Example of footnotes in APA
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The American Psychological Association (APA) style does not use footnotes. It requires parenthetical citations within the text of your paper.
Here are examples of APA parenthetical citations for various sources types.
For a book and a section of a book:
Your topic? The Cardiff Giant hoax that mesmerized America in the nineteenth century.
You find useful information in Mark Jaffe’s The Gilded Dinosaur: The Fossil War Between E.D. Cope and O.C. Marsh and the Rise of American Science. New York: Crown Publishers.
The parenthetical citation looks like this –
It only took scientist O. C. Marsh twenty minutes to figure out the mystery of the giant, supposedly a three-hundred-year-old statue. (Jaffe 2000, pp. 1-8)
For an encyclopedia:
You’re doing a paper that covers advances in medicine. In it, you use information from The Columbia Encyclopedia.
The parenthetical citation looks like this –
The Human Genome Project was 83 percent complete in 2000 after ten years of mapping the twenty-three pairs of human chromosomes. Genes for such diseases as a type of breast cancer, cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease and neurofibromatosis were located. (Columbia University 2004, p. 22847)
For a journal item:
Slogging around for material on American war memorials, you happen across an American Forests journal item by Gabriela Rodrigues detailing Memorial Trees. These were planted to honor the soldiers of World War I and later the Second World War and victims of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
The parenthetical citation looks like this –
You write: “War memorials sometimes fall victim to neglect or vandalism. Thirty-three Memorial Trees planted in a small town in Pennsylvania in honor of veterans of World War I were almost toppled by chainsaws.” (Rodrigues)
For a magazine article:
Your professor wants a paper on the great American political system. You’ve narrowed the topic to the 2008 presidential election. Still a large subject, you whittled even further to the campaign strategies of front runners Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Guiliani. You find an excellent article in The New Yorker by P. J. Boyer, Mayberry Man: Why the heartland likes Rudy Giuliani.
The parenthetical citation looks like this –
Rudy Giuliani learned an important lesson about politicking from a real pro, longtime New York attorney general, Louis Lefkowitz. They were working the streets of Manhattan when a man questioned Guiliani on one of his positions, a position the man opposed. Giuliani spent a long time trying to change the man’s opinion. Finally Lefkowitz put his arm around the inexperienced candidate and said, “Hey kid, you’re not gonna get this guy’s vote.” ("The New Yorker," 2007)
For a newspaper article:
In a paper examining the problems in the airline industry, you bring up the computer snafu at Los Angeles International Airport in August 2007. You picked up good material from a New York Times article by John Schwartz, Who Needs Hackers?
The parenthetical citation looks like this –
Planes were held up for hours because of glitch in the United States Customs and Border Protection agency’s computers. Seventeen thousand passengers were affected all because of a network card in a desktop computer that wasn’t working properly. ("New York Times," 2007)
For a Web site:
Your paper deals with how to get fit. You examine different devices and their promises of firmer thighs and so on. You conclude that the best way to get your body looking better is to work out more and properly.
As an example, you use abdominal exercises. You discovered all this information on a YouTube page titled: How to Workout Your Abs Without Buying Stupid Crap by Jackdanyells.
The parenthetical citation looks like this –
Many people fall for the ab stimulators. They’re good in physical therapy for soft-tissue injuries. Pretty much useless for working your abs. Instead, do a circuit of exercises that include knee touches, ankle smacks, hip thrusts, butterfly sit-ups, and others. (Jackdanyells)
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