This document provides an overview of APA citation style, which is primarily used in nursing, business, social sciences, health, and education fields. It discusses the components of in-text citations, reference list entries, and formatting guidelines for student papers including setting margins, page numbers, title pages, and references sections. Help resources for APA style are also listed.

1. APA Style
A style guide for writing Nursing papers
Kerry L. Madole
Librarian I
Prairie View A&M University - College of Nursing
6436 Fannin Street, Office 941
Houston, Texas 77030
Phone: 713-790-7119 / Email: klmadole@pvamu.edu
PVAMU College of Nursing Library

2. The APA citation style is:
• A set of rules for publications, including research papers.
• Primarily used by disciplines in the business, social sciences, health,
and education fields.
• Published by the American Psychological Association

3. Cite your sources in two places:
• In the body of your paper where you add a brief in-text citation.
• In the Reference list at the end of your paper where you give more
complete information for the source.

4. APA requires two* components for an in-text
citation:
• Author last name(s) (this could also be an organization)
• Publication date
*A page number is required for direct quotes, and encouraged for
paraphrasing.

5. Two ways to cite in-text
• Narrative citations: A narrative citation weaves the author's name(s)
into the text, and then adds in the year in parentheses. Example:
Koehler (2016) noted the dangers of falsely balanced news coverage.
• Parenthetical citations: The author name and publication date
appear in parentheses at the end of the sentence, prior to the closing
period. Example:
Falsely balanced news coverage can distort the public’s perception of expert
consensus on an issue (Koehler, 2016).

6. Combining Citations
• To include two or more different resources in one citation, use a
semicolon to separate them.

7. Reference Components
All APA reference list entries contain four main components:
• Author
• Date
• Title
• Source
Those components are organized as follows:
Author. (Date). Title. Source.

8. Setting Up and Formatting a Student APA
Paper
Your paper should have three major sections:
• Title page
• Main body
• References list

9. Formatting
• Set margins to one inch
• Set spacing to double
• Create a title for the paper - Your title should summarize the main topic
of your paper
• Add page numbers to right side of header

10. Formatting contd.
• Create title page
• On the first page, you will include the following information:
• Title of Your Paper
• Your Name
• College or University
• Course Number: Course Name
• Instructor
• Due Date

11. Formatting contd.
• Set up references list
• The references list should be on a new page, and should be the last
section of the paper.
• The heading at the top of the reference list should say References
(not Bibliography or Works Cited, unless otherwise instructed) and
bolded.
• All reference lists should have a hanging indent.
• Set line spacing to double (2.0)
• Alphabetize references. Generally by the author's last name. Ignore
spaces, hyphens, punctuation etc.
• If a work has no author, use the title to alphabetize. Skip words
like the, a, and an.

12. Formatting contd.
• Font
• Figures and Images
• Annotated Bibliographies

13. Online APA assistance
• PVAMU Citation help: https://www.pvamu.edu/library/citation-help/
• Includes citation management tools, resources and guides.
• APA Style Guide, 7th Edition – FAQ and Introduction:
https://pvamu.libguides.com/c.php?g=984352
• APA Style Publication Manual of the APA, Seventh Edition:
https://apastyle.apa.org/products/publication-manual-7th-edition

14. Questions?
Kerry L. Madole
Librarian I
Prairie View A&M University - College of Nursing
6436 Fannin Street, Office 941
Houston, Texas 77030
Phone: 713-790-7119 / Email: klmadole@pvamu.edu
PVAMU College of Nursing Library