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S W 385R - Research Methods in Social Work

APA and Citation Managers

Citations and Style Help

When to cite

 

To avoid plagiarism, you should cite a source when:

  • You use another author's words, which should be included in quotation marks
  • You paraphrase an author's ideas in your own words
  • You summarize a study or paper
  • You include an author's name/talk about a researcher or particular study
  • You refer to an idea or concept that is not original to you

Remember, it's not just words that can be plagiarized, but thoughts and ideas too. If in doubt, err on the side of citation.

Find out more about plagiarism on the next page.

In-text Citations

APA 7th edition requires in-text citations that include the author's last name and publication year in parenthesis. If the you are directly quoting a work, you should also include the page number. See examples below.

  • 1 author: (Willingham, 2018)
  • 2 authors: (Pachankis & Goldfried, 2013)
  • 3 or more authors: (Hopkinson et al., 2016)*
  • Direct quote: (Hopkinson et al., 2016, p. 1657)

Bibliography

For the APA style bibliography, citations should be placed in alphabetical order by the last name of the first author. If you are citing an article without a specified author, use the Article Title. Capitalize only the first letter of the first word, proper names, and acronyms in the article title. Use only initials for authors' first and middle names. Write out all author names up to 20 authors.* For more than 20 authors, use ellipses.

Template:

1st author last name, first initial, 2nd author last name,
first initial. (year). Article title. Journal title, volume
(issue), page #s. DOI

Example:

Miller, A., Hess, J., Bybee, D., & Goodkind, J. (2018).
Understanding the mental health consequences of
family separation for refugees: Implications for policy
and practice. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry,
88(1),26-37. doi:10.1037/ort0000272

Note: * indicates 7th edition updates

As of October 2019, the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association has been updated to its 7th edition. This edition includes some notable changes from the 6th edition.

Example data citation:

Financial Services. (2018). Number of individuals experiencing homelessness in 2017. City of Austin, Texas Open Data. https://doi.org/10.26000/041.000023

A citation manager can help you organize your sources and easily add them to your literature review. These are the two most widely-used at UT...

Zotero

1) Download Zotero for Windows or Mac

2) Add the Zotero Connector to your browser. This will allow you to easily save content to Zotero as you browse the web or use our databases. The connector will add the citation metadata to your Zotero program and attach a copy of the file (when available).

3) Watch a tutorial!

 

Zotero From Your Browser

Using Connector

Simply click the button in the toolbar of your browser

The button in connector will change based upon the type of file or resource you are trying to save to your library. 

 Documents, Videos, and Web Pages can all be saved.

When multiple items on a webpage can be saved you will see a folder icon and will be asked to select which items you want to save.

Zotero From Your Desktop

Add by Identifier

Click the magic wand button to add an item by ISBN, DOI, or PubMed ID

Add an Item Manually

Click the green plus button to add an item manually. You will need to select the item type from a dropdown list and then type information about the item in the fields in the right-hand pane.

Attaching a PDF or other file

Files and links can be attached to items in your library by highlighting the item and then clicking the paperclip button. This is useful if you are unable to download the PDF version of a database article using Zotero Connector, but are able to download it manually.

 

Retrieving PDF Metadata

If you have imported a PDF into your library without metadata, you can use Zotero to search for the item and generate the metadata automatically by right-clicking the item and selecting “Retrieve Metadata for PDF”

If Zotero cannot find the metadata for your PDF, you can add the metadata manually by right-clicking on the item and selecting “Create Parent Item”

​Zotero can be used to easily create in-text citations and bibliographies in Word. When you install Zotero, an add-on is automatically installed for Word.

  1. To create in-text citations and bibliographies in Word, simply open the Zotero tab in Word.

  2. Click Add/Edit Citation and a red search bar will appear, allowing you to search the items in your library. 

  3. Start typing the name of the citation you need by author or title and a dropdown menu of choices will appear. You can add multiple citations at one time. Select the items you wish to add to the in-text citations and then hit Enter. The citations will appear in your Word document in your chosen citation style.

  4. To add a bibliography or list of references  to the end of your paper, simply select the Add/Edit Bibliography button. The Zotero add-on will keep track of the order of items in the bibliography (alphabetical or order of citation according to the citation style you have selected) and will reorder, add, and remove citations as they are changed in your paper.

 

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Not sure how to cite something?

There is not always an exact rule for every situation. If you're not sure how to cite something, try using a citation manager or find an article that has already cited that source and use their citation as a guide for your own.

Tip: To find out if the article you're using has been cited in another paper, search for it in Google Scholar. Click "Cited by" underneath the article description.

Note: These citations might not be in APA, but they should at least give you all of the information you need, which you can then format according to APA style.

Google Scholar Search

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