There are a variety of tools, both online and in print, to help you properly format your citations.
American Psychological Association. (2009). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: APA. (On reserve in the library - ask at the circulation desk).
Online
Check out the library's Citation Tools guide.
Another valuable resource is Purdue Owl.
In addition to tools like those listed above, look for the Cite feature in the databases.
A word of caution! Online tools are excellent but they are not necessarily correct. They read data as it is passed to them, so if the data is incorrect, the citation will be too. You need to understand APA format so you can edit and proof the results of the online products.
When it is time to gather all of your notes and start writing the paper, avoid the most common mistake - plagiarism. Plagiarism is not only taking large parts of someone else's work and not attributing credit to that author; paraphrasing sections of a work, even using synonyms and citing the work, is also plagiarism.
Even if the ideas are rewritten, the source of the idea must be cited and the author given credit.
For more information about how to avoid plagiarism, see this video at our Research Den.
