APA guidelines have made the documentation process much easier. Using parenthetical citations, you can quickly and easily cite the works of others, avoiding plagiarism and keeping your paper clean. These guidelines have changed since the old days of schooling, and now have been adapted to encompass all sorts of analytical papers and publications.
APA Guidelines for Correct Form
Perhaps you know how to create a bibliography. But times have changed, and now the correct format for citations is a bit different than you might remember. The days of footnotes and endnotes are long gone, along with pages of citations, for each instance of quotations.
What the APA guidelines have done is accomplish documentation with the least amount of hassle. Without unduly interrupting your text, you can quote extensively and give proper credit to the author. In fact, if you quote a single book 56 times, you only need a simple parenthetical citation after each quotation. Then, in your list of works cited, you only need name the publication once.
What Are Parenthetical Citations?
Parenthetical citations are simply citations enclosed in parentheses at the close of the relevant sentence. Usually these consist of the author or editor’s last name, along with a page number. These make for easily inserted documentation, and are usually followed by an alphabetized list of sources at the paper’s end.