APA Citation Style & Formatting

APA Style

APA style is a set of guidelines developed to help writers express their ideas and research findings clearly and consistently. APA Style was developed by the American Psychological Association and is used in the social sciences, including psychology.

This online guide is designed to help students with several basic areas of APA Style including:

• Citing print and online sources in a references page at the end of a paper
• Citing sources in the body of the paper (sometimes called in-text citations)
• Basic formatting of the paper
• Avoiding plagiarism

Citing your sources...

• helps readers of your paper to identify the sources of the information you used

• helps you find the information you used, later on

• helps you avoid plagiarism because it shows which ideas are yours and which ideas belong to another person

• is expected for college-level and professional-level academic work

For further information see College of San Mateo's plagiarism policy.