Rules for Creating a Research Paper Using Correct APA Formatting Author’s Full Name Rasmussen College Name of Class Name of Instructor Date An APA formatted paper is created using one-inch margins at the top, bottom, left, and right sides. APA papers are always double spaced. Paragraphs are indented 1⁄2 inch. The body of your paper consists of the information you researched regarding your paper’s topic. If the information in your paper is not your own original thought, you need to include an in-text citation to give credit to the original author of the idea. Your paper should include direct quotes and paraphrasing. An in-text citation is how you give credit to the author of the original thought. You will notice in this paper, there are several different types of in-text citations and they have been created using correct APA formatting for in-text citations. The first two in-text citations in this paper are paraphrase citations and they demonstrate giving credit to the author when you have not directly quoted that author, but revised his original In-text citation for first type of paraphrase quote. thought and used it in your paper. If you paraphrase information in your paper, you need to give credit to the author. The first type of citation is very simple. You just place the author’s last name and the year of publication at the end of the sentence. Notice the comma and space after the author’s name and notice the period for the sentence is after the final parentheses. Another variation is when you use the author’s name at the beginning of the sentence. In the In-text citation for second type of paraphrase quote. following sentence, you will notice that Mary Nelson’s last name only appears at the beginning of the sentence; therefore, the in-text citation immediately follows her name. According to Nelson, the use of APA formatting for in-text citations is very easy to complete. A second kind of in-text citation is called a direct quote citation. This citation indicates that the information written is a direct quote of the author’s original thought. This type of quote needs to be enclosed in quotation marks. The following sentence is a direct quote. Taylor has written, “APA rules require that a direct quote be incorporated into the body text and enclosed in quotation marks”. You will notice that this type of citation includes the date of publication after the author’s last name and the page number where the quote can be found in the original text. Notice where the ending period is located. It is after the final parentheses. Notice APA uses the abbreviation of “p” and not the word “page.” Also notice there is a space after the “p.” before the actual page number. Another variation of a direct quote is to include all of the in-text citation reference at the In-text citation for second type of direct quote. end of the sentence. The following sentence is an example of this type of direct quote. According to one APA expert, “A long quotation (forty words or more) is not set in quotation marks; however, it is indented one-half inch from the left margin”. It is also important to address an in-text citation that has two authors. If this is the case, In-text citing for two authors. you list both authors. The authors are separated with the ampersand sign andnot the word “and.” Here is an example of how a paraphrase in-text citation would look: . It is important to note that within the body of the paper, if you mention the authors, you identify them using the word “and”, not an “&”. This type of in-text citation will look like this: Larson and Glenn have suggested that every student purchase an APA guidebook. Many students wonder how to set up an in-text citation when the reference includes a month and a year or even a day, month, and year. When formatting an in-text citation, only the year is necessary. However, at the end of the paper, on the reference page, all publishing information will be necessary. Here is an example of an incorrectly formatted in-text citation: (Samson, 2005, July). Remember: do not include a day or month with an in-text citation. Researching information for a paper may involve the use of the Internet. Research information can come from a website or it may come from an online source like an online database. The in-text citation for a website will include the author of the article, provided there is one, and the date of publication, provided there is one. Another piece to the in-text citation for an electronic source is the page or paragraph number where the information is found on the website. Again, a page or paragraph number may not be provided; therefore, you will include the heading information from the source and the number of the paragraph following the heading. Here is an example of this type of in-text citation: Any APA formatted paper must meet very strict criteria. Instead of the word “para.” you could use the “¶” symbol to indicate paragraph. Many websites do not have authors or publication dates. Here is an example of a website in-text citation where an author is not provided: When using APA formatting, it is imperative that you use the latest version of APA guidelines. Remember, too, an in-text citation will never refer to the website address. Here is an example of an incorrectly formatted website in-text citation: APA formatting is a formatting style used extensively in the social sciences (www.apaformatting.com). When you have finished typing the body of your paper, APA guidelines require you to list the sources used in your paper on a separate page. Most in-text citing within the body of your paper must be recorded on the reference page. If you have researched sources that you are not including anywhere in your paper, you do not include these sources on your reference page. By creating a reference page, you give your reader the information needed to look up the source of your in-text citation.