SW 450-550 Research & Evaluation: Citations & Info Organization

APA 7 Citation Basics for Journal Articles & Books

The primary point of a citation is to enable your reader to easily find your source. Every source referred to in the text of your paper should appear in the reference list. 

Journal Article

Author, A. & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of article: The subtitle. Title of Journal, volume number(issue number), xx-xx.

Journal Article with DOI*

Author, A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. (Year). Title of article: The subtitle. Title of Journal, volume number(issue number), xx-xx. http://dx.doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyyy 

Book Chapter

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year of publication). Title of chapter. In A. Editor & B. Editor (Eds.), Title of book (pp. xx-x). Publisher.

*A DOI is a unique number assigned to an individual electronic item, such as an online journal article. 

What is Zotero?

Zotero is citation management software that is enhanced by its active community of users and developers. You can easily add citations and full text sources to build your own library. Zotero allows you to easily organize, read, and annotate sources. Its single-click capture works with most all databases, catalogs, and websites, and Zotero is better than other applications at citing government documents. Plugins developed by its users add customization options. You can also collaborate with other researchers who use Zotero and create shared collections.  

Storage

Zotero is a free program until you have used 300 MB of cloud storage (approximately 100 PDFs). Different pricing plans for your storage needs are available once the storage has been exceeded. Plans range from $20/year for 2 GB storage up to $120/year for unlimited storage. More information about paying for additional storage can be found on Zotero's storage plans page.

Online help with APA Citations

APA Formatting Tutorials

Organizing Research for Writing

There are numerous ways to organize the material in a lit. review. For example, one might organize the selected readings by

  • different theoretical approaches
  • specific concepts or issues
  • different methodologies employed
  • level of support or otherwise that they lend to one’s own hypothesis/theory.

Such methods are generally better than organizing chronologically or by author. 

(From Writing a Literature Review Phase 5: Organizing the Review, Boston College Libraries)