It helps to know how to read a citation before learning how to create one. Most of your citations will probably come from magazines, newspapers, or web pages. Here are several examples of basic citations in APA (American Psychological Association) format including an example both for journal article and book.
There are more examples of basic APA citations on the
PDF; however, it's always best to double check any citation in the instructor's preferred edition of the style manual. Currently, the APA is on the 7th edition. The Library keeps a copy behind the Reference Desk but you may purchase your own in paper or electronically (currently only available in Kindle format for selected devices). Working with the Miller Writing Center on your citations is always a good idea.
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Diagram of APA magazine citation.
This article does not have an author so the citation starts with the title of the article. Also, many magazine articles have month/day along with volume and issue numbers -- month/day is the preferred APA form.
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Diagram of APA newspaper citation.
This article does have an author so the citation starts with that. Notice also that the year and day are included.
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Diagram of APA website citation.
This page has what is known as a group or corporate an author rather than an individual person. Notice also that the date the page was created could not be found so "(n.d.)" for "no date" is used instead.
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Diagram of APA journal citation.
Notice the DOI number in the citation. For more information on DOI's and URL's in APA format, check out their blog entry A DOI Primer
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Diagram of APA book citation Book citations have place of publication and publisher rather than volume and issue numbers to help identify them.
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