How to Cite Twitter and Facebook, Part II: Reference List Entries and In-Text Citations

[Note 10/18/2013: Please view an updated and expanded version of this post at http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2013/10/how-to-cite-social-media-in-apa-style.html]

by Chelsea Lee

Previously I talked about how to cite Twitter and Facebook posts or feeds in general, which you can do quite easily by mentioning the URLs in text (with no reference list entries required).

Today I address some of the issues pertaining to citing particular posts, which require both reference list entries and in-text citations. As you may have noticed, the Publication Manual does not give specific guidance on how to do this. This is an evolving area, and blog discussions will be considered as we create guidelines related to these new references sources for future APA Style products.

What to do in the meantime? Below are examples of one approach to citing tweets and Facebook updates. Until more definitive guidance is available, feel free to use this approach or another that is also clear and gives the reader enough information about the source to be able to locate it.

First, here are screenshots of my examples from Twitter and Facebook (click to enlarge): 

  

The suggested reference list entries below generally follow the format for citation of online sources (see pp. 214–215):

BarackObama. (2009a, July 15). Launched American Graduation Initiative to help additional 5 mill. Americans graduate college by 2020: http://bit.ly/gcTX7 [Twitter post]. Retrieved from http://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/2651151366

Barack Obama. (2009b, October 9). Humbled. http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/obamaforamerica/gGM45m [Facebook update]. Retrieved from http://www.facebook.com/posted.php? id=6815841748&share_id=154954250775&comments=1#s154954250775

Here’s the rationale I used for presenting each element in the reference: 

• I included the author name as written (not changing BarackObama or Barack Obama to Obama, B.; see Example 76, p. 215). For simplicity’s sake and to ensure accuracy, it’s best to include names as written for Facebook and Twitter citations. 

• Alphabetize under B, not O, ignoring the space (i.e., BarackObama and Barack Obama are treated the same, so you would next arrange them chronologically; see also section 6.25 of the manual, pp. 181–182). 

• The date includes the year and day, but not the time. The date gives ample specificity without adding an element of how to format times, which isn’t done anywhere else in APA Style. 

• To differentiate among posts from the same person in the same year (or even the same day), you can include ”a” or “b” after the year, in chronological order. If you have only one post from the writer in a year, then it is not necessary to include “a” or “b.” 

• I included the whole post in the title position (mine included a URL, so I included that too). Facebook updates, however, might be quite long—if that is the case, you might use a truncated version of the post in the title position. 

• It’s helpful to provide a description of form inside brackets, such as Twitter post or Facebook update. 

• The URL leads directly to the post rather than to the feed in general, in order to be as direct and specific as possible about what is being cited. Click the date and time stamp beneath the post in question (seen in the screenshots) and you will be taken to the individual status update page with its own URL.

For in-text citations, parenthetical citation may be easiest:

President Obama announced the launch of the American Graduation Initiative (BarackObama, 2009a). He also stated that he was “humbled” to have received the Nobel Peace Prize (Barack Obama, 2009b).

One last issue is retrievability. Because online social media are more about live updates than archiving, we don’t know if these status update pages will still be here in a year, or 5, or 20 years. So if you are writing for publication, it may be prudent to self-archive any social media updates you include in your articles (check out this post by Gunther Eysenbach on some ways to do this).

  

What’s Next

I hope to bring you more in the future on citing social media posts, for example, citing hash-tagged conversations—although first we must figure out how to securely archive them (the adorably named Twapper Keeper might meet this need).

How have you addressed citing, archiving, and retrieving tweets and other social media posts in your field of expertise?

How to Cite Twitter and Facebook, Part I: General

[Note 10/18/2013: Please view an updated and expanded version of this post at http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2013/10/how-to-cite-social-media-in-apa-style.html]

 

 by Chelsea Lee

Because posts from online social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, are not yet often fodder for scholarly research, specific reference examples aren’t included in the Publication Manual. Well, whenever you need a reference format for something that’s not explicitly covered in the manual, you can adapt our examples to meet your needs (see p. 193). I’ll show you how, using example posts from President Obama’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

To cite a Twitter or Facebook feed as a whole or to discuss it in general, it is sufficient to give the site URL in text, inside parentheses. There is no need for a reference list entry.           

President Obama uses Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/barackobama) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/barackobama) to keep citizens up to speed on his initiatives, especially health care reform and Supreme Court nominations.

 It’s the same method you’d use to cite a website as a whole (see this FAQ).

 On Monday I will address citing particular Twitter or Facebook posts.

How to Cite a Speech in APA Style

by Timothy McAdoo

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. made this famous declaration on August 28, 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It may be the most famous American speech ever given, and it’s certainly oft-quoted. 

But how do you properly cite a speech in APA Style?  The answer may surprise you. You don’t reference the speech itself!

Even for a speech you may know by heart, you should find an authoritative source for the text. Then you simply reference the book, video documentary, website, or other source for the quotation. The reference format you need will depend on the type of document you’ve used. 

For example, if you’ve found Dr. King’s speech in a book of great speeches, your reference might be as follows. 

Smith, J. (Ed.). (2009). Well said! Great speeches in American history.   Washington, DC: E & K Publishing.

The in-text citation would include the surname of the author or editor of the source document and the year of publication.  For example, your sentence might look like this: 

Dr. King declared, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed” (Smith, 2009).

Of course, you can find speeches in a wide variety of sources. Consider two ends of the spectrum: You might find an embedded video in a blog post and use Example 76 (“Blog post,” p.  215 of the Publication Manual), or you might find a lone, dusty copy of an audiotape in an archive and use Example 69 (“Interview recorded and available in an archive,” p. 214). 

What’s your favorite source for great speeches?

APA Style for Citing Interviews

by Timothy McAdoo

“I’m quoting Johnny Depp from an interview I read in a magazine. But the Publication Manual has no reference format for interviews. What do I do?”

I’ve always said there are two types of interviews in this world: those you conducted and those you didn’t! Let’s look at both. 

The guidance on p. 179 of the Publication Manual about citing personal communications mentions “personal interviews” as one example. Let’s say you interview a professor about her lifetime of work in the field of industrial and organizational psychology. Because a reader would not be able to find your interview in print or online, no recoverable data are available. You’ll need to use the “personal communication” in-text citation style shown on p. 179.

Of course, these days it can be easy to make your data recoverable. If you have a blog or another publishing outlet online, you could post the text of your interview. Then you’d want to follow the appropriate reference format.  If you’ve posted to your blog, for example, use the Example 76 (“Blog post”) on p. 215 of the Publication Manual. 

Finally, if you’ve simply read an interview conducted by someone else, you should pick the reference format appropriate for the source. If you read the interview in a magazine, for example, you’d want to follow Example 7 (“Magazine article”) on p. 200.

I hope this post clears up that small point of confusion about citing interviews. Some of my favorite interviews are from Studs Terkel’s oral histories. What are yours?

How to Cite Wikipedia in APA Style

by Timothy McAdoo

First things first. Is it a good idea to cite Wikipedia in your research paper? Generally speaking, no. In fact, if you’re writing a paper as a class assignment, your teacher may specifically prohibit citing Wikipedia. Scholarly papers should generally rely on peer-reviewed and other scholarly work vetted by experts in the field.

Does this mean Wikipedia contains bad information? Not at all. It is a great way to get an overview of a topic that might be new to you. And, because many Wikipedia entries contain thorough citations, they can be good starting points to find the original source materials you do want to use. Don’t quote or paraphrase from the Wikipedia entry in your paper, but check the entry’s Reference section to find links to more authoritative sources. And be sure to find and read these sources to verify the facts, figures, and points of view they present.

But, of course, there are times when citing a Wikipedia entry itself is appropriate. For example, let’s say you are writing a paper on how social media and crowdsourcing influence definitions of common psychology terms. Wikipedia would be one excellent source for this topic!

Example 30 (“Entry in an online reference work, no author or editor”) from p. 205 of the Publication Manual can be used for Wikipedia or other wikis. The following example is for the Wikipedia entry on “psychology.” Note that the retrieval date is needed in this case because, as true for any wiki entry, the source material may change over time.

Psychology. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 14, 2009, from   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology

Note to APA Style Community: Sixth Edition Corrections

We are grateful for the lively and thoughtful discussion that has resulted from the release of the sixth edition of the Publication Manual on this blog and also among other APA Style communities. We recently learned of a post on a listserv regarding corrections to the manual that has caused much alarm among members of the APA Style community and, despite good intentions, includes misleading and erroneous information. We would like to clarify the nature and extent of the errors in the sixth edition and tell you how you can access the corrections online.

First, we’d like to verify that the first printing of the Publication Manual is substantively correct, accurate, and fully functional in all areas except for three sample papers that have been corrected and are posted on the web for download.

The first printing was carefully proofed and vetted at multiple stages. The guidance provided in the book is accurate and sound.

Errors in the sample papers, which were relatively minor, have been corrected. You and your students can access the corrected sample papers at http://www.apastyle.org clicking first on "Related Resources" and selecting the "Sample Papers" option from the left-hand column.

We urge you to download the papers from the website and, while you’re there, to take advantage of the free tutorials, FAQs, and other instructional aids that we’ve developed to help readers transition to the new edition of the Publication Manual.

As with the fifth edition of the manual, corrections made to the first and subsequent printings of the manual are posted online. The complete list of errors that will be corrected in the second printing of the Publication Manual can be found at http://www.apastyle.org by clicking on "Supplemental Materials" and selecting "Reprint Corrections" at the bottom of the page. The majority of these are typographical errors that do not affect the content and guidance in the chapters.

We appreciate the efforts of all who have taken the time to send in and point out small typographical errors. We have responded quickly to make corrections as needed, first by posting the corrected sample papers and second by posting a list of typographical errors in all chapters on our website for immediate accessibility for users.

Sayonara to the “Well-Known City” Rule in APA Style

by Anne Breitenbach

For those of you familiar with the previous editions of the APA Publication Manual, be aware that the “well-known city” exception for reference citations is no more. Briefly, the old rule was to provide the state, province (if applicable), or country as well as the city for book and other nonperiodical publishers except in the case of certain cities that were described as “major cities that are well known for publishing” (p. 217, 5th edition). Thus, for example, a reference list entry for a publisher from Baltimore need and should not list MD as part of the location element. The author was to assume that the reader would be familiar with Baltimore and know that it is in the state of Maryland.

That rule has disappeared in the new edition, and the examples specifically show cities that once were on the exception list now being followed with the state abbreviation (e.g., New York, NY, p. 187). Though no specific reason is given for the change, it is noted in the Foreword that the manual is now available “in Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Chinese, and many other languages.” Perhaps it was felt that a student in Korea might not understand why Baltimore and not Seoul made the exceptions list. Baltimore and six other American cities were on the list, but indisputably well-known cities outside of the United States were not well represented. A quick review of the world’s most populous cities is instructive: Only three of the “well-known” cities are even among the top 20 in population (http://www.worldatlas.com/geoquiz/thelist.htm), leaving the citizens of Shanghai (No. 1), Mumbai (No. 2), and Buenos Aires (No. 3), among others, to wonder why their cities need more definite placement than Philadelphia (No. 53), San Francisco (No. 60), or Baltimore, which doesn’t make the list of even the top 100 in population size.

The choice was simple. Either create and try to maintain a list that more accurately reflects cities well-known for publishing to a wider scholarly global community or make no assumptions about which cities are well-known to whom. The second option was seen as the better choice.