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GOV 210X: Engineering and Public Policy 1 : APA Citation Resources and Citation Managers

Citation Guidance : APA Style

The following citation resources for education & teaching students relate to the American Psychological Associations (APA) Style Guide, 7th Edition, which is the preferred. 

Below are some resources for the 7th Edition (2020) formatting rules for APA citations:

 

Introduction to APA

Run Time: 2:53

Key Student Learning Competencies:

  • What is APA? (0:30)
  • When to use APA (0:42)
  • Basic Elements of APA (1:02)
  • Primary v. Secondary Sources w/ APA (1:32)
  • Direct Quotes v. Paraphrasing in APA (2:25)

 

APA In-text Citations

Run Time: 2:55

Key Student Learning Competencies: 

  • Paraphrasing Citations--Parenthetical and Narrative (0:30)
  • Direct Quotations In-Text (1:20)
  • In-Text Citations for Organizations (1:59)
  • In-Text Citations for Personal Communications & Interviews (2:25)

APA Reference Lists

Run Time: 2:38

Key Student Learning Competencies: 

  • General Elements of Ref List Entries (0:42)
  • APA Ref List Entries: Books (1:03)
  • APA Ref List Entries: Newspapers (1:27)
  • APA Ref List Entries: Academic Journal Articles (1:42)
  • APA Ref List Entries: Web Pages (1:58)
  • APA Ref List Entries: Organizations as Authors (2:18)

APA Complete: Intro, In-text, & Ref Lists

Run Time: 7:45

Key Student Learning Competencies:

  • APA 7 Introduction (0:20)
  • Using APA (0:45)
  • Basic Elements (1:04)
  • In-Text Citations (2:53)
  • Reference Lists (4:50)

What is a citation management system?

Citation management tools are software clients loaded on your computer or web/cloud-based applications that are used to store, organize and utilize bibliographic citations.  Essentially, these tools are a database of the researcher's selected citations.

Most provide the following functions:

  • Means of adding citations to the database, either manually or be importing citations from bibliographic databases or other sources.
  • Methods for saving and organizing citations and/or searching within the database.
  • Integration with word processing or other document production software to incorporated properly formatted citations into scholarly writing.
  • Mechanisms for sharing citations with collaborators.
  • Methods to create a stand-alone bibliography

Which is best? That completely depends on your needs and preferences. They generally offer the same general functionality, but with different interfaces  ---  and with different "bells & whistles".

Currently, The WPI Gordon Library provides institutional access to EndNote Desktop/Client, EndNote Web, and Mendeley. We also support Zotero, a freely available, open source citation management system.

Check out some of the information below about citation managers!