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COMM C1000 (Kahlow) FA25

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APA Citations Communications Guide
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Database Search Tips

Keep these tips in mind when creating your keywords.

  • "Quotation marks" keep words together when searching for phrases.
    • Example: "social media"
  • AND and OR structure your search:
    • AND narrows results (includes all terms)
    • OR expands results (includes synonyms)
  • Truncation (asterisk = shift + 8) searches multiple word variations at once.
    • Example: psycholog* → psychology, psychologist, psychological

Example: "social media" AND psycholog* AND (teenagers OR adolescents)

Break Your Topic into Keywords

Step 1: Identify your main idea

Example topic: The effects of social media on teen mental health

Step 2: Pull out the keywords

  • social media (related terms: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook)
  • teenagers (related terms: teens, adolescents, youth)
  • mental health (related terms: anxiety, depression, well-being)

Step 3: Create a search 

  • Basic: "social media" AND (teenagers OR adolescents)
  • Advanced: "social media" AND (teenagers OR adolescents OR youth) AND ("mental health" OR anxiety OR depression)

Step 4: Adjust as you go

  • If too many results → add more specific terms (ex: TikTok, Instagram).
  • If too few results → remove a keyword or replace one with a related term.

Database searching is not an exact science and you'll need to experiment with different keywords to get the best the results. 

Gale Academic OneFile Video

EBSCOhost Video

OneSearch Video

Getting to Know APA: Formatting Rules

APA Formatting Rules

  • Author Names: Last Name, First Initial. (e.g., Smith, J.).
  • Title Formatting: Use Sentence Case (Capitalize First Word & Proper Nouns).
  • Italics: Italicize book and journal titles
  • DOIs & URLs: Always include them. No "Retrieved from" needed.
  • In-Text Citations: (Author, Year) → (Smith, 2023). For quotes: (Smith, 2023, p. 45).
  • Reference Page: Double-space, indent second line of each entry.
  • DOI vs URLs? Check out the APA Style Blog website

More details: APA Style Guide & Citing AI in APA