The American Psychological Association formatting style is a widely used citation format in psychology and other social science fields. The use of in-text citations (also known as parenthetical references) is used to identify where information has been taken from another source. In parentheses, these citations must include author’s name and publication year. Example: Smith, 2020, page 23.
Directly quoting from a source should contain the author’s last names, publication year and page number. Quotations around quoted text are also required. Smith, 2025): “Accordingly to Smith (2025), the findings of this research have important implications in future research” (p. 23).”
A reference list, which lists all sources that were cited in your paper should be added at the end. It should include the following information: author last name and initials, publication year, title of work, publication year, publication date, title of the work, alphabetical order, followed by last name. Each reference should be formatted with the following information: author name, initials, publication year and title.