Citing Sources: APA 7th Ed.

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.

• All lines after the first line of each entry in your reference list should be indented one-half inch from the left margin. This is called hanging indentation.
• Authors' names are inverted (last name first); give the last name and initials for all authors of a particular work for up to and including seven authors. If the work has more than seven authors, list the first six authors and then use ellipses after the sixth author's name. After the ellipses, list the last author's name of the work.
• Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last name of the first author of each work.
• For multiple articles by the same author, or authors listed in the same order, list the entries in chronological order, from earliest to most recent.
• Present the journal title in full.
• Maintain the punctuation and capitalization that is used by the journal in its title.
  • For example: ReCALL not RECALL or Knowledge Management Research & Practice not Knowledge Management Research and Practice. 
• Capitalize all major words in journal titles.
• When referring to books, chapters, articles, or Web pages, capitalize only the first letter of the first word of a title and subtitle, the first word after a colon or a dash in the title, and proper nouns. Do not capitalize the first letter of the second word in a hyphenated compound word.
• Italicize titles of longer works such as books and journals.
• Do not italicize, underline, or put quotes around the titles of shorter works such as journal articles or essays in edited collections.
• Please note: While the APA manual provides many examples of how to cite common types of sources, it does not provide rules on how to cite all types of sources. Therefore, if you have a source that APA does not include, APA suggests that you find the example that is most similar to your source and use that format. For more information, see page 193 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, (6^th ed., 2^ndprinting).

(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.)

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, 6^th ed., pp. 188-192).

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, 6^th ed., pp. 191-192)

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, 6^th ed., p. 192)

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, 6^th ed., pp. 202-205)

Note: Electronic books available from LACC databases do not have DOI assigned, so citing the database name is recommended.

Citing Web Documents

Include the same elements (e.g., authors, dates, titles), in the same order, as you would for a reference to a fixed media (print) source and add as much electronic retrieval information as needed for others to locate the source you cited. (See APA Manual, 6^th ed., pp. 187-188, 205-209)

Entry in a Web-based Reference Work

Governmental Document Published on the Web

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:

1. One Work by One Author

Rogers (1994) compared reaction times . . .

In a recent study of reaction times (Rogers, 1994) . . .

2. 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) 

3. 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]

4.  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

1.  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). 

2.  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)