The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition, is the official source for APA Style. It is the style manual of choice for writers, researchers, editors, students, and educators in the social and behavioral sciences, natural sciences, nursing, communications, education, business, engineering, and other fields. The Publication Manual also offers guidance on choosing the headings, tables, figures, language, and tone that will result in powerful, concise, and elegant scholarly communication. It guides users through the scholarly writing process--from the ethics of authorship to reporting research through publication. The seventh edition is an indispensable resource for students and professionals to achieve excellence in writing and make a impact with their work (p. 4, Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association).
Basic Rules
Your reference list should appear at the end of your paper. It provides the information necessary for a reader to locate and retrieve any source you cite in the body of the paper. Each source you cite in the paper must appear in your reference list; likewise, each entry in the reference list must be cited in your text.
Your references should begin on a new page separate from the text of the essay; label this page "References" centered at the top of the page (do NOT bold, underline, or use quotation marks for the title). All text should be double-spaced just like the rest of your essay.
(Source: OWL Purdue website)
APA (American Psychological Association) Style 6th Edition - Citing Print Sources
(Note: Double-space all reference entries unless instructor allows single-spacing with double-spacing between entries.)
References | |
GROUP OR CORPORATE AUTHOR |
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing. |
1 AUTHOR |
Anbar, A. (2004). The secret of natural readers: How preschool children learn to read. Westport, CT: Praeger. |
2 to 7 AUTHORS |
Babcock, B. A., & Parezo, N. J. (1988). Daughters of the desert: Women anthropologists and the Native American Southwest, 1880-1980. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. |
MORE THAN 7 AUTHORS |
Cunningham, G., MacDonald, P. C., Gant, N. F., Leveno, K. J., Gilstrap, L. C., Hankins, G. D., . . . Clark, S. L. (1996). Williams obstetrics (20th ed.). Stamford, CT: Appleton & Lange. |
EDITORS AS AUTHORS |
Daniels, P., & Ruddick, S. (Eds.). (1977). Working it out: 23 women writers, artists, scientists, and scholars talk about their lives and work (Rev. ed.). New York, NY: Pantheon. |
REFERENCE BOOK |
Dinsmoor, R. S. (2011). Thallium heart scan. In L. J. Fundukian (Ed.), The Gale encyclopedia of medicine (4th ed., Vol. 6, pp. 4297-4298). Detroit, MI: Gale. |
CHAPTER IN AN EDITED BOOK |
Huff, R. (2006). The genetic framework for diabetes in pregnancy. In O. Langer (Ed.), The diabetes in pregnancy dilemma: Leading change with proven solutions (pp. 296-303). Lanham, MD: University Press of America. |
WEEKLY MAGAZINE |
Mitchell, H. (2012, June 25). The 2012 bucket list. Newsweek, 159(26), 50-52. |
MONTHLY MAGAZINE |
Starks, P. B., & Slabach, B. L. (2012, June). The scoop on eating dirt. Scientific American, 306(6), 30-32. |
JOURNAL |
Strauss, G. P., & Gold, J. M. (2012). A new perspective on anhedonia in schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry, 169, 364-373. |
DAILY NEWSPAPER |
Tobar, H. (2011, March 18). Crossing the great divide: The daughter of L.A. working-class immigrants attends Vassar. Los Angeles Times, p. A2. |
APA (American Psychological Association) Style - Citing Online Sources
Periodical Articles Retrieved from Online Databases
Provide original print publication information (such as author, publication date, article title, periodical name, volume, issue, and page numbers) then add electronic retrieval information according to one of the following rules:
1. DOI Assigned (most preferable)
Provide the DOI (Digital Object Identifiers), if one has been assigned to the content. No further retrieval information is needed. The DOI is typically located on the first page of the electronic document, near the copyright notice. The DOI can also be found on the database landing page for the article. (See APA Manual, 6th ed., pp. 188-192).
Author, A. A., & Author, B. (Date of publication). Title of article. Journal Title, Volume number(issue number if applicable), pages. doi:xxxxx.xxx (no period after DOI)
Chase, Z., & Laufenberg, D. (2011). Embracing the squishiness of digital literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54, 535-537. doi:10.1598/JAAL
Lehman, K. A., Burns, M., Gagen, E. C., & Mohr, D. C. (2012). Development of the brief inventory of perceived stress. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 68, 631-644. doi:10.1002/jclp.21843
2. No DOI Assigned
If no DOI has been assigned to the content, provide the home page URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of the periodical. If you are accessing the article from a library database, you may need to do a quick web search to locate the URL. (See APA Manual, 6th ed., pp. 191-192)
Author, A., & Author, B. (Date of publication). Title of article. Journal Title, Volume number(issue number if applicable), pages. Retrieved from http://www.domainname.com/pathname (no period after URL)
Frosch, D. (2012, July 3). Officer's death reminds a city of work to be done. The New York Times, p. A9. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com
Hosenball, M. (2009, Dec 21). The drone dilemma. Newsweek, 154(25), 13. Retrieved from http://www.newsweek.com
Hyde, J. (2012). Learning the art of give and take is an essential nursing skill. Nursing Standard, 26(40), 63. Retrieved from http://nursingstandard.rcnpublishing.co.uk
Larkin, H. (2009). Adverse childhood experiences linked to health risk behaviors. Policy & Practice, 67(3), 14+. Retrieved from http://www.aphsa.org/Publications/PolicyPractice.asp
McGlynn, D. (2012, June 29). Whale hunting. CQ Researcher, 22, 573-596. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher
3. Archival Documents (no DOI Assigned) Retrieved from Databases (Such as JSTOR or ERIC)
Some archival documents (e.g. discontinued journals or monographs) can only be found in electronic databases such as ERIC or JSTOR. When the document is not easily located through its primary publishing channels and has no DOI assigned, give the entry page URL for the online archive (database). (See APA Manual, 6th ed., p. 192)
Baker, A. A., & Lee, J. J. (2011). Mind the gap: Unexpected pitfalls in doing classroom research. Qualitative Report, 16, 1435-1447. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov
Stern, M. (1995) Party alignments and civil rights: Then and now. Presidential Studies Quarterly 25, 413-427. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org
Electronic Books Retrieved from Online Database
Enter the author, publication date, book title, publisher name and location (if available) then add electronic retrieval information such as DOI (if provided) or database name. (See APA Manual, 6th ed., pp. 202-205)
Note: Electronic books available from LACC databases do not have DOI assigned, so citing the database name is recommended.
Berk, L. E. (2004). Awakening children's minds: How parents and teachers can make a difference. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from eBook Collection (EBSCOhost).
LaPensee, K. (2008). Vaccines and vaccine development. In B. W. Lerner & K. L. Lerner (Eds.), Infectious diseases: In context (Vol. 2, pp. 870-874). Detroit, MI: Gale. Retrieved from Gale Virtual Reference Library.
Wallis, C. (2011). Addiction is caused by genetic and environmental factors. In R. Espejo (Ed.), Opposing Viewpoints Series: Chemical dependency. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven Press. (Reprinted from The genetics of addiction, CNNMoney.com, 2009) Retrieved from Gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context.
Citing Web Documents
Entry in a Web-based Reference Work
Graham, G. (2010). Behaviorism. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Summer 2012 ed.). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism
Governmental Document Published on the Web
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention. (2011). Aortic aneurysm fact sheet. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/dhdsp/data_statistics/fact_sheets
/fs_aortic_aneurysm.htm
QUOTATIONS OF ONLINE MATERIAL WITHOUT PAGINATION
For electronic sources that do not provide page numbers, use the paragraph numbers preceded by the abbreviation para.
(Myers, 2000, para. 5)
If the document is long and includes headings and neither paragraph nor page numbers are visible, cite the heading and the number of the paragraph following it to direct the reader to the location of the material.
(Beutler, 2000, Discussion section, para. 2)
REFERENCE CITATIONS IN TEXT
Reference citations in text (or parenthetical notes) - short notes embedded in text of your paper in which you acknowledge the source of quotations or paraphrases of someone else's words. Some common formats of APA style parenthetical notes are shown below:
One Work by One Author
Rogers (1994) compared reaction times . . .
In a recent study of reaction times (Rogers, 1994) . . .
One Work by Two Authors
Always cite both names every time the reference occurs in text.
Research by Burkhardt and McDonald (2010) supports....
(Burkhardt & MacDonald, 2010)
One Work by Three, Four, or Five Authors
Cite all authors the first time the reference occurs; in subsequent citations, include only the surname of the first author followed by et al. (with a period after “al”).
Wasserstein, Zappulla, Rosen, Gerstman, and Rock (1994) found [first citation in text]
Wasserstein et al. (1994) [subsequent first citation per paragraph thereafter]
One Work by Six or More Authors
Cite only the surname of the first author followed by et al. (with a period after “al”) and the year for the first and subsequent citations.
Kosslyn et al. (1992)
Quotations in Text
Quotation less than 40 words within text:
He contended, "For the man who is extremely and dangerously hungry, no other interests exist but food" (Maslow, 1943, p.348).
Quotation of 40 or more words (indent five spaces from the left margin):
Miele (1993) found the following:
The “placebo effect,” which had been verified in previous studies, disappeared when behaviors were studied in this manner. Furthermore, the behaviors were never exhibited again [emphasis added], even when reel [sic] drugs were administered. Earlier studies were clearly premature in attributing the results to a placebo effect. (p. 276)