American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association (APA) is the leading organization representing psychology in the United States. The APA is a valuable resource for psychology students and career psychologists as the organization not only promotes psychology as a discipline but it also outlines a code of professional ethics psychologists must abide by. Aside from advancing the field and providing valuable career advice, the APA also outlines a framework for psychologisits to write about research and the field, in general. The "APA citation format" has become a standard publication format within psychology and even across some other social sciences. When writing about psychology research, writers must acknowledge previous scholars' work by properly citing their work. As you read through this sub-unit's course materials, pay attention to how writers are to pay proper credit and how the type of publication (e.g., journal article, book, book chapter, website) a writer refers to affects the citation. Similarly, pay attention to the fact that all cited publications in a text must be listed in a reference list.