Academic conferences are great. You learn new things. Meet new people. Drink toasts to the Blood God while celebrating the defeat of your enemies…
OK, not that last one. But conferences are still good. And if you’ve been to one lately, you might want to cite something you’ve seen or heard.
Thus, today we’re going to explain how to cite a conference paper using APA referencing. Strap in for the thrill ride of your life.
In-Text Citations
WOOOOO! YEAH! CITE IT GOOD! SHOW US THAT YEAR OF PUBLICATION!
Ahem, sorry. We just get very overexcited about citation systems, since they help us identify the sources used in academic writing.
In the case of APA, citing a source requires giving the name of the author and year of publication in parentheses. If you’re quoting a source directly, give the page numbers too, like so:
The skulls of your enemies can be used to make ‘a fantastic throne’ (Khorne, 2015, p.15).
If you’re citing the complete conference proceedings – the collected, published papers from a conference – you’ll need to give the editor’s name instead.
Reference List: Published and Unpublished Papers
Most of the time, when citing something from a conference, you’ll focus on one paper or presentation in particular. Assuming this is available in published form, the details to include in the reference list are:
Author Name, Initial. (Year). Paper title. In Editor Name (Ed.), Book title (page range). Publisher.
As such, the paper cited above would appear in a reference list as:
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Khorne, K. (2015). Who is the blood god? In S. Vulfbad (Ed.), Chaos gods: Then and now (pp. 12-24). Heck Publishing Ltd.
You can also cite an unpublished paper if you’ve attended a conference in person. The information you need to give in the reference list is:
Author Name, Initial. (Year, Month). Paper title. Paper presented at Conference Title, Location of Conference.
For instance:
Khorne, K. (2015, October). Who is the blood god? Paper presented at Chaos Gods: Then and Now, Loughborough University.
Reference List: Proceedings
It is fairly unusual to cite the proceedings as a whole, but, if you do, the information required in the reference list is:
Editor Name, Initial. (Ed.) (Year). Title of conference: Subtitle of conference, Location, Date. Publisher.
For instance, the (thankfully imaginary) conference we’ve been using for examples in this blog post would appear as:
Vulfbad, S. (Ed.). (2015). Chaos gods: Then and now, Loughborough University, October 2015. Heck Publishing Ltd.