APA Style & Citation 7th edition

Class Material

Typically class material is considered a 'personal communication'. These are sources that typically can't be accessed by your reader, such as email, texts, lecture notes, interviews that you have conducted, etc. For personal communications you do not need a reference but you would need an in-text citation.

However, if the reader can retrieve the original (for example: your professor when you are citing the powerpoint slides used in class) they should be listed on the Reference page, using the login page for Blackboard as the source and source URL.

Author's last name, first initial. (date of publication). Title of document: Subtitle if any [file format for ex: PowerPoint presentation]. Blackboard at Central Penn College. https://my.centralpenn.edu

Government Reports

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of report (Report No. xxx). Website. URL [starts with https://]

Elsner, S., Upton, R., & Gann, C. (2020, January). Small area income and poverty estimates: 2018 (Report No. P30-06). U.S. Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p30-06.html

Legal Materials

Legal references follow The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation.

Personal Communications

Personal interviews, emails, phone conversations, text messages, live speeches, and social media messages are all considered personal communication. You do not need to include personal communications in your references list. Just provide an in-text citations listing the communicator's name, the phrase "personal communication," and the date of the communication.  

Here are two examples of how to create in-text citations for personal communications.

(E. Robbins, personal communication, January 4, 2021).

A. P. Smith (personal communication, November 3, 2020) also claimed that many of her students had difficulties with APA style.

Contact the library for more assistance.