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Using Academic Sources

This is a companion guide to "Finding Academic Sources". Its goal is to make student researchers more comfortable with using scholarly material in their own research.

APA Brief Overview

APA (American Psychological Association) is mostly used by the social sciences (Education, Psychology, Sciences), Business and Nursing. Citation styles are often updated; this content is specific to APA, Seventh Edition.

Below are examples of both in-text citation (those that appear within the actual paper) as well as reference citations (those that appear at the end of your paper and connect to the in-text citations). More examples of APA in-text and reference citations can be seen in this example paper written by CMU professor of Kinesiology Dr. Elizabeth Sharp: Required and Non-Required College Physical Activity Classes Effect on College Students' Stress

Example of in-text citation and a direct quote: 

Example of in-text citation and a paraphrase: 

Example of reference citations: