The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) is specifically designed for writing in the behavioral sciences and social sciences—including psychology, linguistics, sociology, economics, and criminology—as well as business and nursing, but can be used by anyone.
In general, APA style uses brief in-text citations that correspond to a reference list of full citations. The library has many style guides to help you with APA formatting.
APA Style
Visit the APA Style website for quick answers on references and formatting questions and advice on writing for the sciences. The site is maintained by the American Psychological Association and it is fully searchable. It includes:
Free Citation Tools
There are a lot of tools to help you create citations automatically, whether you have a database citation or the OneSearch citation tool. However, you may want to cite things you find elsewhere. If you need to create an APA citation, try Citation Builder — it's an excellent tool to automatically generate citations for print or online sources: lib.ncsu.edu/citationbuilder
Citation Generating Tools
These resources can help you format your bibliographies and references:
Most of the citations tools are updated regularly, but you can always explore the rest of citations research guide for more information on commonly-used styles.