Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association by Need more info? See the APA tab on the library's Citation Style Guide
A literature review, simply put, is a search of the published literature with the compiled results furnishing an overview of your topic.
While a literature review can be exhaustive and can present a topic completely, it can also focus on a particular aspect, perhaps answering or dealing with a specific question.
The literature review frames the discussion of your topic within the context of available scholarly knowledge.
APA (American Psychological Association) Style originated in 1929, when a group of psychologists, anthropologists, and business managers convened and sought to establish a simple set of procedures, or style rules, that would codify the many components of scientific writing to increase the ease of reading comprehension.
As with other editorial styles, APA Style consists of rules or guidelines that a publisher observes to ensure clear and consistent presentation of written material. It concerns uniform use of such elements as selection of headings, tone, and length, punctuation and abbreviations, presentation of numbers and statistics, construction of tables and figures, citation of references, and many other elements that are a part of a manuscript. (Source: Official APA website)
In-text Citation with APA
The APA style calls for three kinds of information to be included in in-text citations. The author's last name and the work's date of publication must always appear, and these items must match exactly the corresponding entry in the references list. The third kind of information, the page number, appears only in a citation to a direct quotation.
....(Crockatt, 1995).
Direct quote from the text
"The potentially contradictory nature of Moscow's priorities surfaced first in its policies towards East Germany and Yugoslavia," (Crockatt, 1995, p. 1).
Major Citations for a Reference List/Bibliography
Note: All second and third lines in the APA Bibliography should be indented.
|
Material Type |
Reference List/Bibliography |
|
A book in print |
Baxter, C. (1997). Race equality in health care and education. Philadelphia: Ballière Tindall. |
|
A book chapter, print version |
Haybron, D. M. (2008). Philosophy and the science of subjective well-being. In M. Eid & R. J. Larsen (Eds.), The science of subjective well-being (pp. 17-43). New York, NY: Guilford Press. |
|
An eBook |
Millbower, L. (2003). Show biz training: Fun and effective business training techniques from the worlds of stage, screen, and song. New York: AMACOM. Retrieved from http://www.amacombooks.org/ |
|
An article in a print journal |
Alibali, M. W. (1999). How children change their minds: Strategy change can be gradual or abrupt. Developmental Psychology, 35, 127-145. |
|
An article in a journal without DOI |
Carter, S., & Dunbar-Odom, D. (2009). The converging literacies center: An integrated model for writing programs. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, 14(1). Retrieved from http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/ |
|
An article in a journal with DOI |
Gaudio, J. L., & Snowdon, C. T. (2008). Spatial cues more salient than color cues in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) reversal learning. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 122, 441-444. doi: 10.1037/0735-7036.122.4.441 |
|
Websites - professional or personal sites |
The World Famous Hot Dog Site. (1999, July 7). Retrieved January 5, 2008, from http://www.xroads.com/~tcs/hotdog/hotdog.html |
|
Websites - online government publications |
U.S. Department of Justice. (2006, September 10). Trends in violent victimization by age, 1973-2005. Retrieved from http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/vage.htm |
|
Emails (cited in-text only) |
According to preservationist J. Mohlhenrich (personal communication, January 5, 2008). |
|
Mailing Lists (listserv) |
Stein, C. Chessie rescue - Annapolis, MD. Message posted to Chessie-L electronic mailing list, archived at http://chessie-l-owner@lists.best.com |
|
Radio and TV episodes - from library databases |
DeFord, F. (Writer). (2007, August 8). Beyond Vick: Animal cruelty for sport. In NPR (Producer), Morning Edition. Retrieved from Academic OneFile database. |
|
Radio and TV episodes - from website |
Sepic, M. (Writer). (2008, January 14). Federal prosecutors eye MySpace bullying case. In NPR (Producer), All Things Considered. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/ |
|
Film/Film Clips from website |
Kaufman, J.-C. (Producer), Lacy, L. (Director), & Hawkey, P. (Writer). (1979). Mean Joe Greene [video file]. Retrieved from http://memory.loc.gov/mbrs/ccmp/meanjoe_01g.ram |
|
Photograph (from book, magazine or webpage) |
Close, C. (2002). Ronald. [photograph]. Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. Retrieved from http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=108890 |
|
Artwork - from library database |
Clark, L. (c.a. 1960's). Man with Baby. [photograph]. George Eastman House, Rochester, NY. Retrieved from ARTstor |
|
Artwork - from website |
Close, C. (2002). Ronald. [photograph]. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Retrieved from http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php? |
In order to simplify when to use a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) in your citations, APA published this flow chart.
(Click on image to enlarge)
