apa style example in research

APA Formatting and Style (7th ed.) for Student Papers

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APA 7th ed. Fillable Word Template and Sample Paper

• APA 7th ed. Template Download this Word document, fill out the title page and get writing!
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APA Style, 7th edition

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APA Style Formatting Steps

Setting up page numbering for apa.

1. Set font as Times New Roman and size 12.

2. Click on Insert.

3. Click on Page Number.

4. Click on Top of Page.

5. Click on Plain Number 3 box.

6. Finish cover page (see pages 11 and 12 of the APA guide).

7. Go to second page.

8. Type your title in bold at the top and centered.

9. Close Header/Footer box.

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Sample Paper

• Purdue OWL: APA Sample Paper [PDF] An example of a correctly formatted APA style research paper. From Purdue University Online Writing Center (OWL).
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APA Style (7th ed.)

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Editable Template Documents for Student Papers

• APA 7th ed. Template Document This is an APA format template document in Google Docs. Click on the link -- it will ask for you to make a new copy of the document, which you can save in your own Google Drive with your preferred privacy settings.
• APA 7th ed. Template Document A Microsoft Word document formatted correctly according to APA 7th edition.
• APA 7th ed. Annotated Bibliography template A Microsoft Word document formatted correctly for an annotated bibliography.

Example Student Paper

• APA Example Paper An annotated sample student paper from APA.

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• Citing References: APA Style [PDF]

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Home / Guides / Citation Guides / APA Format / APA Sample Papers

APA Sample Papers

Ever wonder how to format your research paper in APA style? If so, you’re in luck! The team at EasyBib.com has put together an example paper to help guide you through your next assignment. (Actually, looking for MLA? Here’s a page on what is MLA format .)

The featured example is a research paper on the uses of biometrics to inform design decisions in the tech industry, authored by our UX Research Intern Peace Iyiewuare. Like most APA style papers, it includes an APA title page , tables, and several references and APA in-text citations to scholarly journals relevant to its topic. References are an important aspect of scientific research papers, and formatting them correctly is critical to getting a good grade.

This paper follows the formatting rules specified in the 6th edition of The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (the APA is not directly associated with this guide) . We’ve left comments and tips throughout the document, so you’ll know the specific rules around how to format titles, spacing, and font, as well as the citations on the APA reference page .

The reference list needs special care, as it demonstrates to the reader that you have accurately portrayed your outside sources and have given credit to the appropriate parties. Be sure to check our full APA citation guide for more information on paper formatting and citing sources in APA style. There is also a guide on  APA footnotes in case that is your preferred form of citation.

Download the APA Visual Guide

When citations are done, don’t forget to finish your paper off with a proofread—EasyBib Plus’s plagiarism and grammar check can help! Got a misspelled adverb ? Missed capitalizing a proper noun ? Struggling with subject-verb agreement ? These are just a few things our checker could help you spot in your paper.

D. Complete Sample APA Paper

We’ve included a full student paper below to give you an idea of what an essay in APA format looks like, complete with a title page, paper, reference list, and index. If you plan to include an APA abstract in your paper, see the Professional Paper for an example.

If you’re looking for an APA format citation generator, we’ve got you covered. Use EasyBib.com! Our APA format machine can help you create every reference for your paper.

Below is an example of a student APA format essay. We also have PDF versions of both a student paper and a professional paper linked below.

See Student Paper                                 See Professional Paper

Using Biometrics to Evaluate Visual Design

Jane Lisa Dekker

Art Department, Northern California Valley State University

UXAD 272: Strategic Web Design

Professor Juan Liu, PhD

January 29, 2020

      A vast amount of research has been conducted regarding the importance of visual design, and its role as a mediator of user’s experience when browsing a site or interacting with an interface. In the literature, visual design is one aspect of website quality. Jones and Kim (2010) define website quality as “the perceived quality of a retail website that involves a [user’s] perceptions of the retailer’s website and comprises consumer reactions towards such attributes as information, entertainment/enjoyment, usability, transaction capabilities, and design aesthetics” (p. 632).  They further examined the impact web quality and retail brand trust has on purchase intentions. Additional research examining e-commerce sites has shown web quality has an impact on both initial and continued purchase intention (Kuan, Bock, & Vathanophas, 2008), as well as consumer satisfaction (Lin, 2007). Moreso, research on the relationship between visual design and perceived usability (Stojmenovic, Pilgrim, & Lindgaard, 2014) has revealed a positive correlation between the two. As users’ ratings of visual quality increase, their ratings of perceived usability follows a similar trend. Although this research spans various domains, the reliance on self-report measures to gauge concepts like visual design and web quality is prevalent throughout much of the literature.

Although some self-report scales are validated within the literature, there are still issues with the use of self-report questionnaires. One is the reliance on the honesty of the participant. This tends to be more of an issue in studies related to questionnaires that measure characteristics of the participant, rather than objective stimuli. More relevant to this study is the issue of introspection and memory. Surveys are often distributed after a task is completed, and its accuracy is dependent on the ability of the participant to remember their experience during the study. Multiple research studies have shown that human memory is far from static. This can

be dangerous if a researcher chooses to solely rely on self-report methods to test a hypothesis. We believe these self-report methods in tandem with biometric methods can help ensure the validity of the questionnaires, and provide information beyond the scope of self-report scales.

Research Questions

      We know from previous research that the quality of websites mediates many aspects of e-commerce, and provides insight as to how consumers view the webpages in general.  However, simply knowing a webpage is perceived as lower quality doesn’t give insight as to what aspects of a page are disliked by a user. Additionally, it’s possible that the user is misremembering aspects of the webpage or being dishonest in their assessment. Using eye tracking metrics, galvanic skin response, and facial expression measures in tandem with a scale aimed at measuring visual design quality has a couple of identifiable benefits. Using both can potentially identify patterns amongst the biometric measures and the questionnaire, which would strengthen the validity of the results. More so, the eye tracking data has the potential to identify patterns amongst websites of lower or higher quality.

If found, these patterns can be used to evaluate particular aspects of a page that are impacting the quality of a webpage. Overall, we are interested in answering two questions:

Research Question 1 : Can attitudinal changes regarding substantial website redesigns be captured using biometric measures?

Research Question 2 : How do biometric measures correlate with self-reported measures of visual appeal?

      Answering these questions has the potential to provide a method of justification for design changes, ranging from minor tweak to complete rebrands. There is not an easy way for companies to quantitatively analyze visual design decisions. A method for doing so would help companies evaluate visual designs before implementation in order to cost-justify them. To this end, we hope to demonstrate that biometric measurements can be used with questionnaires to verify and validate potential design changes a company or organization might want to implement.

      By examining data from test subjects during a brief exposure to several websites, we hoped to explore the relationship between the self-reported evaluation of visual design quality and key biometric measurements of a subject’s emotional valence and arousal. Subjects were exposed to ten pairs of websites before and after a substantial visual design change and asked to evaluate the website based on their initial impressions of the site’s visual design quality using the VisAWI-S scale, as shown in Table 1.  

During this assessment we collected GSR, facial expressions (limited by errors in initial study configuration), pupillary response, and fixation data using iMotions software coupled with a Tobii eye tracker, Shimmer GSR device, and Affdex facial expression analysis toolkit. This data was analyzed, in Table 2, to discover relationships between the independent and dependent variables, as well as relationships between certain dependent variables.  

Jones, C., & Kim, S. (2010). Influences of retail brand trust, off-line patronage, clothing involvement and website quality on online apparel shopping intention: Online apparel shopping intention. International Journal of Consumer Studies , 34 (6), 627–637. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1470-6431.2010.00871.x

Kuan, H.-H., Bock, G.-W., & Vathanophas, V. (2008). Comparing the effects of website quality on customer initial purchase and continued purchase at e-commerce websites. Behaviour & Information Technology , 27 (1), 3–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/01449290600801959

Lin, H.-F. (2007). The impact of website quality dimensions on customer satisfaction in the B2C e-commerce context. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence , 18 (4), 363–378. https://doi.org/10.1080/14783360701231302

Stojmenovic, M., Pilgrim, C., & Lindgaard, G. (2014). Perceived and objective usability and visual appeal in a website domain with a less developed mental model. Proceedings of the 26 th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference on Designing Futures: The Future of Design , 316–323. https://doi.org/10.1145/2686612.2686660

APA Formatting Guide

APA Formatting

• Annotated Bibliography
• Block Quotes
• et al Usage
• In-text Citations
• Multiple Authors
• Paraphrasing
• Page Numbers
• Parenthetical Citations
• Reference Page
• Sample Paper
• APA 7 Updates
• View APA Guide

Citation Examples

• Book Chapter
• Journal Article
• Magazine Article
• Newspaper Article
• Website (no author)
• View all APA Examples

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APA Style: Basics

Guidelines: paper format.

The APA Style website includes a great section on Paper Format This link opens in a new window . The 7th edition of APA Style has two types of papers: student papers and professional papers. Please consult your assignment or reach out to your professor or instructor to determine which paper format you should use.

For more information see the above page or the sections linked below:

• Order of pages This link opens in a new window
• Title page This link opens in a new window
• Font This link opens in a new window
• Page header This link opens in a new window
• Line spacing This link opens in a new window
• Margins This link opens in a new window
• Paragraph alignment & indentation This link opens in a new window
• Tables setup This link opens in a new window
• Figures setup This link opens in a new window
• Headings This link opens in a new window
• Accessibility This link opens in a new window
• Numbers and Statistics Guide This link opens in a new window

Sample Papers

The APA Style website also includes Sample Papers This link opens in a new window . 

APA Style Sample Papers

• Annotated Student Sample Paper [links to PDF] This link opens in a new window
• Student Sample Paper [links to DOCX] This link opens in a new window
• Annotated Professional Sample Paper [links to PDF] This link opens in a new window
• Professional Sample Paper [links to DOCX] This link opens in a new window

SNHU OWC Sample Papers

• APA 7th Edition Sample Paper (SNHU OWC) [pdf] This link opens in a new window APA 7th Edition Sample Paper from the Academic Support Center
• << Previous: Elements of APA Reference Lists
• Next: APA Reference List Examples >>

Research Guides

Information Literacy & Library Research: APA Style Examples

• Table of Contents
• Information Literacy
• Research Process
• Topics and Background Research
• Writing a Research Question
• Source Types
• Keyword Basics
• Research: A Journey in Small Steps
• Keywords and Boolean Logic
• Using Databases
• How to Find Books and eBooks
• Popular vs Scholarly
• "Search the Library" through the EBSCO Discovery Service
• Applying the CRAAP Test to Sources
• Citing with MLA 9
• Information Synthesis
• How to Critically Read Academic Articles
• Information Has Value
• How to Avoid Plagiarism
• Module 6. Reflecting
• Academic Honesty and Plagiarism
• Copyright and Fair Use
• Creative Commons Licenses
• Information has Value
• Joining the Scholarly Conversation
• Library Classification Systems
• Google Scholar
• Subject Databases
• Find Journal by Title
• Advanced Search Strategies
• MLA Style Examples
• APA Style Examples

APA Style with Examples

Section four b - evaluate & cite - citing your sources - apa style with examples.

APA style is used by psychology, education and the social sciences. The list of sources at the end of a paper in APA style is referred to as References. This is a list of the sources cited in the text of a research paper. The Reference list appears at the end of the paper, is double-spaced within and between sources, and is arranged alphabetically by the author’s last name. Sources without authors are arranged alphabetically by title (omitting any A, An, The) within the same list. The first line of each source is flush with the left margin; second and succeeding lines are indented ½ inch (or five typewriter spaces) from the left margin.

The following examples follow the previous guide to APA style, the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association . 6th Edition. (SUU call number: BF76.7 .P83 2010), and the APA Style Guide to Electronic References . (SUU call number: PN171.A63 2007). To view examples from the most recent 7th edition, please view the APA Style Guide .

• APA Print Sources Book: one author Book: multiple authors Government author Encyclopedia article Encyclopedia article with author Newspaper article Magazine article Journal article
• APA Electronic Sources Online book Encyclopedia article from a subscription service Newspaper article from a subscription service Magazine article from a subscription service Journal article from a subscription service Website Article on Website
• APA Social Media Sources Blog post Email Facebook post Tweet Youtube video
• APA In-text Citations

1. APA Print Sources

Book: one author Barnes, F.R. (1998). The hand: How its use shapes the brain, language, and human culture . New York: Pantheon Press.

Book: multiple authors

Ford, D.Y., & Harris, J. (2003). Multicultural gifted education . New York: Teachers College. Sloan, F. A., Stout, E. M., & Liang, L. (1993). Hysteria beyond Freud . Berkeley: U of California Press.

Government author

U.S. Census Bureau. (2008). Statistical abstract of the United States . Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Encyclopedia article

Mandarin. (2000). In The Encyclopedia Americana . (Vol. 18, pp. 224-225). Danbury: Grolier.

Encyclopedia article with author

Mohanty, J.M. (2003). Indian philosophy. In The New Encyclopaedia Britannica: Macropaedia . 15th ed. (Vol. 21, pp. 191-212). Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britanica.

Newspaper article

Abbott, S., & Simpson, J. (2002, April 3). Now playing: babes in cyberspace. Christian Science Monitor , Extra ed., p. C1. Marines charged in assault case. (2003, February 14). Houston Chronicle , p. 6A.

Magazine article

Armstrong, L., Yang, D.J., & Cuneo, A. (2008, February 28). The learning revolution. Business Week , pp. 80-88. Franklin, C. (2008, July-August). The creative personality. Psychology Today , pp. 36-40.

Journal article

Hallin, D.C. (2003). Sound bite news: Television coverage of elections. Journal of Communication, 42 (2), 5-24. Lindahl, K.M., et. al. Observations of marital conflict and power: Relations with parenting in the triad. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61 , 320-330.

2. APA Electronic Sources

Online articles and books sometimes include a DOI (digital object identifier). APA uses the DOI, when available, in place of a URL in reference list entries. If there is no DOI, include the URL for the home page of the book or journal. Online book McDaniel, Aaron. (2012). The young professional's guide to the Working World. Retrieved from http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/book/-/9781601632425 MacGilchrist, B., Myers, K., & Reed, J. (2004). The intelligent school . (2nd ed.). London: SAGE Publications Ltd. doi: 10.4135/9781446216484 OR, if doi is not available:

MacGilchrist, B., Myers, K., & Reed, J. (2004). The intelligent school. (2nd ed.). London: SAGE Publications Ltd. Retrieved from http://knowledge.sagepub.com/view/the-intelligent-school-2e/SAGE.xml

Encyclopedia article from a subscription service

Austen, Jane. In Britannica Concise Encyclopedia . Retrieved from http://www.xreferplus.com/entry/ebconcise/austen_jane Feminism. (n.d.). In  Encyclopædia Britannica online . Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/724633/feminism

Newspaper article from a subscription service

Seib, G. F. (2001, Apr 11). On green affairs, politics aren't all black and white. Wall Street Journal . Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/398774926/139D9F1752355B820DB/1?accountid=28757

Magazine article from a subscription service

Jost, K. (2009, June 5). Student rights. CQ Researcher , 19, 501-524. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/ Kluger, J. (1996, February). Dr. Sigmund Doolittle. Discover , 17(2), 84. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com

Journal article from a subscription service

Davis, F. L., Wurth, A. H., & Jr. (2003). Voting Preferences and the Environment in the American Electorate:The Discussion Extended.  Society & Natural Resources ,  16 (8), 729. doi:10.1080/0894 19203902 17636 Bæck, U. (2010). Parental involvement practices in formalized home–school cooperation.  Scandinavian Journal Of Educational Research ,  54 (6), 549-563. doi:10.1080/00313831.2010.522845

The Daily Utah Chronicle . (2006). University of Utah. Retrieved from http://www.dailyutahchronicle.com

Article on Website

Davidson, L. (2009, June 17). Bishop saves F-22 by one vote. Deseret News . Retrieved from http://www.deseretnews.com Lubell, S. (2008, November 26). Of the sea and air and sky. New York Times . Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com

3. APA Social Media Sources

Blog post Lastname, Firstinitial. (Year, Month Date). Title of the Blog Post Entry. [Web Log Post]. Retrieved from http://thewebsite.com

In text citation only

Facebook post

Username. (Year, Month Day). Enter Facebook post here. [Facebook update]. Retrieved from http://facebook.com

Twitter handle. (Year, Month Day). Enter the tweet message here. [Twitter post]. Retrieved from http://twitter.com

YouTube Video

Lastname, Firstinitial. (Year, Month Date). Title of the Blog Post Entry. [Web Log Post]. Retrieved from http://thewebsite.com

4. APA In-text Citations

APA in-text citation style uses the author's last name and the year of publication, for example: (Field, 2005). For direct quotations, include the page number as well, for example: (Field, 2005, p. 14). For sources such as websites and e-books that have no page numbers, use a paragraph number.

Within the text of your paper, include an in-text citation when you refer to, summarize, paraphrase, or quote from another source. For every in-text citation in your paper, there must be a corresponding entry in your Reference list.

For more detailed examples of in-text citation see the Research and Documentation Online guide or the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) .

References:

• APA In-Text Citation Guide . Penn State University Libraries.
• In-Text Citations: The Basics . Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL).
• APA in-text citations . Research and Documentation Online. 5th Edition.
• << Previous: MLA Style Examples
• Last Updated: May 3, 2024 2:15 PM
• URL: https://library.suu.edu/LibraryResearch

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• Knowledge Base
• APA Style 7th edition
• APA headings and subheadings

APA Headings and Subheadings | With Sample Paper

Published on November 7, 2020 by Raimo Streefkerk . Revised on October 24, 2022.

Headings and subheadings provide structure to a document. They signal what each section is about and allow for easy navigation of the document.

APA headings have five possible levels. Each heading level is formatted differently.

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Table of contents

Additional guidelines for apa headings, how many heading levels should you use, when to use which apa heading level, section labels vs headings, sample paper with apa headings, using heading styles in word or google docs.

As well as the heading styles, there are some other guidelines to keep in mind:

• Double-space all text, including the headings.
• Use the same font for headings and body text (e.g., Times New Roman 12pt.).
• Don’t label headings with numbers or letters.
• Don’t add extra “enters” above or below headings.

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Depending on the length and complexity of your paper, you may not use all five heading levels. In fact, shorter student papers may have no headings at all.

It’s also perfectly fine for some sections in your paper to go as deep as five levels, where others use only heading level 1.

Heading level 1 is used for main sections like “ Methods ”, “ Results ”, and “ Discussion ”. There is no “ Introduction ” heading at the beginning of your paper because the first paragraphs are understood to be introductory.

Heading level 2 is used for subsections under level 1. For example, under “Methods” (level 1) you may have subsections for “Sampling Method” and “Data Analysis” (level 2). This continues all the way down to heading level 5.

Always use at least two subheadings or none at all. If there is just one subheading, the top-level heading is sufficient.

In addition to regular headings, APA works with “section labels” for specific parts of the paper. They’re similar to headings but are formatted differently. Section labels are placed on a separate line at the top of a new page in bold and centered.

Use section labels for the following sections in an APA formatted paper :

• Author note
• Paper title
• Reference page

Instead of formatting every heading individually, you can use the “Styles” feature in Word or Google Docs. This allows you to save the styling and apply it with just a click.

The first time you use APA Style, you need to update the default heading styles to reflect the APA heading guidelines. Click here for the instructions for Microsoft Word and Google Docs .

An added benefit of using the “Styles” feature is that you can automatically generate a table of contents .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Streefkerk, R. (2022, October 24). APA Headings and Subheadings | With Sample Paper. Scribbr. Retrieved June 11, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/apa-style/apa-headings/

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

In-Text Citations: The Basics

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Note:  This page reflects the latest version of the APA Publication Manual (i.e., APA 7), which released in October 2019. The equivalent resource for the older APA 6 style  can be found here .

Reference citations in text are covered on pages 261-268 of the Publication Manual. What follows are some general guidelines for referring to the works of others in your essay.

Note:  On pages 117-118, the Publication Manual suggests that authors of research papers should use the past tense or present perfect tense for signal phrases that occur in the literature review and procedure descriptions (for example, Jones (1998)  found  or Jones (1998)  has found ...). Contexts other than traditionally-structured research writing may permit the simple present tense (for example, Jones (1998)  finds ).

APA Citation Basics

When using APA format, follow the author-date method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text, like, for example, (Jones, 1998). One complete reference for each source should appear in the reference list at the end of the paper.

If you are referring to an idea from another work but  NOT  directly quoting the material, or making reference to an entire book, article or other work, you only have to make reference to the author and year of publication and not the page number in your in-text reference.

On the other hand, if you are directly quoting or borrowing from another work, you should include the page number at the end of the parenthetical citation. Use the abbreviation “p.” (for one page) or “pp.” (for multiple pages) before listing the page number(s). Use an en dash for page ranges. For example, you might write (Jones, 1998, p. 199) or (Jones, 1998, pp. 199–201). This information is reiterated below.

Regardless of how they are referenced, all sources that are cited in the text must appear in the reference list at the end of the paper.

In-text citation capitalization, quotes, and italics/underlining

• Always capitalize proper nouns, including author names and initials: D. Jones.
• If you refer to the title of a source within your paper, capitalize all words that are four letters long or greater within the title of a source:  Permanence and Change . Exceptions apply to short words that are verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs:  Writing New Media ,  There Is Nothing Left to Lose .

( Note:  in your References list, only the first word of a title will be capitalized:  Writing new media .)

• When capitalizing titles, capitalize both words in a hyphenated compound word:  Natural-Born Cyborgs .
• Capitalize the first word after a dash or colon: "Defining Film Rhetoric: The Case of Hitchcock's  Vertigo ."
• If the title of the work is italicized in your reference list, italicize it and use title case capitalization in the text:  The Closing of the American Mind ;  The Wizard of Oz ;  Friends .
• If the title of the work is not italicized in your reference list, use double quotation marks and title case capitalization (even though the reference list uses sentence case): "Multimedia Narration: Constructing Possible Worlds;" "The One Where Chandler Can't Cry."

Short quotations

If you are directly quoting from a work, you will need to include the author, year of publication, and page number for the reference (preceded by "p." for a single page and “pp.” for a span of multiple pages, with the page numbers separated by an en dash).

You can introduce the quotation with a signal phrase that includes the author's last name followed by the date of publication in parentheses.

If you do not include the author’s name in the text of the sentence, place the author's last name, the year of publication, and the page number in parentheses after the quotation.

Long quotations

Place direct quotations that are 40 words or longer in a free-standing block of typewritten lines and omit quotation marks. Start the quotation on a new line, indented 1/2 inch from the left margin, i.e., in the same place you would begin a new paragraph. Type the entire quotation on the new margin, and indent the first line of any subsequent paragraph within the quotation 1/2 inch from the new margin. Maintain double-spacing throughout, but do not add an extra blank line before or after it. The parenthetical citation should come after the closing punctuation mark.

Because block quotation formatting is difficult for us to replicate in the OWL's content management system, we have simply provided a screenshot of a generic example below.

Formatting example for block quotations in APA 7 style.

Quotations from sources without pages

Direct quotations from sources that do not contain pages should not reference a page number. Instead, you may reference another logical identifying element: a paragraph, a chapter number, a section number, a table number, or something else. Older works (like religious texts) can also incorporate special location identifiers like verse numbers. In short: pick a substitute for page numbers that makes sense for your source.

Summary or paraphrase

If you are paraphrasing an idea from another work, you only have to make reference to the author and year of publication in your in-text reference and may omit the page numbers. APA guidelines, however, do encourage including a page range for a summary or paraphrase when it will help the reader find the information in a longer work. 

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Clip Art or Stock Image References

There are special requirements for using clip art and stock images in APA Style papers.

Common sources for stock images and clip art are iStock, Getty Images, Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, Pixabay, and Flickr. Common sources for clip art are Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint.

The license associated with the clip art or stock image determines how it should be credited.

• Sometimes the license indicates no reference or attribution is needed, in which case writers can reproduce the image without any reference, citation, or attribution in an APA Style paper.
• Other times, the license indicates that credit is required to reproduce the image, in which case writers should write an APA Style copyright attribution and reference list entry.

Follow the terms of the license associated with the image you want to reproduce. The guidelines apply regardless of whether the image costs money to purchase or is available for free. The guidelines also apply to both students and professionals and to both papers and PowerPoint presentations.

Although for most images you must look at the license on a case-by-case basis, images and clip art from programs such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint can be used without attribution. By purchasing the program, you have purchased a license to use the clip art and images that come with the program without attribution.

This page contains examples for clip art or stock images, including the following:

• Image with no attribution required
• Image that requires an attribution

1. Image with no attribution required

If the license associated with clip art or a stock image states “no attribution required,” then do not provide an APA Style reference, in-text citation, or copyright attribution.

For example, this image of a cat comes from Pixabay and has a license that says the image is free to reproduce with no attribution required. To use the image as a figure in an APA Style paper, provide a figure number and title and then the image. If desired, describe the image in a figure note. In a presentation (such as a PowerPoint presentation), the figure number, title, and note are optional.

Figure 1 A Striped Cat Sits With Paws Crossed

Note. Participants assigned to the cute pets condition saw this image of a cat.

2. Image that requires an attribution

If the license associated with clip art or a stock image says that attribution is required, then provide a copyright attribution in the figure note and a reference list entry for the image in the reference list. Many (but not all) images with Creative Commons licenses require attribution.

For example, this image of a sled dog comes from Flickr and has a Creative Commons license (specifically, CC BY 2.0). The license states that the image is free to use but attribution is required.

To use the image as a figure in an APA Style paper, provide a figure number and title and then the image. Below the image, provide a copyright attribution in the figure note. In a presentation, the figure number and title are optional but the note containing the copyright attribution is required.

The copyright attribution is used instead of an in-text citation. The copyright attribution consists of the same elements as the reference list entry, but in a different order (title, author, date, site name, URL), followed by the name of the Creative Commons License.

Figure 1 Lava the Sled Dog

Note . From Lava [Photograph], by Denali National Park and Preserve, 2013, Flickr

( https://www.flickr.com/photos/denalinps/8639280606/ ). CC BY 2.0.

Also provide a reference list entry for the image. The reference list entry for the image consists of its author, year of publication, title, description in brackets, and source (usually the name of the website and the URL).

Denali National Park and Preserve. (2013). Lava [Photograph]. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/denalinps/8639280606/

To cite clip art or a stock image without reproducing it, provide an in-text citation for the image instead of a copyright attribution. Also provide a reference list entry.

• Parenthetical citation : (Denali National Park and Preserve, 2013)
• Narrative citation : Denali National Park and Preserve (2013)

Clip art or stock images are covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Sections 12.14 to 12.18 and the Concise Guide Section 10.12