PARENTHETICAL CITATIONS: WHAT IT MEANS
TO REFERENCE INFORMATION IN A PAPER 

If you area unsure when
and how to cite information within the body of your paper, consider these points: 

1.     Anytime you are using information that is not your original thought, word, etc., it is necessary to note the "ownership" of the material.  Specifically, from whom did you borrow this information?  By not acknowledging and properly citing the information, you are committing plagiarism, to which the consequences are severe. 

 2.     When referring to "borrowed" material, within the body of the paper, its origin must be noted.  There are several ways to identify, note, and reference "borrowed" material.  For this paper, the American Psychological Association (APA) parenthetical citation style is used.  Therefore, information that is identified is referenced by the use of parenthesis () and is referred to as a parenthetical citation. 

This parenthetical citation is designed to identify, for the reader, where to find the information should they wish to refer to the actual document, etc.  So for this course, when your are not referring to your own original, unpublished thoughts, ideas, etc. Fowler and Aaron (1998) suggest the following, (p. 708).

 1.     Author not named in your text

One critic of Miligram's experiments insisted that the subjects "should have been fully informed of the possible effects on them" (Baumring, 1968, p. 34).

Baumring (1968) insisted that the subjects in Milgram's study "should have been fully informed of the possible effects on them" (p. 34).

 Use of numerical numbers in the reference list 

APA format does not use the numeric listing of references with which many may be familiar.  Since information has been parenthetically cited in the text, an alphabetical reference list is then created.  

The reference list appears at the end of your paper and lists, alphabetically, the sources referenced in your paper, noting, author, date published, title, publisher, and page number(s).  Again, you must refer to the APA Manual for specific details on books, world wide web citations, and the like. 

As for endnotes, use these sparingly and only when they add, or otherwise help make clear what appears in your text.  Endnotes should appear at the end of the paper, on a separate sheet, and before the reference list.  Endnotes are numerically cited therefore organize them numerically when listing. 

As for footnotes, they have become somewhat obsolete and are not a part of standard APA style. 

Hope this gives you some helpful tips.  See the Health Care Ethics Web page for additional links