The OWL (Online Writing Lab) website from Purdue University provides some great examples of citing in APA style and in MLA style (look at the left side menu on the page for the links to examples for various source types).

There are certain basic things you need to cite just about any source, using just about any format:

• The AUTHOR (or creator) of the work.  This may be one person, many people, or a group or organization.
• The TITLE OF THE WORK itself.  For example, the article title, the book title, the chapter title, etc.
• The JOURNAL or the PUBLISHER or the ORGANIZATION RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTENT .  For an article, you include the name of the specific magazine or journal.  For a book, the publishing house. For a website/webpage, include individual authors, if they are noted. Otherwise include the organization name.
• The PUBLICATION DATE.

There are also certain things that must be included for specific types of works.  For example, for an article or a book chapter, you would provide page numbers.  For a website, you would provide the URL.

The moment when you are most likely to have easy access to all of this information?  When you find it in the first place.  Know then what you need to take note of to cite it effectively later.

The basic format for a journal article citation in APA style is as follows (pay attention to capitalization in the article and journal titles and to where italics appear).

In-text Citation:

(AuthorLastName, Year)

Reference List:

Example

In-text Citation (3-5 authors)

(Bull, Levine, Black, Schmiege, & Santelli, 2012)

Reference List

So where do you find this information on the article?  See the image below for one example.

The APA Style Blog post, How To Cite Something You Found on a Website in APA Style, is particularly helpful for formatting citations to websites or web-based reports, etc. The blog itself is searchable and is a valuable source of APA style information.

The basic format for a website citation in APA style is as follows (please follow the guidance from the APA Style Blog entry about when to use Format Description).

In-text citation:

(Author, Year)

Reference List:

Author, A. (Year, Month Day). Title of document [Format description]. Retrieved from http://URL

Example Citation

In-text Citation:

     (Mayo Clinic, 2014)

Reference List: