Your style guide will show you example citations for a variety of different source types: articles, books, ebooks, websites, images and more.
To find your style guide, select RESOURCES on the library's website. Look beneath Writing@APUS to find the style guides listed: APA Style, Bluebook Style, Chicago Style, MLA Style or Turabian Style link.
Once on the style guide page, scroll down to the Citation Examples section. Click the type of citation you need to see examples that should help you format correctly.
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Don't see an example that fits the source you're citing?
When you can't find the example reference or citation model you need in your style guide, the best thing to do is to choose the example that is the most like the source you are using and follow that format. You may need to combine elements of more than one reference format. In the end, you'll make a bit of an educated guess.
The publishers of the style guides used at APUS have provided some information on this issue:
- APA (from their APA Style Blog): I can't find the example reference I need in the Publication Manual. What should I do? (This link is for the 7th edition but if you look at the right hand side of the web page, you'll see that they note: "This guidance is the same as in the 6th edition.")
- Bluebook (From the Introduction): "When citing material of a type not explicitly discussed in this book, try to locate an analogous type of authority that is discussed and use that citation form as a model. Always be sure to provide sufficient information to allow the reader to find the material quickly and easily." (pg. 1)
- Chicago
- (From Source Citations: An Overview, Section 14.1) "Regardless of the convention being followed, source citations must always provide sufficient information either to lead readers directly to the sources consulted or, for materials that may not be readily available, to enable readers to positively identify them, regardless of whether the sources are published or unpublished or in printed or electronic form."
- (From Source Citations: An Overview, Section 14.1) "Regardless of the convention being followed, source citations must always provide sufficient information either to lead readers directly to the sources consulted or, for materials that may not be readily available, to enable readers to positively identify them, regardless of whether the sources are published or unpublished or in printed or electronic form."
- MLA (from Section 5.3 THE LIST OF WORDS CITED, 5.3.1 Introduction):
- "MLA style provides a flexible, modular format for recording key features of works cited or consulted in the preparation of your research paper." (pg. 129)
- ""While it is tempting to think that every source has only one complete and correct format for its entry in a list of works cited, in truth there are often several options for recording key features of a work. . . . You may need to improvise when the type of scholarly project or publication medium of a source is not anticipated by this handbook." (pg. 129)
- Turabian (From Chapters 16 and 18): "The Basic Form."
- "Although sources and their citations come in almost endless variety, you are likely to use only a few kinds. While you may need to look up details to cite some unusual sources, you can easily learn basic patterns for the few kinds you will use most often." (pg. 145)
- For detailed info on "The Basic Form" see Chapter 16, pp 144-150 for Notes-Bibliography Style and Chapter 18, pp. 216-222 for Author-Date Style.
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