A unique citation style, the American Political Science Association referencing standard follows the Chicago Manual of Style closely. The APSA citation style has an unusual but minimalistic set of rules and regulations, and APSA citation generator are of great help to those unaware of the nuances.
This article lays out the basic rules of citing in APSA format in detail.
Rules for APSA referencing
- The APSA citation style requires parenthetical references in the content and a reference list at the end of the paper.
- Reference lists are usually added at the very end after the paper conclusion. The left margin must write the term "References" for indicative purposes.
- Writers must always use a hanging indent. The first line of every reference should be written to the absolute left, and then the following lines must be indented. References must be single-spaced and have just one empty line between each other.
- All references need to be arranged alphabetically, not by their publication format, i.e. book, journal, etc.
- The author name must be written right at the beginning. If no name is present, then mention the editor's name. And, if no editorial information is present, then write the source’s title.
- Every entry in the list must start with the author’s last name, followed by a comma. The author’s first and middle names come next. Never use any initials unless mentioned in the name itself.
- All titles must be in italics.
- Reference chapter names and sources titles must be within quotation marks.
- The date should be the second element in every reference entry on the list.
- Capitalize every word in titles of books, articles etc.
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In-text citation rules
Text citations in the APSA format are more straightforward than any other format. Here are the basics to keep in mind.
- Include the author’s last name and year within parentheses.
- Add a comma to separate the year from the page number and chapter number.
- Use the terms “chap.” or “chaps.” to differentiate between page and chapter numbers.
- The citation style rules allow the removal of page and chapter numbers if the author cites the entirety of an article or book.
- For referring to more than one information source in a single citation, arrange all alphabetically by author name, and use semicolons to separate each one.
- When citing a work written by more than one author, include all their last names in each citation.
And that wraps up this write up. Use this article for quick reference and employ tools such as ASA citation generator, word counter, plagiarism checkers, etc., to ease your academic writing tasks.