Using APA Style
When using APA style, whether you summarize, paraphrase, or quote an author, you need to cite (give credit to) the original author. If you don’t do this, it is the same as claiming that you wrote the material yourself. This is called plagiarism, which is a form of intellectual theft. There is no need to plagiarize! Using other people’s work is an accepted and encouraged way of writing a paper, as long as you cite your sources. This handout outlines the most common citation types that students at DeVry will need. If you are using materials that are not outlined here, come to the library and ask for
The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th ed. (call number REF BF 76.7 .P83 2001). If you are going to buy this book yourself, be sure to get the 5th edition, which is the most recent.
There are two main parts to APA:
In text citations
These are in the text (the main part) of your paper. You will provide the author’s name and the year when the material was published.
Reference List
This is a list at the end of your paper, with complete information on the items you used to do your research. Here you will provide information like book titles, publisher name and location, website addresses, etc. Information such as this should never appear in the text of your paper.
The in-text citations and the reference list should match. For every in-text citation, there should be an entry in the reference list, and for every entry in the reference list, there should be an in-text citation.
In Text Citations
Summaries and paraphrasing
Paraphrasing means that you explain what an author has said, in your own words. You still need to give credit to the original author. This is done by inserting the author’s name and the year the material was published, in parentheses.
One author
Modern encryption systems use a series of very complex algorithms (Guisnel, 1997).
or
According to Guisnel (1997), modern...