Help with APA format

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Specializes in CVICU.

I swear, the hardest part about doing a case study is referencing and citing your sources correctly.

I am writing my pathophys paper over my pt's primary diagnosis but I can't figure out how to do an in-text citation on a web page with no known author. All the examples I see are like paraphrased quotations, such as "According to Bob at the Cancer Institute of America, cancer cells blahblah", but I have done a direct quote such as "Although the exact cause of Alzheimer's disease is currently unknown, many theories such as xxxx exist." I read somewhere to do the page name and year, such as (HealthCentral, 2013) but my instructor says she doesn't think that is right.

How do I cite it then? We're texting right now, not face to face, which is why my instructor hasn't told me. I don't think she is at school to look it up either.

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Specializes in ED; Med Surg.

If you use citationmachine.com it will tell you how to cite everything you use as a reference (even web pages), as well as the correct way to do the reference. Saved my life and sanity on many occasions.

Also go to purdueowl.com for all things APA! Just in case your instructor doesn't agree or know...you have proof.

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Specializes in CVICU.

Hey there. Thanks for responding. I checked OWL Purdue and did not find an explanation relevant to my situation. Citation Machine is great for a bibliography but I need to know how to site within the paper, ie, a parenthetical citation.

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If you are going to use a website as a source, you cite this as you would any other. You create an entry on your reference list following the typical format: Author, date, title, retrieved (date if needed) from URL. Generally, if you are citing a corporate website you would use the publishing agency’s name as the author. After determining the components of the reference list, your parenthetical in-text citation for a website would be the same as for any other source; author and date.

If you are going to use an online source you might want to consider the APA Style Blog. There are two specific pages APA Style Blog: How to Cite Something You Found on a Website in APA Style and APA Style Blog: The Generic Reference: Who? that you might find helpful.

If you do not have a copy of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th edition) you should invest in one as you will use it frequently throughout nursing school.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
How to Format the Unique First-Page Header for APA Style (6th Edition)
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Specializes in Cath Lab & Interventional Radiology.

I bought the program PERRLA. It really makes citing very easy by automatically formatting all your citations in APA format. It makes your headers, title page, reference page, and even saves all your sources for future papers. When you add our delete a source, it automatically reformats your reference page. The time it has saved me is totally with the $35 I spent on it!

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Specializes in kids.

Noodle tools is another great site!

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Specializes in CVICU.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions! I think I overcomplicated it. Anyway, this is how I did it. Since most websites I used did not have an apparent author, I used the website's business/association name. For example, I used alz.org in my pathophysiology paper on Alzheimer's. I cited it as (Alzheimer's Association, 2013) and in my references, used the exact url I had gotten the information from. I used EasyBib to do my reference page.

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