Project, Program & Portfolio Management

This tutorial offers basic guidelines for writing and formatting papers in APA Style (7th edition), including how to ethically incorporate outside sources through in-text citations and reference list entries.

In October 2019, the American Psychological Association published its 7th edition of the APA Publication Manual, which replaced the 6th edition from 2009. To learn about the major changes in the APA guidelines, please consult this video tutorial. 

This tutorial discusses noteworthy differences between the 6th (2009) and 7th edition (2019) of the APA Style Manual, as these relate to formatting as well as to preferred language choices.

IBIS World Database

In text: (Haider, 2015)

Bibliographic citation:

Haider, Z. (2015). IBISWorld Industry Report 52211. Commercial Banking in the US. https://www.ibisworld.com

Mintel 

In text: (Spencer, 2015)

Bibliographic citation:

Spencer, D. (2015). Outdoor enthusiasts - US. https://mintel.com

Statista 

In text: (Nielsen, n.d.)

Bibliographic citation:

Nielsen. (n.d.). Sports events with the biggest Twitter TV audiences in the United States in 2014. https://statista.com

Simmons Insights

In text: (MRI-Simmons, 2021)

Bibliographic citation: 

MRI-Simmons. (2021). National Consumer Study [CONCISELY DESCRIBE VARIABLE ONE AND VARIABLE TWO]. https://mrisimmons.com

Social Explorer

In text: (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016)

Bibliographic citation:

U.S. Census Bureau. (2016). American Community Survey, [CONCISELY DESCRIBE VARIABLES]. https://socialexplorer.com

Personal Communications

No personal communication is included in your reference list; instead, parenthetically cite the communicator's name, the phrase "personal communication," and the date of the communication in your main text only.

In text: (E. Robbins, personal communication, January 4, 2001).

OR 

A. P. Smith also claimed that many of her students had difficulties with APA style (personal communication, November 3, 2002).

When you have two or more sources written by the same author (individual or corporate) and published in the same year, use lowercase letters after the year so that your reader can distinguish which source is which. 

Bibliographic Examples: 

Koriat, A. (2008a). Easy comes, easy goes? The link between learning and remembering and its exploitation in metacognition. Memory & Cognition, 36, 416–428. https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.36.2.416

Koriat, A. (2008b). Subjective confidence in one’s answers: The consensuality principle. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34, 945–959. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.34.4.945

In text Examples: 

(Koriat, 2008a) and (Koriat, 2008b) 

NOTE: Figures mean graphs, photos, illustrations, screenshots, etc. (e.g. not a Table)

Number figures consecutively throughout your paper.

Double-space the caption that appears under a figure.

When you use a figure in your paper that has been adapted or copied directly from another source, you need to reference the original source.  This reference appears as a caption underneath the figure that you copied or adapted for your paper.

If an image, figure or table is reproduced from another source for a published work, permission must be sought from the copyright holder and this information must be included in the caption; it is not enough just to cite the source. For example: Copyright 2014 by the ABC Company. Reprinted with permission.

Sources for tables must be listed in your reference list. Sources for images or figures are not required in your reference list.

According to Bluebook Rule 12.9.2, ordinances are cited analogously to statutes.  Give the full name of the city, town or county, followed by the abbreviation of the state (see table T1).  Then, give the name of the code, the section and the year of the code.

Use small caps formatting for the geographic area and code name.

For example:  WORCESTER, MASS., REV. ORDINANCES ch. 1, § 1 (2008).

Ask your program about their guidelines for incorporating information generated by ChatGPT and other AI in your papers. When permissible to use that information directly, use the suggestions below.

To cite the informational product generated by ChatGPT or other AI, the recommendation is for the Methodology and/or Introduction of your paper to specify the following:  

• The prompt you used when utilizing ChatGPT; and 
• The text that the chatbot produced in response. If the response from ChatGPT is lengthy, please include it in the form of an Appendix. 

As for the in-text citation and the Reference item that will follow this description, apply APA Publication Manual’s templates for citing software (Section 10.10). 

In-text example: 

(OpenAI, 2023) 

Reference example: 

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (May 24 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/