Everything you need to know about APA standards for properly citing sources

APA standards: for whom?

APA standards (7th edition) are generally used in the academic field: by students, teachers, doctoral students and researchers. 

Remember: universities generally define a citation format that must be respected in university reports and papers.
Find out about the citation style used at your institution to avoid being penalised!

APA In-Text Citations: rules for quoting in parentheses

• An author: (Author's name, Date).
  Example: (Tullman, 2017) 
• Two authors: (Author name 1, Author name 2, Date).
  Example: (Tullman & Kotler, 2017)
• Three or more authors: (Name of author 1 et al., Date).
  Example: (Molinier et al., 2010)
• Organisation with abbreviation: indicate the full name of the organisation at the first mention in the text, followed by the abbreviation. Use the abbreviation alone thereafter.
  Example: As indicated by the Commission nationale de l'information et des libertés (CNIL, 2023), public data...
• Organisation without abbreviation: Cite the full name of the organisation as the author each time.
  Example: (Compilatio, 2023).
• Reference to multiple sources: (Author's name, date; Author's name, date).
  References are made in alphabetical order of the first author of each reference.
  Example: (Molinier et al, 2010; Tullman & Kotler, 2017)

APA In-Text Citations: rules for narrative form

• An author: Author's name (date) + text.
  Example: Tullman (2017) states that... 
• Two authors: "Author name 1" and "Author name 2" (date) + text.
  Example: Tullman and Kotler (2017) indicate that...
• Three or more authors: Name of author 1 et al. (date) + text.
  Example: Tullman et al (2017) indicate that... 
• One author with page number: According to "Author" (date) + text or citation + ( page number).
  Example: According to Tullman (2017), "the world of technology is evolving so rapidly that each change accelerates the next" (p.181).
• An author without a page number: According to "Author" (date) + text + (locator).
  Example: According to Tullman (2017) the world of technology is evolving so rapidly that each change accelerates the next (chapter 12).

How to cite a book?

Citation rule: Author's surname, first name initial(s) (Date). Title of the book. Name of publisher. URL*
* if it is an ebook/electronic book
Example: Baudrillard, J. (1996). Consumer society. Folio essais.

How to cite a book chapter?

Citation rule: Author's surname, first name initial(s) (Date). Title of chapter. In Title of the book (start page - end page of the chapter). Name of publisher.
Example: Goleman, D. (2014). 1. The art of getting along well with others. In Emotional Intelligence (p. 17-19). J'ai lu.

How to cite a thesis?

Citation rule: Author's surname, first name initial(s) (date). Title of dissertation or thesis [Dissertation or thesis and discipline]. University.
Example: Petricevic, A. & Talloir, V. (2019). Artificial intelligence: a solution to everyday decision making? [Computer science thesis]. Graduate school of computer engineering.

How to mention a source with missing information?

You may not have enough information for your sources in APA format to build your bibliography. You will then find it difficult to enter all the elements normally expected. 

Here's what to do in the following cases: 

• No date: mark "n.d." for "no date".
  Citation rule: Author's surname, First name initial(s) (n.d.). Title. Source. 
• The work has no title: briefly describe the document in square brackets.
  Citation rule: Author's surname, first name initial(s) (Date). [Description of document]. Source.
• No author to be mentioned: place the title at the beginning of the reference.
  Citation rule: Title. (Date). Source.

Checking your document in a plagiarism detector

A plagiarism detector is used at the end of writing to compare the sources detected with the sources mentioned. 

Compilatio Studium, our anti-plagiarism software for students, allows you to: 

• check that your work is authentic: through the rate of similarities detected
• identify incorrectly referenced citations: to adjust them in the text and in the bibliography
• prove the quality of your assignment to your marker

The documents analysed in Compilatio Studium are confidential and inaccessible to teachers, even if they use Compilatio Magister; plagiarism checker for teachers.