How to Reference in APA Style

One of the referencing styles used the most in the field of psychology is the APA style.

In the presentation below, you will find out how to write your in-text citations and your reference list in that style.

How to cite and reference in APA style from iSkillsTav

Excluding the author or the year from a citation

In theory

A normal citation

When writing an in-text citation in APA or Harvard style, the basic citation form looks like this;

(Author, YEAR)

For example:

Recent research in social work (Smith and Jones, 2003) has shown that...

Excluding the author

But if you use the name of the author(s) earlier in the sentence, you don't need to write it once again within the brackets.

For example, you wouldn't do that:

Smith and Jones (Smith and Jones, 2003) found that...

Instead, you're going to exclude the author's name from the brackets, so that you don't repeat it within the same sentence.

So your new citation will just look like this:

(YEAR)

In context:

 Smith and Jones (2003) found that...

Excluding the year

Similarly, if you've written the year earlier in the sentence, you don't have to repeat it in the brackets.
So your citation will look like this:

 (Author)

Instead of this:

 In 2003, an interesting study (Smith and Jones, 2003) showed that...

You will write this:

 In 2003, an interesting study (Smith and Jones) showed that...

In practice, with EndNote

Before inserting a citation

As per usual, click "Insert Citations" in the EndNote tab at the top of your Word document.

Once you've chosen the reference to include to your document, instead of clicking "Insert", click on the arrow next to it to see a dropdown menu that will enable you either "Insert" normally, "Insert & Exclude Author", or "Insert & Exclude Year".

Making changes to an existing citation

Click into an existing citation, then click "Edit Citation(s)" in the EndNote tab at the top of your Word document.
At the bottom of the pop-up that appears, in the "Edit Citation" tab, you can click or unclick boxes to either Exclude author or Exclude year.

Note that if you cite the same document several times, any changes you make to one citation using the "Edit Citation(s)" menu will only change the one in-text citation you selected and not the others.

Questions from students: which referencing style should I use?

Do you know which referencing style you should use in your essays and dissertation?
You will most probably find the answer to that question in your course handbook, or by asking your tutor.

Nonetheless, know that, if you're a student at the Tavistock and Portman,  it's most probably going to be one of those two options:

• The "Cite Them Right" version of the Harvard Style;
• Or the APA style.

Doing it by hand

To learn how to write in Harvard Style, you can:

• Check out the "Cite Them Right" book in the library (shelfmark JJE);
• Watch this video;
• Ask your tutor to organise a training session with me on the subject.

To learn how to write in APA Style, you can:

• Go over this tutorial;
• Ask your tutor to organise a training session with me on the subject.

With the help of a software

You also can you a reference management software that will "write" everything in the format you want automatically.

If you've never used such a software and don't have too many references, you can use RefMe, which is a free and very easy of use web application.
Just create an account and start entering information about your documents!

If you have a long reference list to create and don't mind learning to use a new software, you should try EndNote Web.
You will probably need a little bit more help to get it set up. So you should:

• Have a look at my "Citing and Referencing... with a software" section on the Information Skills Moodle course;
• Check the "Managing References" section on this blog;
• Ask your tutor to organise a training session with me on the subject. 

Good luck with your referencing!