When referring to the authors within the paper; however, use proper sentence structure. See below:

"...as has been shown (Smith & Jones, 2004).."
"Smith and Jones (2004) have demonstrated..."

When referencing the title of a work in the text of your paper, make sure you use title case capitalization (regardless of reference format) AND follow the  formatting style from your reference list- usually italics.

If there might be confusion between two or more in-text citations, additional information is added to make it clear which is referred to, both in the in-text citation and the reference list.

1.  If there is more than one publication by the same author in the same year, letters are used after the date to distinguish each one (e.g., Smith, 2004a; Smith, 2004b).
2. If there is more than one primary author with the same last name, even if the year of publication is different, initials are used in all text citations to distinguish between them (e.g., P.  Smith, 2001 and G. Smith, 1998).

For paraphrases, the basis style is: (Last names, date) with no page numbers.

 

Reference List

The following are basic principles for properly listing sources in your reference list using APA Style:

1. All sources cited in the text must be included in the references list at the end of the paper. Do not include additional resources that were consulted but not referenced.
2. The references list begins a new page. The heading for this section is "References"and it is formatted as bold and centered at the top of the page. NOTE: do not use quotation marks or underline the title.
3. Items in your reference list should be double spaced with no extra space between entries.
4. Items in a reference list should be formatted in hanging paragraphs.
5. Reference lists are alphabetized according to the Author’s last name.
6. If there is more than one entry by the same author, these are listed in chronological order, beginning with the earliest.

The entry style for individual sources varies depending on the type of source. Please see RMC Writing Style Guidelines or the APA Style resource below for citing particulars.
NOTE: RMC Writing Styles Guidelines is currently being updated so please reference either of the sources below.

 

For more information go to:

APA Style (Links to an external site.)
(The official site showing you how to use the APA style)

American Psychological Association.(n.d.). APA style. https://apastyle.apa.org/ (Links to an external site.)

OWL Writing Lab - APA Format (Links to an external site.) (A great site that shows how to use the APA citations and format)

Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.). General format. Purdue Online Writing Lab. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/general_format.html