APA 7 Reference Examples

When writing a research paper, it is important to cite any sources that you have consulted in your research. Acknowledge any ideas, information or arguments of others, whether they are directly quoted, paraphrased, or summarized. Citing sources gives credit to authors for the works you used, provides evidence to make your argument strong and enables the reader to check your sources. Failure to do so may be construed as plagiarism. Plagiarism is the presentation of the ideas of others as one’s own and is a serious academic offence.

Citation information must appear in two places.

• First, it must appear in the text of your paper at the point where the borrowed fact or idea appears. These are known as in-text citations.
• Secondly, you are required to include a complete list of sources at the end of the paper. These will appear in your reference list.

The reference list should be on a separate page at the end of the paper. This sheet will be called References (or Reference if there is only one citation). Do not bold, underline or use quotation marks around the heading, References. APA recommends using either a sans serif font such as 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, or 10 point Lucida Sans Unicode, or a serif font such as 12-point Times New Roman or 11-point Georgia. All entries must be double-spaced. The first line of each reference is set flush left and subsequent lines are indented. List references in alphabetical order by the author’s name or by title if there is no author. Italicize book and journal titles. Include all of the information needed to identify and retrieve the source. For the titles of books, articles, and chapters, capitalize only the first letter of the title and the subtitle. Always capitalize proper nouns and journal titles.

A Note on Electronic Sources

For electronic resources, the 7th edition of the APA Publication Manual (2020) suggests using the DOI in reference list citations. When this is not possible, APA suggests writers should add the homepage URL for the journal, or for the eBook publisher.

• Consult the APA Style Blog at https://apastyle.apa.org/blog. For hundreds of examples, click on APA Style Reference Examples or go directly to https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples
• Visit, phone or email the Research Help Desk in the library:

             T: 604.432.8371

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• Drop in for a free session during the scheduled hours at BCIT’s Writing Centre.
• Submit your paper or a question to WriteAway or Chat online with a Librarian using AskAway.
• Consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association in the library. (Call #BF 76.7 A46 2020).

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