APA Style: APA Style

APA Overview | Author Formatting | Books | Articles | Webpages/Online | General Guidelines  

APA stands for American Psychological Association.  APA Style is used to write papers and cite sources in the sciences such as nursing, psychology, and social sciences.
The purpose of citing sources is:

• To avoid plagiarism
• To give credit to the original creator of information you used in your research paper
• To inform readers of the sources you used

If you are asked to use APA format, be sure to consult the APA Publication Manual (6th edition), available at the MPC Library.

Online Access (Spring 2020) to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association!

• Get access to the manual plus other helpful tools online while MPC is sheltering in place. Note: For latest APA information, make sure you search for 7th edition (ISBN 1433832178). 

Many of the MPC databases provide MLA and APA citation formatting, but they are not always formatted correctly.  Also, other online citation makers are not always accurate. It is important to check their accuracy against a citation style guide like this guide.