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WRTG 131: Writing in the Digital Age (Skinner-Saint): APA Citations

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APA Style Guide Homepage

Learn the APA citation style directly from the authors.  The APA Style website provides guidance, formatting, and examples of how to cite within the APA style. 

Purdue Online Writing Lab: APA Style Guide

Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) provides writing resources and instructional materials for writing projects.  The APA Style Guide includes an introduction to the style, citation formatting for various sources, formatting for in-text citations and reference lists, and more.

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association: The Official Guide to APA Style

About APA Style

APA is one of the most commonly used citation styles.  Created by the American Psychology Association, this style is used in the social sciences.  Majors that use APA citation style include Accounting, Behavioral Analysis, Business, Criminal Justice, Economics, Education, Nursing, Social Work, and Sports Management.

Always check with your professor to determine which citation style you should use before beginning your paper or project. 

Format APA Citations

You Will Need to Identify

  • Author(s)
  • Title of the Work
  • Publisher Information
  • Date of Publication or Creation

Rules for the Reference Page

  • The word "References" should be centered at the top of the page.
  • Arrange items in alphabetical order by first word of the entry.
  • Use hanging indent and double space the entire page - no extra lines between items.
  • List all authors in the order given up to and including twenty authors. For more than twenty authors, list the first nineteen followed by a comma, an ellipses (...), and the final author.
  • Capitalize the first word of article/book titles, subtitles and any proper nouns.
  • Italicize periodical titles, use upper and lower case as given.
  • If no publication date is available, write "n.d." in the parenthesis.
  • Always enter DOIs as a URL: https://doi.org/xxxxx
  • If a URL/DOI is included, do not end the reference with a period.

Basic Form

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number(issue number), pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyy  

 

Journal Article 

Grady, J. S., Her, M., Moreno, G., Perez, C., & Yelinek, J. (2019). Emotions in storybooks: A comparison of storybooks that represent ethnic and racial groups in the United States. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 8(3), 207-217. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000185

 

Journal Article with Missing Volume Number

Stegmeir, M. (2016). Climate change: New discipline practices promote college access. The Journal of College Admission, (231), 44–47. https://www.nxtbook.com/ygsreprints/NACAC/nacac_jca_spring2016/#/46

 

Journal Article with Missing Issue Number

Sanchiz, M., Chevalier, A., & Amadieu, F. (2017). How do older and young adults start searching for information? Impact of age, domain knowledge and problem complexity on the different steps of information searching. Computers in Human Behavior, 72, 67–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.02.038

 

Journal Article with Missing Page Number 

Butler, J. (2017). Where access meets multimodality: The case of ASL music videos. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric Technology, and Pedagogy, 21(1). http://technorhetoric.net/21.1/topoi/butler/index.html

 

Basic Form

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of Book. Publisher Name.

 

Whole Authored Book

Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst. Penguin Books.

 

Whole Edited Book

Kesharwani, P. (Ed.). (2020). Nanotechnology based approaches for tuberculosis treatment. Academic Press.

 

Chapter in Edited Book

Dillard, J. P. (2020). Currents in the study of persuasion. In M. B. Oliver, A. A. Raney, & J. Bryant (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (4th ed., pp. 115–129). Routledge.

 

Annotated Religious Work

Kaiser, W. C., Jr., & Garrett, D. (Eds.). (2006). NIV archeological study bible: An illustrated walk through biblical history and culture. Zondervan. 

 

Magazine Basic Form

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number(issue number), pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyy

 

Physical Magazine 

Lyons, D. (2009, June 15). Don't ‘iTune’ us: It’s geeks versus writers. Guess who’s winning. Newsweek, 153(24), 27.

 

Physical Magazine Located Online (with DOI)

Schaefer, N. K., & Shapiro, B. (2019, September 6). New middle chapter in the story of human evolution. Science, 365(6457), 981–982. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aay3550

 

Online Magazine

Schulman, M. (2019, September 9). Superfans: A love story. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/16/superfans-a-love-story

 

Newspaper Basic Form

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Newspaper, section numbers. https://url

 

Physical Newspaper with Section Numbers 

Harlan, C. (2013, April 2). North Korea vows to restart shuttered nuclear reactor that can make bomb-grade plutonium. The Washington Post, A1, A4.

 

Online Newspaper

Carey, B. (2019, March 22). Can we get better at forgetting? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/health/memory-forgetting-psychology.html

 

Basic Form

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Date of Publication). Title of webpage. Title of Website Host. https://url

 

Webpage on a News Website

Bologna, C. (2019, October 31). Why some people with anxiety love watching horror movies. HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anxiety-love-watching-horror-movies_l_5d277587e4b02a5a5d57b59e

 

Webpage on a Website with a Government Agency Group Author 

National Institute of Mental Health. (2018, July). Anxiety disorders. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders/index.shtml

 

Webpage on a Website with an Organizational Group Author 

World Health Organization. (2018, May 24). The top 10 causes of death. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death

 

Webpage on a Website with an Individual Author 

Giovanetti, F. (2019, November 16). Why we are so obsessed with personality types. Medium. https://medium.com/the-business-of-wellness/why-we-are-so-obsessed-with-personality-types-577450f9aee9

 

Webpage on a Website with a Retrieval Date 

U.S. Census Bureau. (n.d.). U.S. and world population clock. U.S. Department of Commerce. Retrieved January 9, 2020, from https://www.census.gov/popclock/

YouTube Video 

Harvard University. (2019, August 28). Soft robotic gripper for jellyfish [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guRoWTYfxMs

 

YouTube Channel 

Walker, A. (n.d.). Playlists [YouTube channel]. YouTube. Retrieved October 8, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/user/DjWalkzz/playlists

 

Tweet

Gates, B. [@BillGates]. (2019, September 7). Today, it’s difficult for researchers to diagnose #Alzheimers patients early enough to intervene. A reliable, easy and accurate diagnostic would [Thumbnail with link attached] [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/BillGates/status/1170305718425137152

 

Twitter Profile 

Jordan, M. B. [@michaelb4jordan]. (n.d.). Tweets & replies [Twitter profile]. Twitter. Retrieved January 9, 2020, from https://twitter.com/michaelb4jordan/with_replies

 

Instagram Photo

Philadelphia Museum of Art [@philamuseum]. (2019, December 3). “It’s always wonderful to walk in and see my work in a collection where it’s loved, and where people are [Photograph]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/B5oDnnNhOt4/

 

Instagram Profile 

Swift, T. [@taylorswift]. (n.d.). Posts [Instagram profile]. Instagram. Retrieved January 9, 2020, from https://www.instagram.com/taylorswift

 

TikTok Video 

Cook, P. [@chemteacherphil]. (2019, November 19). Alkali salts get lit. #chemistry #chemteacherphil #scienceexperiments #foryou #jobforme #trend #featurethis #science #vibecheck [Video]. TikTok. https://vm.tiktok.com/xP1r1m

 

When using APA format, follow the author-date method for in-text citations. This means that the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text, like, for example, (Jones, 1998). One complete reference for each source should appear in the reference list at the end of the paper.

Page numbers must included if you are pulling a direct quote and page numbers are provided.  For example, you might write (Jones, 1998, p. 199) or (Jones, 1998, p. 199-201). 

A Work by One Author (Wright, 2018) Wright (2018) finds in his research...
A Work by Two Authors (Billings & Jones, 2004) Research by Billings and Jones (2004) supports...
A Work by Three or More Authors (Miller et al., 2023) Miller et al. (1993) suggests...
Unknown Author

Use the title as identifier 

("Using Citations", 2001)

 The article "Using Citations" (2001) provides evidence...
Organization as an Author  (American Psychological Association, 2000) According to the American Psychological Association (2000)...
Two or More Works in the Same Parentheses

List alphabetically

(Berndt, 2002; Harlow, 1983)

 Berndt (2002) and Harlow (1983) both show...
Citing Indirect Sources (Johnson, 1985, as cited in Smith, 2003, p. 102) Jonson argued that... (as cited in Smith, 2003, p. 102)
Unknown Author and Unknown Date

Use n.d. for "no date"

("Tutoring and APA," n.d.)

 Another study shows... ("Tutoring and APA," n.d.).