This Is How Citations Are Done In APA Dissertations And Theses

• May 24, 2018
• 5 min read

You’ve put in endless hours for your Dissertations and Theses (abiding the APA format) to bear fruit. You stayed up nights to put in all the efforts. You do all this because it all boils down to this – your final dissertation. You have to fulfill your high expectations and that of your Professors and the College.  

And even though you have compiled rigorous research and drawn satisfying conclusions. Your dissertation still won’t be said to be complete without proper citation. This is where you give due credit to the sources of information for your academic paper.

If it is required to write the dissertation according to the APA format, then you’d have to follow the right steps to cite your sources. And you must ensure that it corresponds fully with the required format.

Every citation format has its own rules. Follow them strictly to avoid any further complications. Below are the rules you must follow while citing in the APA format:

1) Single Author’s work

When citing a single author’s work, type the author’s last name first, followed by the journal’s/book’s publication year.

• Mitchell D. (2011), Neural Networks and Biomedical Simulations  

2) Multiple Authors’ work

When a work has two authors to its credit, use both of their last names each time their work needs a citation. Join the names with an ampersand if in parentheses or with the word “and” if in text:  

• In parentheses: (Mitchell & Webb, 2011)
• In text: Mitchell and Webb, (2011)

3) A work with more than five authors

When you cite such a work for the first time, type the name of all authors. In subsequent citations, only mention one of the author’s name, followed by the Latin word et al. to denote rest of the authors mentioned before.

• First citations –

(Webb, Mitchell, Fielding, Brand, Carr, Brydon & Gervais, 2015)

• Later citations –

(Webb et al. 2015)

4) Multiple authors with the same last name.

When citing different authors with the same last name, type their first name and middle initial so the readers can differentiate between them.

• S L Brand and R L Brand (2010) also found

5) Works by corporations

Even if the author’s name is mentioned in such publications, you only have to cite the corporation as the author. When citing for the first time, type it in full. For later mentions you can type the abbreviation.

• First citation –

According to British Petroleum (2015)

• Later Citations –

According to BP (2015)

6) Citing a website

If you have to cite a source from a website, the basic format is as follows:

Author surname, initial(s). (Year). Title. Retrieved from URL

• Fletcher T. (2014) Perils of plagiarism. Retrieved from http://www.learnnow.com/essays/plagiarism   

To ensure that your paper fully corresponds with the APA format in all aspects, you can have it proofread by PaperTrue. Our experienced editors will format, structure and edit your document and make sure it meets the standards for a high-grade APA dissertation.

Manish

Manish is a serial entrepreneur, business coach, and the Founder of PaperTrue. His vision is to make impeccable English communication possible for everybody, so they can write effectively and gain the academic and professional success they deserve.