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APA Citation Style 7th Edition

This guide will help you with formatting your citations according to the APA guidelines.

About Citing Wikis

 

The nature of wikis precludes use for academic papers.  However. there are times when you will be using wikis in your course, to learn about social creation of information, and crowdsourcing information.

Citing wikis is slightly different than citing other online websites. information found on wikis change often, therefore you must enter the date you accessed the site in your citation.

Learn more about how and why at APA Style blog.

Citing a Wiki

 

Psychology. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved May 17, 2011, from

         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology

Most often, your assignments and papers should be developed using scholarly or peer-reviewed work written by experts in the subject area. If you use crowd-sourced articles such as those in Wikipedia, ask your instructor if it is appropriate, and critically evaluate it carefully.

Basic guidelines:

  • For dates that cannot be determined, use n.d.  to indicate no date found.
  • Wikipedia is italicized because it is the name of a reference work.
  • The retrieval date is needed because, as with any wiki, the source material changes over time.
  • In text, use the following citation: (“Psychology,” n.d.).

Example:

Psychology. (2011, February 15). In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 24, 2015, from

         http://en.wikipedia .org/w/index.php?title=Psychology&oldid=413979409

Many wikis, including Wikipedia, archive a version of a page every time information on the page is edited or changed. These archived versions are given permanent URLs that you use in the reference list.

To access the URL of an archived version of a Wikipedia page, click “View History” tab from the top navigation bar, then click the date and time of the version you used. By providing the archived version of the page, you allow the reader to retrieve the exact source that you used. n In text, use the following citation: (“Psychology,” 2011).

Learn More

 

The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University offers an online resource which can be used in some cases.  However, it does not include everything required for citing sources in one place.

The APA citation style does not cover Canadian government sources, and has only a limited section on American government resources.

Please refer to the staff at the Library Reference Desk for clarification when citing Canadian government sources.