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APA (American Psychological Association) is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences.
Basic Rules
- Authors' names are inverted (last name first); give the last name and initials for all authors of a particular work unless the work has more than six authors. If the work has more than six authors, list the first six authors and then use et al. after the sixth author's name to indicate the rest of the authors.
Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last name of the first author of each work.
If you have more than one article by the same author, single-author references or multiple-author references with the exact same authors in the exact same order are listed in order by the year of publication, starting with the earliest (thus a 1991 article would appear before a 1996 articles).
- Use "&" instead of "and" when listing multiples authors of a single work.
- 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.
- Double-space all references.
- Capitalize only the first word of a title or subtitle of a work.
- Italicize titles of books and journals.
Basic Forms
- An article in a periodical (such as a journal, newspaper or magazine)
Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year of Publication, add month and day of publication for daily,
weekly, or monthly publications). Title of article. Title of periodical, Volume Number, Pages.
NOTE: You need to list only the volume number if the periodical uses continuous pagination throughout a
particular volume. If each issue begins with page1, then you should list the issue number as well.
Author, A. A. (Year of Publication). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. Publisher’s Location:
Publisher’s Name.
NOTE: For “location,” you should always list the city and you should include the state is the city is unfamiliar
or if the city could be confused with one in another state. Use the two-letter abbreviation for each state.
Part of a nonperiodical (such as a book chapter or an article in a collection)
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year of Publication). Title of chapter. In A. Editor & B. Editor (Eds.), Title of
book (pages of chapter). Publisher’s Location: Publisher’s Name.
NOTE: When you list the pages of the chapter or essay in parenthesis after the book title, use “pp.” before
the numbers: (pp. 1-22). This abbreviation, however, does not appear before the page numbers in periodical references.
Author, A. A. (Date of Publication or Revision). Title of full work. Retrieved month date, year, from http://web
address.
NOTE: Date of access should indicated the date you visited the web site. This date of retrieval is important
because online information is frequently altered.
Author, A. A., & Author B. B. ( Date of Publication). Title of article. Title of journal, volume number (issue number if available) Retrieved month date, year, from http://web address. Because e-mail is a personal communication, not easily retrieved by the general public, no entry appears in your reference list. When you cite an e-mail message in the body of your paper, acknowledge it in your parenthetical citation.
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