APA Citation Style An Overview Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6 th ed. There are two parts of APA citation style: the References page and in-text citations. References Page General Information The References page is a detailed list of resources you referenced in your paper. The list itself is double-spaced and References (no quotes) is centered at the top of the page. For the examples given in this overview, entries are not double-spaced to save space on the page. Entries are in alphabetical order based on the letter(s) at the beginning of the entry. If you have two different authors with the same last name, arrange them alphabetically by first name initial. For example: Brown, A. G. Brown, C. S. If you have two works by the same author, arrange entries by year published the earliest year first. Salinger, J. D. (1951). The catcher in the rye. Boston: Little, Brown. Salinger, J. D. (1953). Nine stories. Boston: Little, Brown. If two or more resources have two or more authors with the same first name, alphabetize by the last name of the second author (or third if the second author is also the same, etc.). Duke, R. A., & Benson, C. Duke, R. A., & Colprit, E. J. APA Citation Style 1
Examples of specific types of entries Books Basic format: Author Last Name, Author First Initial. Middle Initial. (Year). Book title. City of Publication: Publisher. Baldoni, J. (2009). Lead by example: 50 ways great leaders inspire results. New York: AMACOM. A different edition of a book Davidson, H. (2005). The committed enterprise: Making vision, values and branding work (2 nd ed.). New York: Elsevier. Article in a Reference Book Author Last Name, Author First Initial. Middle Initial. (Year). Title of chapter or entry. In Editor First Initial, Editor Last Name (Ed.), Title of book (pp. xxx-xxx). Location: Publisher. Moss, A. (1988). Lewis Carroll. In J. Bingham (Ed.), Writers for children: Critical studies of major authors since the seventeenth century (pp. 117-127). New York: Charles Scribner s Sons. If the entry in the reference book has no byline, use the title as the beginning of the source listing. Hostility. (2002). In C. Lindberg et al. (Eds.), The Oxford American college dictionary (p. 648). New York: G. P. Putnam s Sons. For books with a volume number, include these as below: Levy, M. M. (1982). Dudley Randall. In F. N. Macgill (Ed.), Critical survey of poetry (Vol. 6, pp. 2310-2323). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Salem. APA Citation Style 2
Periodicals Scholarly Journal Article DOI stands for Digital Object Identifier. It is a unique number/letter combination that is attached to a specific object (such as a journal article) found on a network. Instead of telling you where an item is (through providing the web address), it gives an identifier of the actual object itself. The International DOI Foundation likens it to a bar code for intellectual property. The International DOI Foundation. (2010, February 17). Frequently asked questions about the DOI system. Retrieved from http://www.doi.org/faq.html#1 You will find a DOI attached to many articles found in GALILEO. Look for it on the specific article s entry. If the journal starts each issue with new page numbering (i.e. starting at page 1 on subsequent issues following the first), include the issue number. Author Last Name, Author First Initial. Middle Initial. (Year). Article title. Journal Title, volume number(issue number), pp-pp. doi:xx.xxxxx Ross, C. E., & Mirowsky, J. (2010). Gender and the health benefits of education. Sociological Quarterly, 51, 1-19. doi:10.1111/j.1533-8525.2009.01164.x If the article was found in paper form, simply end the reference after the page numbers. If the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) isn t available for an article found online (not a GALILEO database), use the article home page s URL. Youngreen, R. (2010, May). Status change and the presentation of minority perspectives. Current Research in Social Psychology, 15(8). Retrieved from http://www.uiowa.edu/~grpproc/crisp/crisp15_8.pdf Newspaper Article Author Last Name, Author First Initial. Middle Initial. (year, month date). Title of article. Newspaper Title. pp. XX, XX. Wallstein, P., & Simon, S. (2010, August 10). Running as insiders in a year of rebels. The Wall Street Journal, pp. A1, A6. For newspaper articles found online, remove page numbers and add Retrieved from http://address. APA Citation Style 3
Websites Author Last Name, Author First Initial. Middle Initial. (Year, Month Date). Title of document. Retrieved from http://web address S Schrager, P. (2010, August 11). Who's the best of the worst? Retrieved from http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/worst-teams-of-2010-nfl-season In-Text Citations The point of adding citations in your paper is to help your reader match the quote or idea to the corresponding source listed in your References page. (Litwack, 1979, p. 82) refers to page 82 of the entry below. Litwack, L. F. (1979). Been in the storm so long: The aftermath of slavery. New York: Vintage Books. In APA style, it is not required to include page numbers for paraphrased text. However, the APA manual highly recommends that you do so to help the reader find the exact passage you are paraphrasing in your paper (p. 171). With APA style, references are placed in two possible places. If the author is mentioned in the text, place the year in parentheses directly following the author s name. Litwack (1979) made the point that unequal pay caused black troops to feel inferior to their white counterparts (p. 82). If the author is not mentioned in your text, place the citation at the end of the quote or paraphrase. Black troops faced unequal pay compared to white troops. Besides the fact that they simply made less money to live on, black troops felt like second-class soldiers and citizens (Litwack, 1979, p. 82). If the source has two authors, use both names each time the citation appears. If the source has three to five authors, use all authors names in the first citation, then et al. for each time you cite it. Eckstein, Moss, and Delaney (2010) found [First time it appears] APA Citation Style 4
Eckstein et al. (2010) found [Second and on times it appears] Eckstein, R., Moss, D. M., & Delaney, K. J. (2010). Sports sociology s still untapped potential. Sociological Forum, 25, 500-518. doi: 10.1111/j.1573-7861.2010.01193.x If you are referencing two works in the same citation, separate the sources with a ;. (Eckstein et al., 2010; Litwack, 1979) These are some of the types of entries you would use in your papers. Plenty of other resources, such as music recordings and government documents, or other citation instances have their own formats. See the APA Manual. For more help, go to the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) website: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ Updated August 9, 2011 APA Citation Style 5