What is the correct format for citations and references in papers you write for my psychology courses?

Use American Psychological Association (APA) format for citing sources within your writing and for listing references at the end of your paper.

For information on APA format, check the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (4th edition) in the library reference area (or check if it is on reserve). Psychology majors might want to consider purchasing a copy of this manual: On the web, see APA style page, APA manual,or APA style-writer software.

Another good way of following APA format is by example. Go to the library and photocopy any article from an APA journal such as Developmental Psychology, or the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. You can use that article as an example for how to format your paper.

In psychology research papers, citations within the text are used to credit the original idea to the authors. The same is true for factual information. If you are describing statistics for rates of depression in adult women and men, you should follow that description with a citation of the source of that information.

Examples of citing sources

Example A
Infants show lateralization for perceiving melodies by the age of 8 months (Balaban, Anderson, & Wisniewski, 1998).

Example B
Balaban and colleagues refuted the idea of a simple left-ear advantage for melody processing in infants (Balaban, Anderson, & Wisniewski, 1998).

Example C
Balaban, Anderson, and Wisniewki (1998) refuted the idea of a simple left-ear advantage for melody processing in infants.

Let's suppose you use both statements A and B in your paper. Then you would change the second citation to use the abbreviation for the Latin phrase et alia, meaning and others. The abbreviation is et al. with a period after the "al" because it is the abbreviation for "alia".

Infants show lateralization for perceiving melodies by the age of 8 months (Balaban, Anderson, & Wisniewski, 1998)... Balaban and colleagues refuted the idea of a simple left-ear advantage for melody processing in infants (Balaban et al., 1998).

If you are describing information from one study over several sentences or paragraphs, you do not have to give the citation at the end of every sentence; however, you should give the citation early in your description and write your description so that it is obvious to the reader that all that content is based on X & Y’s study.

In psychology research papers, any sources that appear in your reference list must be cited in your paper. The reference list is not a general bibliography. If you have read background material, but have not cited it in your paper, do not include that source in the reference list.

Also, any sources that you cite in the paper must appear in your reference list. This includes web sources, books, articles, personal communications from experts, and so on.

In psychology research papers, any source that you cite within the text should be a source that you have read. That is, if you are reading Gorrinson’s (1995) paper, and she cites Jarwitz and Keesler (1991), you really should not cite Jarwitz and Keesler (1991) unless you have obtained that paper and have read it. If you have not read the Jarwitz and Keesler paper, then you are relying on Gorrinson’s interpretation of what Jarwitz and Keesler said or found, and that is not optimal. Acceptable circumstances that are exceptions to this rule are when the other source (Jarwitz and Keesler in this example) is in a different language, is a very old publication, or is otherwise difficult to obtain. As a student, you sometimes do not have time to request all the previous sources that you would need. If you have to cite a source that another source cited but you have not been able to obtain, use the APA format for secondary source citation. This involves three steps:

1. Cite the source correctly in the body of your paper, for example:
This finding was replicated recently (Jarwitz and Keesler, 1991, as cited in Gorrinson, 1995).

2. The reference for Gorrinson is listed in your reference list.

3. The reference for Jarwitz and Keesler is not listed in your reference list.

In psychology papers, as a general rule, do not include authors’ first names, journal titles, or article titles within the text as you write. Simply refer to the author(s) using last name(s). This is true even for the first time that you mention a source.

In your citations, give page numbers only if you are using a direct quote from a book or article.

Researchers noted that "the memory and motor demands of the task are not suited for very young infants" (Balaban, Anderson, & Wisniewski, 1998, p.45).

Balaban, M. T., Anderson, L. M., & Wisniewski, A. B. (1998). Lateral asymmetries in infant melody perception.

     Developmental Psychology, 34, 39-48.

Note the pattern of capitalization for the title of the article (Capitalize first word only, unless proper names - also capitalize the first word following a colon).

Note the pattern of capitalization for the journal title (all main words capitalized).

Note that the authors’ initials, rather than first names, are listed.

GO TO

Balaban Home Page   Psychology Home Page