Citing Sources and APA Style

You must buy the book American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.) Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Writing according to the APA Style is required in all courses.  Without the book as a constant resource, most students will see lower grades simply due to not following the APA Style.

APA Academic Writer focuses on the application and proper use of APA Style, the leading writing style for the behavioral sciences and many other disciplines. It serves students who are new to academic writing and APA Style, as well as those who are more advanced in their academic careers but need to reinforce their understanding of APA Style rules.

In most circumstances, you will be following official APA rules for guidance on how to construct citations. However, classical and religious sources require a specialized application of APA guidelines.  Take a moment to review the following guide, developed by Divine Mercy University faculty, on specific constructions for classical and religious resources.  The guide is linked below.

• DMU Supplemental Guide for APA style for classical and religious sources

Please note, you will work through a series of tutorials provided by Academic Writer to learn more about using APA style. To reinforce what you are learning about APA style, as you work through the various assigned tutorials, you will be presented with self-quiz questions.

Look through the manual and when you are ready, please take the tutorials. Each is open book, meaning you can access the manual while you do them. Each of the following tutorials needs a screenshot that you completed them to pass with a 100%, your name, and the name of the module. 

Websites:

• APA Style Website - http://www.apastyle.org/index.aspx (Links to an external site.)
• APA Style Blog - http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/

Tips

Remember - APA Academic Writer offers a number of online tutorials on various APA Style constructions with plenty of visual aids and examples to reinforce your learning. With its friendly interface, APA Academic Writer serves students who are new to academic writing and APA style, as well as those who are more advanced in their academic careers but need to deepen their understanding of APA style rules. A few important notes:

Keep in mind these helpful tips: 

• If you are not sure how to format an assignment according to APA standards, it is always a good idea to ask your professors for assistance.
• Located within APA Academic Writer and the Manual, you can find sample papers and reference lists to guide you. 
• Another good idea is to keep a running Word or Google doc that has different kinds of references listed (e.g. a book with multiple authors, an online journal article published by a group, etc). When you are using a similar type of reference, you can simply copy and paste these types of references into your own document, and substitute the names of the authors, titles, and publication details. It saves some time and research. 
• Learning APA takes practice and is not learned overnight.  By knowing what expectations apply to different kinds of assignments, as well as where you can find answers and samples for all of your APA questions, you will become more comfortable with using APA in all of your academic work.
• As you work through the tutorials, Academic Writer will not save your place or remember you have completed a tutorial. It is strongly suggested that you complete each tutorial in one attempt. 
• Some of the tutorials are longer than others. Please be prepared to spend the needed time to read through the materials. You are expected to use APA style in all of your assignments at DMU.
• When you finish working through a tutorial, please take as screen shot of your completion and upload the image to complete the training. If you need guidance on where to find the indicator of completion, please review this step by step guide:

To Locate a Tutorial in Academic Writer

 Once at the Academic Writer website, click on the Learn tab. Click the Go To Tutorials button. You can search for a tutorial (i.e. if the link did not work properly; your session timed out and you are returning to the site; etc.) by entering the title of the tutorial in the search box. You can also click the Browse by title radial button and the list of titles will display. When your selected tutorial displays, click Start. 

Remember, APA Academic Writer is available through the DMU Library's subscription, so you will need to be logged into the library system to access it. If you are prompted to log in at any point, make sure first that you are logged into the library system.

If you have any issues accessing the APA Academic Writer content, please contact the Library at library@divinemercy.edu.