What is an APA citation and when to cite it?
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Whenever you use other authors’ ideas, you must give credit. The act of crediting these words is known as citation .
So, “Citing something” means giving credit to an idea, thought, or phrase. For example, if you add a quote from someone recognized in your field of research, you must cite the original author. If you don’t cite your work correctly, you could be accused of plagiarism , which can have both academic and legal consequences.
What citation system uses APA Standards?
citation method . This means that for each citation, you must include the author’s last name and the year the source was published. A complete citation must appear in the bibliographic reference list at the end of your text. There are other citation methods that you can learn about in other style guidelines .
What types of citations exist in APA format?
APA style separates citations into two broad classes: direct citations and paraphrased citations.
Textual citations
These are considered direct quotes , where you reproduce the author’s exact words. The presentation format changes depending on the size. Quotes of more than 40 words are displayed one way in the text, while quotes of up to 40 words are displayed another way.
Paraphrased quotes
Paraphrasing is considered when you retell another author’s ideas in your own words. Whenever you paraphrase another author (i.e., summarize a passage or rearrange the order of a sentence and change some of the words), you must also credit the source in the text.
Narrative citations or parenthetical citations
There are two basic formats for presenting in-text citations. You can present the citation as a narrative or in parentheses after the quotation. In some Spanish APA Standards books, this is specified as ” 
“ and “author-based citation .” In English, the original term used by APA is “Narrative Citation” or “Parenthetical Citation .”
Narrative quote (based on the author)
This type of citation is known as author-based because we add the author’s name at the beginning of the sentence. In narrative citations, the author’s name is incorporated into the text as part of the sentence, and the year follows in parentheses.
Recommendations
- Please check that the authors’ names in the citations match the authors‘ names in the reference list. All authors in the reference list must have been cited in the text, either verbatim or in paraphrased form.
- Be sure to always cite . That is, if you found a quote from Book A in Book B, you should look for this information directly in Book B and cite it. Sometimes it’s impossible to find the original work. In these cases, you can cite secondary sources (but do so sparingly).
- Even when the source can’t be retrieved (for example, if you want to cite an email – readers won’t be able to access yours), you should still credit the author in the text as if it were a personal communication. Do this sparingly.
- Avoid both underquoting (few citations) and overquoting (many citations). Underquoting can often lead to plagiarism and/or self-plagiarism . Overquoting is unnecessary and can be distracting to the reader. An example of overquoting is repeating the same quote in every sentence when the source and topic have not changed. Instead, when paraphrasing a key point in more than one sentence within a paragraph, cite the source in the first sentence where it is relevant and do not repeat the quote in subsequent sentences as long as the source remains clear and unchanged.
Secondary appointments
We always try to use a primary source when citing. A primary source is where the original content is found. A secondary source refers to the original content reported in another source. If possible, find the primary source, read it, and cite it directly instead of citing a secondary source. Use secondary citations when the original work is out of print, unavailable, or only available in a foreign language.
Follow these guidelines when citing a secondary source:
- In the reference list, provide an entry for the secondary source you used.
- In the text, identify the primary source and write “as cited in” and list the secondary source.
- If the year of publication of the primary source is known, include it in the in-text citation as well.
