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Citing sources according to APA guidelines

APA Style @ TiU

1.6 Specific parts of a work

Locators recommended

The APA recommends that authors clearly indicate which part of a source is being discussed by providing a locator such as a page number. Although this is only mandatory for direct quotations, it is helpful for your readers if you follow the APA’s recommendation, especially if the text is long. 

Page numbers

  • Use the following abbreviations: “p.” for page, “pp.” for pages, and “para.” for paragraph.
  • Separate page numbers with an en dash (–): pp. xxx–xxx.
(Spencer & Buchanan, 2021, p. 332)
(Nguyen et al., 2020, pp. 13–14)
(Koehler et al., 2018, Figure 1, p. 560)
(Dexter, 2019, Table 3, row 5, p. 34)
(Kleinsma & Mijdam, 2020, Appendix, pp. 320–333)

Locators recommended

The APA recommends (but does not require) that authors clearly indicate which part of a source is being discussed by providing a locator. This will often be a page number, but there are many sources where these are not available, such as PowerPoint presentations, some e-books, (audio) visual works, YouTube videos, or webpages.

Possible locators 

For each source, choose from the optios below the locator that will best help readers find the cited passage:

  • headings or section names Capitalize the first word and all major words.
  • paragraphs numbers you may assign yourself if absent. Use the abbreviation "para.".
  • combination of headings/section names and paragraphs numbers
  • slide numbers. Write the word "Slide", in full, capitalized.
  • timestamps (for audio/audiovisual sources such as audiobooks, YouTube videos, TED Talks, podcast episodes, documentaries, webinars, . . .)  

    To quote directly from an (audio)visual work, provide a time stamp from the beginning of the quotation. 

    • Hours/minutes/seconds follows the format H:MM:SS
    • Minutes/seconds follows the format MM:SS
    • Where you are only using seconds (e.g., for a short clip), use a zero at the front, e.g., 0:25 for 25 seconds.

    In the last example below, 1.23.30 refers to 1 hour 23 minutes 30 seconds into the webinar, where the quotation we want starts.

Examples

(Society for HRM, 2023, Training and Development)
(Baines & Parker, 2022, para. 6)
(Organization for Economic Development, 2022, Policy Challenges, para. 3)
(Webb, 2021, Slide 15)
(Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, 2021, 1.23.30)