CITATIONS AND APA FORMAT

When writing any kind of paper or essay, it is essential that you give
credit to the sources that you use; you do this by appropriately citing Plagiarism is a serious
these sources in parenthetical citations within your paper and in a
reference list at the end of the paper. Failing to appropriately cite academic violation.
sources—either intentionally or unintentionally—is a serious academic To avoid plagiarism,
violation called plagiarism. You should never represent someone else’s
work or ideas as your own. Any time you have taken a statement, a fact,
use this rule of thumb:
or even an idea from another author, you must cite it. A good rule to go When in doubt, cite it.
by is that if you are in doubt about whether something must be cited, do
it to be safe. Certain types of material always require citation, and others do not.

Material That Requires Citation

How to Cite: Citations should include the author, date, and page number of the source—(Author’s last name,
year, p. #).
Direct Quote: Direct quotes always require a citation.
• Shame is most simply a sense that one’s self is bad. According to Goldberg, it is a ―conviction that in some
important way one is flawed and incompetent as a human being‖ (1991, p. 191).

Paraphrase/Summary: A paraphrase takes a short section of text and restates the ideas in different words. A
summary does the same but generally involves a larger portion of text. You might paraphrase the idea of a few
sentences or a paragraph, and you might summarize the results of an entire study.
A paraphrase of the Goldberg quote above might be as follows:
• Shame is a feeling that one is somehow ruined or bad as a person (Goldberg, 1991, p. 191).
The following example briefly summarizes the main ideas of two separate texts. Each text is cited after the
information that is drawn from that text.
• Empirically, shame is linked with intrapersonal disorders such as narcissism (Nathanson, 1987) as well as
numerous interpersonal difficulties such as hostility, violence, and withdrawal (Lutwak, Panish, & Ferrari,
2003).

Material That Does Not Require Citation

Common Knowledge: Common knowledge is something that you can reasonably expect just about anyone to
know without having to look it up. For example, you could mention that planes were flown into the World Trade
Center buildings on 9/11 without referencing it because that is a well-known fact. However, if you were to talk
about the names of the pilots of those planes, you should cite where you got that information from.
The following is another example of common knowledge:
• Shame is feeling bad about yourself.
However, if you took this definition of shame from a particular dictionary source, you would need to cite it.

Your Own Words and Ideas: Any ideas or analyses that you have developed yourself do not need to be
cited. However, if your ideas have been strongly influenced by certain authors, you must cite those authors.
The following is a person’s own thoughts, not drawn from a source and therefore not requiring citation.
• Therapists need a way of dealing with their clients’ shame and addressing related disorders. They must be
able to find ways to decrease the immediate negative reactions of shame during therapy.

Putting It All Together

The following paragraphs illustrate how the citations above may be worked into a complete paper. Quotes,
paraphrases, and ideas from other people’s work are all cited correctly. Note that most of this text is the author’s
own work; other sources are used only as support for the author’s own ideas. According to WGU guidelines, no
more than 30 percent of a paper should be based on other authors’ work.
Shame is most simply defined as a sense that one’s self is bad. According to Goldberg, it is a ―conviction that
in some important way one is flawed and incompetent as a human being‖ (1991, p. 191). Empirically, shame
 is linked with intrapersonal disorders such as narcissism (Nathanson, 1987) as well as numerous interpersonal
difficulties such as hostility, violence, and withdrawal (Lutwak, Panish, & Ferrari, 2003).
Shame is rarely—if ever—the presenting problem for clients entering therapy. It is, however, frequently a
complication that occurs alongside the presenting problem. Because shame is almost never the only problem,
it is important that therapists know how to work with it in the context of other problems; therapists need a
way of dealing with their clients’ shame and addressing related disorders at the same time. They must be able
to find ways to decrease the immediate negative reactions of shame during therapy. Such reactions of shame
include wanting to run away, hide, or withdraw (Fable, 1999), which may defeat therapy before it begins.

Reference Lists
Everything that requires a citation in the text of your paper also requires full reference information at the end of
the paper. There are many different types of sources, but here are some of the most common.
Web site:
Author, A., & Author, B. (Year). Title of article or Web page. Main Web Site (if applicable). Retrieved Month,
dd, yyyy, from http://complete.url/tofind.article
Fable, J. L. (1999). Shame. Retrieved April 8, 2008, from http://www.forhealing.org/shame.html
Book:
Author, A., & Author, B. (Year). Title of the book. Publication City, ST: Publisher Name.
Goldberg, C. (1991). Understanding shame. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.
Journal article:
Author, A., & Author, B. (Year). Title of the article. Journal Name in Italics, xx (volume), pages.
Lutwak, N., Panish, J., & Ferrari, J. (2003). Shame and guilt: Characterological vs. behavioral self-blame and
their relationship to fear of intimacy. Personality and Individual Differences, 35, 909–916.

For an article in an online journal, add ―[Electronic version].‖ after the article title.
Chapter in a book:
Author of chapter, A. B. (Year). Name of chapter. In A. A. Editor (Ed.), Title of the book (pages of chapter).
Publication City, ST: Publisher Name.
Nathanson, D. L. (1987). A timetable for shame. In D. L. Nathanson (Ed.), The many faces of shame (pp. 1–
63). New York, NY: Guilford.

For Further Information

There are many sources of good information regarding APA style and properly using other authors’ work. The
following are just a few of these sources:
http://www.apastyle.org
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01
http://www.writing.northwestern.edu/avoiding_plagiarism.html

References:

American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association
(5th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.