APA-style 7th edition

One of the most important styles for referencing is the APA style. Most Dutch educational institutions use the APA rules for references and citations. To prevent plagiarism, it is important that you follow the APA rules carefully. How exactly do you do that for different types of sources? How do you make an APA bibliography? These examples and tips will help you.

It should come as no surprise that you are not allowed to copy information from other sources and present it as your own in your thesis. For any information you include (paraphrased or quoted) you must credit the author(s) in question. You do this by referencing and citing the source. In this way, you show what information you have derived from other sources and you give the reader the opportunity to study those sources for themselves.

An APA referencing style citation means that, according to the APA guidelines, you refer to the sources you have used twice: in the running text ( where you quote or paraphrase information from that source) and in the bibliography at the end.

In the Netherlands, the APA referencing style is applied by almost all educational institutions. Only medical and legal studies often use a different style, for example, law programs use the ‘Leidraad voor Juridische Auteurs’.

The guidelines for the APA style are regularly updated. The most recent is the APA Style 7th Edition. That is also the style that we describe in this article. If your educational institution asks you to reference according to APA, they are usually talking about APA Style 7th Edition.

Are you unsure if the latest guideline also applies to your study? Make sure to ask your thesis supervisor.

Below we show you the basic rules for APA-style citations. Would you like to see more examples? Check out our extensive article with APA examples.

Whenever you cite a source (quoted or paraphrased), you cite that source in the text in one of two ways:

Between brackets:

The influence of smoking on your health is greatest after ten years (Pietersen, 2019).

After ten years there is a noticeable difference in lung health between people who have smoked and those who have not (Pietersen & Jakobsen, 2019).

For multiple authors, the first citation looks like this:

If you have smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for ten years, your lungs are significantly worse than those of people who do not smoke (Pietersen, Jakobsen, Lory & Born, 2019).

If you later cite the same source, the source reference in brackets will, for example, look like this:

The same study shows that… (Pieter et al., 2019).

In running text:

Research by Pietersen (2019) shows that…

Pietersen (2019) shows in his research that…

Pietersen and Jakobsen (2019) argue in their article for…

Do you quote a part from the source or do you paraphrase a specific part of the source? In that case, you also state the relevant page number(s). You then get, for example:

Pietersen (2019, p. 8) says the following about this: …

You include the complete source in the bibliography. Here you also state, for example, the title of the article, book or magazine and, where necessary, the page numbers.

The exact structure of your reference according to the APA rules differs per type of source. Below are some examples of the most common types of sources.

Citation APA-style for scientific publications:

Pietersen (2019). What is the influence of smoking on your health after ten years? Health Journal, (9)8, 5-14. https://doi.org/….

Citation APA-style for books:

Jacobs (2015). The functions of the lungs (3rd edition). Tree Publishers. 

Citation APA style for webpages:

CBS (2022, May 4). Labor Market Dashboard. CBS. Retrieved May 19, 2022, from https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/visualisaties/dashboard-arbeidsmarkt

Is the date of publication unknown? Then you use 'n.d.'. Is the author missing? Then you use the website name (e.g. 'CBS' in this case).

Citing the source is still quite some work. Fortunately, we have a life-saver for you: the APA generator. With this tool, you save yourself a lot of work. Our free APA source generator instantly converts your sources in line with the APA referencing format. Try it yourself!

The APA bibliography contains all the sources that you cite in your thesis. In terms of thesis structure, this page is at the very end of your thesis, just before the appendices.

The APA bibliography must in any case meet the following points:

• Mention here every source you cite in your thesis. This is not necessary for personal communication, general knowledge (such as that smoking affects your health) or sources from which you have not obtained information.
• Sort the sources by author in alphabetical order. So 'Jansen' comes before 'Pietersen'.
• Is the author unknown? Then sort the source based on the first part of the citation (for example the title).
• Indent the second line of a citation (with tab).

Do you want to make your life easier? Then use a handy reference tool, which automatically creates the bibliography for you. Word has a built-in function for this. You can also purchase separate software for this purpose, such as EndNote.

With such a tool, you enter the required data for each source. The tool then automatically creates the correct APA bibliography for you.

Review the bibliography yourself again to check for mistakes.

While you're dealing with APA-style citations and trying to prevent plagiarism, it is always possible that a language error can still creep into your thesis. Do you want to be sure that your thesis will go to your supervisor without any errors? Ask the editors of AthenaCheck to check your text. Would you like us to check only for language errors, or also for structure and a common thread? Everything is possible!