American Psychological Association is abbreviated as APA. It is referred as an editorial style of citing social and behavioral sciences. It was invented 80 years back by social scientists with the aim of establishing reliable standard of communication. It is still in practice by many executives in countless fields and gaining popularity all around the world.

In APA formatting of citing certification, brief citations inside the text is done just after using a quote, reference, source, summary or phrase.
There are listed number of categories which needs to be cited.

Capitalization:
– Proper nouns: Remember to capitalize all proper nouns such as author names and initials. E.g. M. Smith.

Author-date method:
– This method is used to provide reference of the source you have quoted. Author’s last name along with its publication year is provided in the text E.g. (Smith, 1996).
– If just the idea, not any extract is figured out, mentioning it in the reference list is enough.

Short Quotes:
– When you are quoting short lines, your work should include last name of the author, publication year and page number for referencing; heading with p.
– The date of publication should be present in parentheses.
Example
According to Smith (1996), “Beginners often had difficulty using APA format, particularly when it was their first attempt” (p. 200).

Long Quotes:
– Those phrases containing more than 40 words are regarded as long quotes.
– Avoid using quotation marks.
–  Begin with a new line from left margin indenting five spaces.
– Provide consistency by giving double spacing all over.
Example
Smith’s (1996) study found the following:
Beginners often had difficulty using APA format, particularly when it was their first attempt mentioning sources. This difficulty could be attributed to the fact that many of them failed to acquire a manual or to ask their instructor for help. (p. 200).

Summary or Paraphrase:
– Adopting some ideas from different sources also need to be cited.
– In these guidelines reference of the author along with publication year is necessary.
– Furthermore, mentioning the page numbers is not mandatory but support the configuration efficiently.
Example
I) According to Smith (1996), APA format is a difficult citation format for beginners.
II) This style is a difficult citation format for beginners (Smith, 1996, p.200).
These guidelines facilitate to offer a package of standards that is being implemented by all the members of academic department.