The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association is the book that sets out the rules and expectations for writing and presenting research in Psychology. Even though the style manual is intended for psychology, many other disciplines use this style manual. While Sociology does have it's own style manual, you may run into situations where you are asked to use APA style or are publishing in a journal that uses APA style.
This manual is a reference work. That means that it is not intended to be read from cover to cover, but rather referred to as the need arises. The manual covers a wide variety of situations, but the most common usages are easily found in online sources.
Valencia College has color-coded examples of a citation to show you which part of the citation is the authors, title, etc. Pay careful attention to the way these elements are presented (such as italics, periods and commas).
The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) is an excellent, easy-to-understand resource for all things APA.
APA offers a simplified version of their manual's most vital information on its website. There is helpful information on grammar, tables, and bias-free language here as well.
This interactive checklist will walk you through the elements of APA style and show you how they should be formatted.