How to Use APA Style In a PowerPoint Presentation
| The
video below
demonstrates step-by-step how to apply the guidelines provided in the APA Publication Manual
6th Edition (Second Printing) in a PowerPoint or other type of
slide presentation. Keep in mind, individual teachers
or university programs may issue their own guidelines in addition to
these. Following the video is a complete transcript of the presentation. When it comes to citing sources, a PowerPoint should be treated the same as any other document. If material from a source is used, it must be cited. These usages include:
Title Slide The title slide is sometimes called the welcome slide of a PowerPoint presentation. On this welcome slide, note that the same information which appears on the title page of an APA word-processed document also appears on the opening slide of the PowerPoint. First is the full title of the presentation. If a subtitle is used, it is set off from the main title with a colon. Next comes the student’s full name and directly beneath that is the name of the school. APA style also allows an “Author Note” at the bottom for any additional information. Keep in mind, these are only suggestions from the APA. An instructor can always request additional information such as date of submission, course title, instructor name, and so on. These should be added when required by your teacher. This opening slide also contains an image, which is called a “figure” in APA parlance. Each figure should be displayed with a brief explanatory caption beneath it, also called a note. This caption or note describes the image and is followed by a parenthetical or in-text citation. APA also suggests that in a PowerPoint, images are hyperlinked to their original source. Therefore, clicking on the parenthetical citation would direct a web browser to the page the image appears on. A final note, this author has chosen to put parenthetical or in-text citations in a different type color to distinguish them from the slide’s text. This is a design choice and not an APA guideline. Second Slide On this second slide appear a quotation and a paraphrase (information from a source expressed in your own phrasing). Quotations and paraphrases must contain in-text or parenthetical citations following the usual APA format: author last name or names, comma, and year of publication. If the source does not list an author, use the title of the work in quotation marks, which you see done in this citation. If the source does not list a year of publication, use the abbreviation n period d period. If there is more than one author, use an ampersand, not the word “and” to join them. Also on this slide is another use of a web image, which, again, is considered a figure and must be labeled in sequence with other figures and contain a brief caption describing it, followed by the parenthetical citation. In this case, the owner is again an entity (Advanced Surgery Center of San Antonio) not a person. Third Slide This slide is devoted to a table. Like figures, tables must be numbered in sequence. Each should be displayed with an explanatory title, in this case the title is “Characteristics of Patients Undergoing Outpatient Surgery Based on Medicare Data.” Tables also require a note, which appears directly beneath the table and provides any explanations needed—of abbreviations or symbols especially. The note must also contain a citation to the original source from which the table’s data were taken. The citation should follow the APA format for the type of source the information was taken from, in this case a journal. In addition, a table note should also include copyright information at its end. Final Slide The final slide should contain a complete list of any sources used in the presentation. This includes any source that was mentioned orally but does not appear on the slide. As usual, the references list is in alphabetical order and citations are formatted according to the APA style manual for that source type. Since this is a presentation, the usual conventions of double spacing and hanging indentation are not observed. Finally, remember that although APA manuscript guidelines do not apply to a PowerPoint presentation, requirements for citation of source material are the same. Any use of source material must be cited with a parenthetical citation that refers to a reference citation on your last slide. |