Academic Integrity

The American Psychological Association's (APA) Style is the official formatting and citation style of the VCSU Graduate Program.  As such, it is the expected editorial style for the graduate Action Research Paper and most other course-related assignments.

It is important that graduate students understand their professors' expectations as they go about their graduate-level work, particularly with regard to citations and formatting papers.  Library staff are available for formatting assistance and citation questions, but course instructors are the ultimate authority on what is acceptable work in their courses.

This guide will provide some basic information about APA style pulled from VCSU's APA citation guide. You can use this link to visit the full citation guide, which provides examples by citation type and other important information.

What are in-text citations and why do we use them?

An in-text citation is used in the body of your paper to let your reader know which parts of your writing are other people's ideas and which are your own. 

In text citations include the last name of the author or authors, the year a source was published, and the page number for any direct quotes. There are two main ways to include an in text citation in a paper: parenthetical and narrative citations.

Parenthetical citations are when the in text citation is put in parentheses at the end of a sentence. For example: Science exists (Lastname, 2024). These parentheses go before the period or other ending punctuation mark. 

Narrative citations are when the author's name is mentioned in the sentence itself. For example: Lastname, a scientist, found that science exists (2024). Any reference information you provide in a sentence can be left out of the parentheses. On page 34 of their 2024 book, Firstname Lastname states "the multidisciplinary concept of science does, indeed, exist." 

Block Quotes

When you are quoting more than 40 words in a row from a source, you need to use a block quotation. To set up a block quote, you need to go to a new line, write your quote, then indent the entire quote. Don't put quotation marks around your quote and make sure it's double-spaced. Put a parenthetical citation, including the page number, at the end of the full quote unless the author and date are mentioned in your text, in which case include only the page number in parentheses. Visit the APA Style Guide's Quotations page for more information about block quotes.

Example with parenthetical in-text citation

One professor who specializes in course design writes: 

As instructors in higher education, our teaching is grounded in our conceptions (and our assumptions and theories) of how people learn. We must, however, be ever mindful that, for most of our students, the academy will not be their career destination. Our students will move into the world of service and the world of work where they will need to know how to function well. (Robertson 2018, p. 27)

Example with narrative in-text citation

Robertson (2018) makes an important point about college students' futures when she states:

As instructors in higher education, our teaching is grounded in our conceptions (and our assumptions and theories) of how people learn. We must, however, be ever mindful that, for most of our students, the academy will not be their career destination. Our students will move into the world of service and the world of work where they will need to know how to function well. (p.27)

Source for block quotations: 

Robertson, L. (2018). Toward an epistemology of active learning in higher education and its promise. In Misseyanni, A., Lytras, M. D., Papadopoulou, P., & Marouli, C. (Eds), Active learning strategies in higher education: Teaching for leadership, innovation, and creativity (pp.26-49). Emerald Publishing Ltd. 

Reference Page Format:

The reference page for an APA paper should follow these guidelines: 

• The reference page should have References written at the top, centered and bolded.
• References should be alphabetized by author's last name, or the first word of the title if there is no author for a source.
• The reference page should be double-spaced.
• Each source should have a hanging indent.
• Each source should be cited in APA style. 

For more in-depth explanations of how to create a reference page, check out this APA Style Creating Reference List Handout from the APA website.

APA Reference Page Basics:

• All citations should be double spaced
• Indent after the first line of each entry
• Entries are not numbered
• If an element is not present, omit it
• Alphabetize by the first word of the entry
• Enter author's last name followed by first and middle initials
• Italics must be used for book and periodical titles
• Capitalize ONLY the first word of a title, the first word of a subtitle, and proper nouns in titles of books and articles, no matter how they appear in a database or catalog
• Use (n.d.) if no date is given

Elements of a Citation:

APA Style requires four elements in citations: Author, Date, Title, and Source. 

Author: Who wrote the work you're citing? You may have a single author, multiple authors, an organization as author, or an unknown author.

Date: When was the work published? Most sources have a publication date available, while others may have a "last modified date." Occasionally, you will find information with no date, especially when using web pages.

Title: What is your work called? Most of the time, the title is easy to find, although websites or web pages may be more complicated.

Source: Where can the work be accessed? The source element has a few subsections of information depending on the type of work being cited. 

Other Guides:

If you want more information than the VCSU citation guide linked above, or need to see things organized differently, there are several excellent resources available!

• The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition (R 808 P96 2020 in our Library) is the official APA style guide, which covers every step of the writing and publishing process.
• Purdue University offers a free Web-based guide, the Purdue Owl.
• The APA Style's official website offers tutorials, tools, and blog posts covering unique source types.

Contact the Library:

If you need help with your citations, contact Hannah, VCSU's Research and Instruction Librarian, using the information on our Ask A Librarian page.