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Timothy McAdoo
Washington, DC
Content Development Manager, APA Style, APA Books http://www.timothymcadoo.com
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Hi, Rupert.
That's a great point! In many cases, having both names can be helpful information for the reader. For instance, in the example above, a reader may not know what "apapubint" means, but the display name ("Public Interest Directorate") is more easily understood. And, the reverse is also true: Because the display name can be changed, the consistency of the account name can be a useful indicator of the true identity. Thus, we recommend including both even though there are sometimes cases where the result looks slightly redundant: APA Style [@officialapastyle].
In general, our guideline is "cite what you see" so that your reference reflects the information as it appeared in the version of the source you used at the time of your research.
How to Cite Instagram in APA Style
by Timothy McAdoo We’ve joined Instagram! Follow us for APA Style tips, FAQs, and maybe even some contests! https://instagram.com/officialapastyle How do you cite Instagram? Whether you're citing a photo, a video, a profile page, or a highlight, just include the following in your reference: ...
Thanks!
Group Authors
by Timothy McAdoo In 2010, the estimated number of websites was 255 million. That translates to a staggering number of individual webpages. Who’s writing all those pages? And, how should you cite them in APA Style? In this post, I’ll focus on just one possibility: group authors. Although the ...
Great question! For APA Style, following our "cite what you see" guideline, we would recommend using "Associated Press" as the author in that reference.
Group Authors
by Timothy McAdoo In 2010, the estimated number of websites was 255 million. That translates to a staggering number of individual webpages. Who’s writing all those pages? And, how should you cite them in APA Style? In this post, I’ll focus on just one possibility: group authors. Although the ...
Good catch. No, that was just a typo in both the question and answer, it seems. When a citation includes "et al." it should include that consistently. My reply was meant to convey that either of the two proposed wordings is okay: "the research conducted by Smith et al. (1999)..." or "Smith et al.'s (1999) research on..."
Et al.: When and How?
by Paige Jackson This week, we continue on down the list of frequent APA Style stumbling blocks compiled by Dr. Anthony Onwuegbuzie and colleagues (Onwuegbuzie, Combs, Slate, & Frels, 2010). These authors contributed a recent guest post to our blog, and this is our third follow-up post on spe...
Interviews you conduct should be cited with the “personal communication” in-text citation style shown on p. 179. If you need to discuss research participant data, this post will also be helpful: https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2013/08/lets-talk-about-research-participants.html.
APA Style for Citing Interviews
by Timothy McAdoo “I’m quoting Johnny Depp from an interview I read in a magazine. But the Publication Manual has no reference format for interviews. What do I do?” I’ve always said there are two types of interviews in this world: those you conducted and those you didn’t! Let’s look at both. ...
Another great question! No, the Publication Manual guidelines do not recommend capitalizing any other phrases.
Spelling Success in APA Style
by Timothy McAdoo Readers send us APA Style questions every week—by e-mail, phone, Twitter, and Facebook. We love hearing from you, and we love the variety of your questions! People sometimes contact us just to verify how a word is spelled or formatted. For example, “Is the word Internet capi...
Good question! Yes, this guideline covers any such terms based on these words.
Spelling Success in APA Style
by Timothy McAdoo Readers send us APA Style questions every week—by e-mail, phone, Twitter, and Facebook. We love hearing from you, and we love the variety of your questions! People sometimes contact us just to verify how a word is spelled or formatted. For example, “Is the word Internet capi...
Good question. We do not have a guideline on decimals particular to percentages. More generally, the Publication Manual does recommend rounding "as much as possible while keeping prospective use and statistical precision in mind" (p. 113).
The Grammar of Mathematics: Percentage or %?
by Timothy McAdoo As Chelsea so succinctly noted in her recent post about how statistical terms are introduced and used in APA Style manuscripts, “in the social sciences, the worlds of grammar and mathematics intersect.” Thus, when you first start to write about statistical results, you may enc...
Because one purpose of the reference is to provide your readers with the source information, so they can retrieve the information, a source element is needed (see also https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2012/05/missing-pieces.html).
But, if you search the Internet for that CD title, you will find some potential sources. If you verify that the source is the same one you have, you can use one of those URLs as your reference's source element.
The Generic Reference: Where
by Jeff Hume-Pratuch This post is part of an ongoing series about how references work. It began with an introduction to the generic APA Style reference and posts on the author or “who” element, the date or “when” element, and the title or “what” element. Upcoming posts will cover adding supplem...
Good question! For a keynote or other sessions at a conference, you can adapt the first two examples at https://on.apa.org/2uGlQ0B. That is, change "Poster session presented..." to "Keynote session presented..."
How to Cite a Speech in APA Style
by Timothy McAdoo “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Martin Luther King, Jr. made this famous declaration on August 28, 1963, from the steps of the Lincol...
Hi, D. Thanks for writing! You are correct that an email correspondence is cited as a personal communication. And, I agree that if the interview is printed and submitted with the paper, it is akin to including an appendix in a paper. Such an appendix would be mentioned in the text of the paper ("see the Appendix" or "see Appendix A"), but it would not appear in the reference list either. One way to make such an interview retrievable might be to post the text to a personal website and then create a reference to that page. But, I think the first step should be discussing this with the teacher, who may have an opinion about how this should be handled.
APA Style for Citing Interviews
by Timothy McAdoo “I’m quoting Johnny Depp from an interview I read in a magazine. But the Publication Manual has no reference format for interviews. What do I do?” I’ve always said there are two types of interviews in this world: those you conducted and those you didn’t! Let’s look at both. ...
Great questions! It is often difficult to tell. If it is not a blog post, you can just leave that notation out. A format description in brackets is needed only when the format is something other than an article (e.g., a blog post or lecture notes). See also the template at https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2010/11/how-to-cite-something-you-found-on-a-website-in-apa-style.html. And, you are correct that "tips" should be in lowercase.
How to Cite a Blog Post in APA Style
by Timothy McAdoo Dear APA Style Experts, I’m a computer science major, and my favorite blog is called Gödel’s Lost Letter and P=NP, written by two esteemed computer science experts. Can I cite a post from that blog? I’m also writing a paper for my Introduction to Psychology class, and I want ...
Great question. In a reference without notations (the text in the square brackets), that is true. As noted in that other post, the question mark takes the place of the period that is in the same spot. However, in this reference (and others with notations following the title), the period comes after the last square bracket. That means that the question mark (at the end of the blog post's title) and the period (after the square bracket) are not in conflict.
This is true when a title is followed by parentheses, too (see an example at https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2018/09/how-to-cite-a-government-report-in-apa-style.html). If one of those reports ended in a question mark, it would stay next to the title and the period would follow the end parenthesis.
How to Cite a Blog Post in APA Style
by Timothy McAdoo Dear APA Style Experts, I’m a computer science major, and my favorite blog is called Gödel’s Lost Letter and P=NP, written by two esteemed computer science experts. Can I cite a post from that blog? I’m also writing a paper for my Introduction to Psychology class, and I want ...
Great question. You are correct to cite them as "(Lutz et al., 2008, 2015)"
Et al.: When and How?
by Paige Jackson This week, we continue on down the list of frequent APA Style stumbling blocks compiled by Dr. Anthony Onwuegbuzie and colleagues (Onwuegbuzie, Combs, Slate, & Frels, 2010). These authors contributed a recent guest post to our blog, and this is our third follow-up post on spe...
Good question! The distinction is that words like "Publishers," "Co.," and "Inc." are designations about the business structure of a company or a description, whereas words like "Books" and "Press" are usually part of the publisher's name. Include only the words needed "to identify the publisher" (per page 187 in the manual).
The Generic Reference: Where
by Jeff Hume-Pratuch This post is part of an ongoing series about how references work. It began with an introduction to the generic APA Style reference and posts on the author or “who” element, the date or “when” element, and the title or “what” element. Upcoming posts will cover adding supplem...
If the book does not indicate the location, and you are unable to find it, you can include the publisher name but omit the location from the reference. See also https://on.apa.org/2q8EkXM, particularly the Source Variations section.
The Generic Reference: Where
by Jeff Hume-Pratuch This post is part of an ongoing series about how references work. It began with an introduction to the generic APA Style reference and posts on the author or “who” element, the date or “when” element, and the title or “what” element. Upcoming posts will cover adding supplem...
Good question! For any reference without a title, include a description within brackets in place of the title (see https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2012/05/missing-pieces.html). For a special issue with no title, that might look like
Rotf, L. (Ed.). (2012). [Special issue about Internet cats]. The Journal of Internet Memes, 115(3).
Citing a Special Issue or Special Section in APA Style
by Timothy McAdoo Typically you cite one thing at a time: anything from a journal article, a book or book chapter, a CD or mp3, a painting, a legal document, or classroom notes to a webpage, a YouTube video, a computer app, an e-book, or even a Twitter or Facebook post. However, if you’ve ever ...
Hi, S. N. I'm sorry I missed your question. I've replied above.
APA Style for Citing Interviews
by Timothy McAdoo “I’m quoting Johnny Depp from an interview I read in a magazine. But the Publication Manual has no reference format for interviews. What do I do?” I’ve always said there are two types of interviews in this world: those you conducted and those you didn’t! Let’s look at both. ...
Good question. You have it right in Example A. If the interview is published, use the author given in the byline in that publication.
APA Style for Citing Interviews
by Timothy McAdoo “I’m quoting Johnny Depp from an interview I read in a magazine. But the Publication Manual has no reference format for interviews. What do I do?” I’ve always said there are two types of interviews in this world: those you conducted and those you didn’t! Let’s look at both. ...
The sentence that includes a quote should always include the citation with page number (or paragraph number; see https://on.apa.org/2lxWpbd). You can format as shown in any of the examples shown in this post, depending on the wording of your sentences and your preference.
How to Cite Direct Quotations
by Timothy McAdoo One of our goals for this blog is to convey that following the guidelines of APA Style need not restrict your flexibility as a writer. Because of space limitations, many style points illustrated in the APA Publication Manual show only one or two examples. We’re happy that the ...
If mentioning an entire site, it is okay to include just the URL (see https://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/cite-website), whether in the main text or in a footnote or elsewhere. However, to refer to a particular page or document, a reference should be included and the text (main text or footnote next) should include a regular citation (see http://on.apa.org/cite-the-web).
Footnotes for Source Citations in APA Style?
by Jeff Hume-Pratuch Dear Style Experts, I am writing a paper in APA Style. I have the sixth edition of the Publication Manual, but I’ve been unable to find instructions for how to format my citations in footnote form. All I see in the manual is examples of references. Can you help me? ...
How to Cite Instagram in APA Style
Posted Dec 10, 2018 at APA Style 6th Edition Blog
Comment
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Good questions! Yes, those all seem right. You can see this in the sample paper available at https://on.apa.org/2NrY8gS as well. The formatting applies to papers or manuscripts—when a manuscript is published in a journal, the figure is typically embedded into the text near the first callout and the caption is typeset to fit within the column (see, e.g., published articles from this APA journal: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/xlm/sample.aspx).
Figure Construction: Resisting the Urge to Obscure
by Stefanie The best figures make complex results understandable at a glance. Sometimes a procedure that would have taken three pages to describe can be illustrated in one well-designed chart. The principles of figure construction are described on pp. 150–167 of the sixth edition of the Publica...
Apologies for this very late reply! I missed this somehow, but I'll answer here in case this is still helpful and/or in case anyone else has a similar question.
Generally speaking, we recommend creating the reference to exactly match what the published article showed, even if that makes references appear inconsistent. You're right that the appearance in the published article (not the database listing) should be the basis for the reference. To the question about a misspelled name, there's a chance that the article later had a correction notice posted--if that's the case, then it would be okay to use the corrected name.
Creating a Reference for a Work Published With a Typo in the Title
by Timothy McAdoo If there’s a typo in a quotation, you use [sic] to show the reader that the error is in the original source and that you’re faithfully quoting it just as it appeared. But, what if there’s a mistake in an article’s title? Do you add [sic] to the reference? We recommend not doin...
Good question! If the authors are in the same reference, you don't need any brackets. The inclusion of the first name in brackets is only to help distinguish two different authors when they are first authors of two different works in the reference list.
The Finer Points of APA Style: When Authors Have the Same Surname
by Anne Breitenbach There really is a certain satisfaction one gets from knowing how to use a tool correctly and well. That’s as true of an editorial style as it is of a lathe or a chisel. Like a well-made tool, APA Style has been crafted and honed for a specific purpose, in this case, “to...
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