APA Style (7th ed.)
While Wikipedia is a great source to provide an overall introduction to a topic, the use of articles from the site in academic research isn't usually acceptable because the wiki can be changed by anyone, and there simply aren't enough qualified editors to keep up with fact-checking every article. My advice would be that if you start with Wikipedia, don't end your research there, but rather, go to a primary source (often listed in the article's references) to confirm the information, and then cite the primary source. For more information, as well as a sample reference and sample in-text citations, please see page 329 in the APA Style manual, but see below for a generic reference:
Wikipedia entry title. (year, Month day). In Wikipedia. URL of archived version of page
- In-text citation: ("Wikipedia entry title", year, para. X)
- "Access the archived version on Wikipedia by selecting "View history" and then the time and date of the version you used. If a wiki does not provide permanent links to archived versions of the page, include the URL for the entry and the retrieval date" (American Psychological Association, 2020, p. 329).
Reference
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
