APA Citation Tutorial

Part III: Creating Bibliographies

By the end of Part II, you will be able to

• Organize citations into full bibliographies• Format bibliographies according to APA style

using correct spacing and hanging indents

After you have constructed citations for individual resources that you are using in your research, you will want to create a full bibliography with those citations:

When you are using the APA style, a bibliography will be labeled with the word

References

Other styles may require you to use the word “bibliography” or the phrase “works cited,” but APA requires that you use the word References to label your bibliography.

Your citations need to be organized in a particular way in your full bibliography.

The citations should be organized alphabetically by the author, or whatever element of the citation comes first. This will be the author most often, but may be a title, if there is no author listed.

A book by J. Adams, for example, would precede an article written by D. Carr.

Test Yourself! Put these citations into the appropriate order:

References

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice, learning, meaning, identity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Collins, A., Brown, J. S. & Holum, A. (1991). Cognitive apprenticeship: Making thinking visible. American Educator, 6-11, 38-46.

Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Powell, A. (2012). Intentional communities of practice: The problem of interactivity. In H. Wang (Ed.), Interactivity in E-Learning: Cases and Frameworks. Hershey, PA: IGI

Global.

Test Yourself!The correct order is:

References

Collins, A., Brown, J. S. & Holum, A. (1991). Cognitive apprenticeship: Making thinking visible. American Educator, 6-11, 38-46.

Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Powell, A. (2012). Intentional communities of practice: The problem of interactivity. In H. Wang (Ed.), Interactivity in E-Learning: Cases and Frameworks. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice, learning, meaning, identity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Additionally, you may have noticed that all of the citations we have been working with throughout this tutorial are indented in a special kind of way.

This is called a hanging indent:

Powell, A. (2012). Intentional communities of practice: The problem of interactivity. In H. Wang (Ed.), Interactivity in E-Learning: Cases and Frameworks. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

In order to produce a hanging indent, you need to make sure that all lines but the first line in your citation are indented.

In Microsoft Word, it is simple to do this: 1. Highlight the text you want to change2. Right click in order to view the menu3. Select “Paragraph”4. In the Indentation section, use the “Special”

drop-down box to select “Hanging”5. Select the “ok” button

Create a Hanging Indent

Finally, after making sure that your list is alphabetized and correctly indented, you’ll want to double check and make sure that your bibliography is double spaced, just like the rest of your paper.

In Summary

In order to create an appropriate APA bibliography, follow these guidelines:

1. Label your bibliography References2. Alphabetize your citations3. Make sure your citations use hanging

indentation4. Make sure your bibliography is double spaced

Now that we’ve discussed constructing and formatting your bibliography, it is time to test your understanding a bit more.

Click on the link above in order to complete the activity (Activity 3) for this section, and to get a sense of how well you understand and are able construct and format full bibliographies.

When you are finished, continue on to the Final Quiz