53c APA style for a list of references

The alphabetical list of the sources cited in your document is called References. If your instructor asks that you list everything you have read—not just the sources you cite—call the list Bibliography.

All the entries in this section of the book use hanging indent format, in which the first line aligns on the left and the subsequent lines indent one-half inch or five spaces. This is the customary APA format.

Formatting a List of References

AT A GLANCE

  • Start your list on a separate page after the text of your document but before appendices or notes. Continue consecutive page numbers.
  • Center the heading References one inch from the top of the page.
  • Begin each entry flush with the left margin, but indent subsequent lines one-half inch or five spaces. Double-space the entire list.
  • List sources alphabetically by authors’ (or editors’) last names. If no author is given, alphabetize the source by the first word of the title other than A, An, or The. If the list includes two or more works by the same author, list them in chronological order. (For two or more works by the same author published in the same year, see model 5.)
  • Italicize titles and subtitles of books and periodicals. Do not italicize titles of articles, and do not enclose them in quotation marks.
  • For titles of books and articles, capitalize only the first word of the title and the subtitle and any proper nouns or proper adjectives.
  • For titles of periodicals, capitalize all major words.
  • Follow the guidelines in 53c for punctuating an entry.

Guidelines for author listings

List authors’ last names first, and use only initials for first and middle names. The in-text citations in your text point readers toward particular sources in your list of references (see 53b).

NAME CITED IN SIGNAL PHRASE IN TEXT

Driver (2007) has noted…

NAME IN PARENTHETICAL CITATION IN TEXT

…(Driver, 2007).

BEGINNING OF ENTRY IN LIST OF REFERENCES

Driver, T. (2007).

Models 1–5 below explain how to arrange author names. The information that follows the name of the author depends on the type of work you are citing—a book (models 6–15), a print periodical (models 16–23), a digital source (models 24–33), or another kind of source (models 34–46).

1. ONE AUTHOR

Give the last name, a comma, the initial(s), and the date in parentheses.

Zimbardo, P. G. (2009).

Combining Parts of Models

AT A GLANCE

What should you do if your source doesn’t match the model exactly? Suppose, for instance, that your source is a translation of a republished book with an editor.

  • Identify a basic model to follow. If you decide that your source looks most like a republished book, for example, start with a citation that looks like model 13.
  • Look for models that show additional elements in your source. For this example, you would need elements of model 9 (for the translation) and model 7 (for the editor).
  • Add new elements from other models to your basic model in the order that makes the most sense to you.
  • If you still aren’t sure how to arrange the pieces to create a combination model, check the APA Manual or ask your instructor.

2. MULTIPLE AUTHORS

List up to seven authors, last name first, with commas separating authors’ names and an ampersand (&) before the last author’s name.

Walsh, M. E., & Murphy, J. A. (2003).

Note: For a work with more than seven authors, list the first six, then an ellipsis (…), and then the final author’s name.

3. CORPORATE OR GROUP AUTHOR

Resources for Rehabilitation. (2003).

4. UNKNOWN AUTHOR

Begin with the work’s title. Italicize book titles, but do not italicize article titles or enclose them in quotation marks. Capitalize only the first word of the title and subtitle (if any) and proper nouns and proper adjectives.

Safe youth, safe schools. (2009).

5. TWO OR MORE WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

List two or more works by the same author in chronological order. Repeat the author’s name in each entry.

Goodall, J. (1999).

Goodall, J. (2002).

If the works appeared in the same year, list them alphabetically by title, and assign lowercase letters (a, b, etc.) after the dates.

Shermer, M. (2002a). On estimating the lifetime of civilizations. Scientific American, 287(2), 33.

Shermer, M. (2002b). Readers who question evolution. Scientific American, 287(1), 37.

Print books

6. BASIC FORMAT FOR A BOOK

Begin with the author name(s). (See models 1–5.) Then include the publication year, title and subtitle, city of publication, country or state abbreviation, and publisher. The source map shows where to find this information in a typical book.

Levick, S. E. (2003). Clone being: Exploring the psychological and social dimensions. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

7. EDITOR

For a book with an editor but no author, list the source under the editor’s name.

Dickens, J. (Ed.). (1995). Family outing: A guide for parents of gays, lesbians and bisexuals. London, England: Peter Owen.

To cite a book with an author and an editor, place the editor’s name, with a comma and the abbreviation Ed., in parentheses after the title.

Austin, J. (1995). The province of jurisprudence determined. (W. E. Rumble, Ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

8. SELECTION IN A BOOK WITH AN EDITOR

Burke, W. W., & Nourmair, D. A. (2001). The role of personality assessment in organization development. In J. Waclawski & A. H. Church (Eds.), Organization development: A data-driven approach to organizational change (pp. 55–77). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

9. TRANSLATION

Al-Farabi, A. N. (1998). On the perfect state (R. Walzer, Trans.). Chicago, IL: Kazi.

APA SOURCE MAP: Books

Take information from the book’s title page and copyright page (on the reverse side of the title page), not from the book’s cover or a library catalog.

image Author. List all authors’ last names first, and use only initials for first and middle names. For more about citing authors, see models 1–5.

image Publication year. Enclose the year of publication in parentheses.

image Title. Italicize the title and any subtitle. Capitalize only the first word of the title and the subtitle and any proper nouns or proper adjectives.

image City and state of publication. List the city of publication and the country or state abbreviation followed by a colon.

image Publisher. Give the publisher’s name, dropping any Inc., Co., or Publishers.

A citation for the book below would look like this:

Tsutsui, W. (2004). Godzilla on my mind: Fifty years of the king of monsters. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

image

10. EDITION OTHER THAN THE FIRST

Moore, G. S. (2002). Living with the earth: Concepts in environmental health science (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Lewis.

11. MULTIVOLUME WORK

Barnes, J. (Ed.). (1995). Complete works of Aristotle (Vols. 1–2). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Note: If you cite just one volume of a multivolume work, list that volume, not the complete span of volumes, in parentheses after the title.

12. ARTICLE IN A REFERENCE WORK

Dean, C. (1994). Jaws and teeth. In The Cambridge encyclopedia of human evolution (pp. 56–59). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

If no author is listed, begin with the title.

13. REPUBLISHED BOOK

Piaget, J. (1952). The language and thought of the child. London, England: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (Original work published 1932)

14. INTRODUCTION, PREFACE, FOREWORD, OR AFTERWORD

Klosterman, C. (2007). Introduction. In P. Shirley, Can I keep my jersey?: 11 teams, 5 countries, and 4 years in my life as a basketball vagabond (pp. v–vii). New York, NY: Villard-Random House.

15. BOOK WITH A TITLE WITHIN THE TITLE

Do not italicize or enclose in quotation marks a title within a book title.

Klarman, M. J. (2007). Brown v. Board of Education and the civil rights movement. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Print periodicals

Begin with the author name(s). (See models 1–5.) Then include the publication date (year only for journals, and year, month, and day for other periodicals); the article title; the periodical title; the volume number and issue number, if any; and the page numbers. The source map shows where to find this information in a sample periodical.

16. ARTICLE IN A JOURNAL PAGINATED BY VOLUME

O’Connell, D. C., & Kowal, S. (2003). Psycholinguistics: A half century of monologism. The American Journal of Psychology, 116, 191–212.

17. ARTICLE IN A JOURNAL PAGINATED BY ISSUE

If each issue begins with page 1, include the issue number (in parentheses and not italicized) after the volume number (italicized).

Hall, R. E. (2000). Marriage as vehicle of racism among women of color. Psychology: A Journal of Human Behavior, 37(2), 29–40.

18. ARTICLE IN A MAGAZINE

Ricciardi, S. (2003, August 5). Enabling the mobile work force. PC Magazine,22, 46.

19. ARTICLE IN A NEWSPAPER

Reynolds Lewis, K. (2011, December 22). Why some business owners think now is the time to sell. The New York Times, p. B5.

20. EDITORIAL OR LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Zelneck, B. (2003, July 18). Serving the public at public universities [Letter to the editor]. The Chronicle Review, p. B18.

21. UNSIGNED ARTICLE

Annual meeting announcement. (2003, March). Cognitive Psychology,46, 227.

22. REVIEW

Ringel, S. (2003). [Review of the book Multiculturalism and the therapeutic process]. Clinical Social Work Journal,31, 212–213.

23. PUBLISHED INTERVIEW

Smith, H. (2002, October). [Interview with A. Thompson]. The Sun, pp. 4–7.

APA SOURCE MAP: Articles from Print Periodicals

image Author. List all authors’ last names first, and use only initials for first and middle names. For more about citing authors, see models 1–5.

image Publication date. Enclose the date in parentheses. For journals, use only the year. For magazines and newspapers, use the year, a comma, the month (spelled out), and the day, if given.

image Article title. Do not italicize or enclose article titles in quotation marks. Capitalize only the first word of the article title and subtitle and any proper nouns or proper adjectives.

image Periodical title. Italicize the periodical title (and subtitle, if any), and capitalize all major words. Follow the periodical title with a comma.

image Volume and issue numbers. Give the volume number (italicized) and, without a space in between, the issue number (if given) in parentheses. Follow with a comma.

image Page numbers. Give the inclusive page numbers of the article. For newspapers only, include the abbreviation p. (“page”) or pp. (“pages”) before the page numbers. End the citation with a period.

A citation for the periodical article below would look like this:

Etzioni, A. (2006). Leaving race behind: Our growing Hispanic population creates a golden opportunity. The American Scholar, 75(2), 20–30.

image

Digital written-word sources

Updated guidelines for citing electronic resources are maintained at the APA’s Web site (www.apa.org).

24. ARTICLE FROM AN ONLINE PERIODICAL

Give the author, date, title, and publication information as you would for a print document. Include both the volume and issue numbers for all journal articles. If the article has a digital object identifier (DOI), include it. If there is no DOI, include the URL for the periodical’s home page or for the article (if the article is difficult to find from the home page). For newspaper articles accessible from a searchable Web site, give the site URL only.

Barringer, F. (2008, February 7). In many communities, it’s not easy going green. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com

Cleary, J. M., & Crafti, N. (2007). Basic need satisfaction, emotional eating, and dietary restraint as risk factors for recurrent overeating in a community sample. E-Journal of Applied Psychology, 2(3), 27–39. Retrieved from http://ojs.lib.swin.edu.au/index.php/ejap/article/view/90/116

25. ARTICLE FROM A DATABASE

Give the author, date, title, and publication information as you would for a print document. Include both the volume and issue numbers for all journal articles. If the article has a DOI, include it. If there is no DOI, write Retrieved from and the URL of the journal’s home page (not the URL of the database). The source map shows where to find this information for a typical article from a database.

Hazleden, R. (2003, December). Love yourself: The relationship of the self with itself in popular self-help texts. Journal of Sociology,39(4), 413–428. Retrieved from http://jos.sagepub.com

Morley, N. J., Ball, L. J., & Ormerod, T. C. (2006). How the detection of insurance fraud succeeds and fails. Psychology, Crime, & Law, 12(2), 163–180. doi:10.1080/10683160512331316325

26. ABSTRACT FOR AN ONLINE ARTICLE

Gudjonsson, G. H., & Young, S. (2010). Does confabulation in memory predict suggestibility beyond IQ and memory? [Abstract]. Personality & Individual Differences,49(1), 65 – 67. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2010.03.014

Citing Digital Sources

AT A GLANCE

When citing sources accessed online or from an electronic database, include as many of the following elements as you can find:

  • Author. Give the author’s name, if available.
  • Publication date. Include the date of electronic publication or of the latest update, if available. When no publication date is available, use n.d. (“no date”).
  • Title. If the source is not part of a larger whole, italicize the title.
  • Print publication information. For articles from online journals, magazines, or reference databases, give the publication title and other publishing information as you would for a print periodical (see models 16–23).
  • Retrieval information. For a work from a database, do the following: if the article has a DOI (digital object identifier), include that number after the publication information; do not include the name of the database. If there is no DOI, write Retrieved from followed by the URL for the journal’s home page (not the database URL). For a work found on a Web site, write Retrieved from and include the URL. If the work seems likely to be updated, include the retrieval date. If the URL is longer than one line, break it only before a punctuation mark; do not break http://.

27. DOCUMENT FROM A WEB SITE

Include all of the following information that you can find: the author’s name; the publication date (or n.d. if no date is available); the title of the document; the title of the site or larger work, if any; volume and issue numbers (if any); page numbers (if any); Retrieved from and the URL. Provide your date of access only if an update seems likely. The source map shows where to find this information for an article from a Web site.

Behnke, P. C. (2006, February 22). The homeless are everyone’s problem. Retrieved from http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewArticle.asp?id=21017

Hacker, J. S. (2006). The privatization of risk and the growing economic insecurity of Americans. Items and Issues, 5(4), 16–23. Retrieved from http://publications.ssrc.org/items/items5.4/Hacker.pdf

What parents should know about treatment of behavioral and emotional disorders in preschool children. (2006). APA Online. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/releases/kidsmed.html

APA SOURCE MAP: Articles from Databases

image Author. Include the author’s name as you would for a print source. List all authors’ last names first, and use initials for first and middle names. For more about citing authors, see models 1–5.

image Publication date. Enclose the date in parentheses. For journals, use only the year. For magazines and newspapers, use the year, a comma, the month, and the day if given.

image Article title. Capitalize only the first word of the article title and the subtitle and any proper nouns or proper adjectives.

image Periodical title. Italicize the periodical title.

image Volume and issue number. For journals and magazines, give the volume number (italicized) and the issue number (in parentheses).

image Page numbers. For journals only, give inclusive page numbers.

image Retrieval information. If the article has a DOI (digital object identifier), include that number after the publication information; do not include the name of the database. If there is no DOI, write Retrieved from followed by the URL of the journal’s home page (not the database URL).

A citation for the article below would look like this:

Chory-Assad, R. M., & Tamborini, R. (2004). Television sitcom exposure and aggressive communication: A priming perspective. North American Journal of Psychology, 6(3), 415–422. Retrieved from http://www.najp.8m.com

image

APA SOURCE MAP: Works from Web Sites

image Author. If one is given, include the author’s name (see models 1–5). List last names first, and use only initials for first names. The site’s sponsor may be the author. If no author is identified, begin the citation with the title of the document.

image Publication date. Enclose the date of publication or latest update in parentheses. Use n.d. (“no date”) when no publication date is available.

image Title of work. Capitalize only the first word of the title and subtitle and any proper nouns or proper adjectives.

image Title of Web site. Italicize the title. Capitalize all major words.

image Retrieval information. Write Retrieved from and include the URL. If the work seems likely to be updated, include the retrieval date.

A citation for the Web document below would look like this:

Alexander, M. (2001, August 22). Thirty years later, Stanford Prison Experiment lives on. Stanford Report. Retrieved from http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2001/august22/prison2-822.html

image

Citing Sources without Models in APA Style

AT A GLANCE

You may need to cite a source for which you cannot find a model in APA style. If so, collect as much information as you can find about the creator, title, sponsor, date, and so on, with the goal of helping readers find the source for themselves. Then look at the models in this section to see which one most closely matches the type of source you are using.

In an academic writing project, before citing an electronic source for which you have no model, also be sure to ask your instructor’s advice.

28. CHAPTER OR SECTION OF A WEB DOCUMENT

Follow model 27. After the chapter or section title, type In and give the document title, with identifying information, if any, in parentheses. End with the date of access (if needed) and the URL.

Salamon, Andrew. (n.d.). War in Europe. In Childhood in times of war (chap. 2). Retrieved April 11, 2008, from http://remember.org/jean

29. EMAIL MESSAGE OR REAL-TIME COMMUNICATION

Because the APA stresses that any sources cited in your list of references be retrievable by your readers, you should not include entries for email messages, real-time communications (such as IMs), or any other postings that are not archived. Instead, cite these sources in your text as forms of personal communication (see p. 520).

30. ONLINE POSTING

List an online posting in the references list only if you are able to retrieve the message from an archive. Provide the author’s name, the date of posting, and the subject line. Include other identifying information in square brackets. End with the retrieval statement and the URL of the archived message.

Troike, R. C. (2001, June 21). Buttercups and primroses [Electronic mailing list message]. Retrieved from http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/ads-l.html

Wittenberg, E. (2001, July 11). Gender and the Internet [Newsgroup message]. Retrieved from news://comp.edu.composition

31. BLOG (WEB LOG) POST

Spaulding, P. (2010, April 27). Who believes in a real America? [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/2010/04

32. WIKI ENTRY

Use the date of posting, if there is one, or n.d. for “no date” if there is none. Include the retrieval date because wiki content can change frequently.

Happiness. (2007, June 14). Retrieved March 24, 2008, from PsychWiki: http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Happiness

Other sources (including online versions)

33. COMPUTER SOFTWARE

PsychMate [Computer software]. (2003). Available from Psychology Software Tools: http://pstnet.com/products/psychmate

34. GOVERNMENT PUBLICATION

Office of the Federal Register. (2003). The United States government manual 2003/2004. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Cite an online government document as you would a printed government work, adding the URL. If there is no date, use n.d.

U.S. Public Health Service. (1999). The surgeon general’s call to action to prevent suicide. Retrieved from http://www.mentalhealth.org/suicideprevention/calltoaction.asp

35. DATA SET

U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. (2009). NAEP state comparisons [Data set]. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/statecomparisons/

36. DISSERTATION

If you retrieved the dissertation from a database, give the database name and the accession number, if one is assigned.

Lengel, L. L. (1968). The righteous cause: Some religious aspects of Kansas populism. Retrieved from ProQuest Digital Dissertations. (6900033)

If you retrieve a dissertation from a Web site, give the type of dissertation, the institution, and year after the title, and provide a retrieval statement.

Meeks, M. G. (2006). Between abolition and reform: First-year writing programs, e-literacies, and institutional change (Doctoral dissertation, University of North Carolina). Retrieved from http://dc.lib.unc.edu/etd/

37. TECHNICAL OR RESEARCH REPORT

Give the report number, if available, in parentheses after the title.

McCool, R., Fikes, R., & McGuinness, D. (2003). Semantic Web tools for enhanced authoring (Report No. KSL-03-07). Retrieved from www.ksl.stanford.edu/KSL_Abstracts/KSL-03-07.html

38. CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

Robertson, S. P., Vatrapu, R. K., & Medina, R. (2009). YouTube and Facebook: Online video “friends” social networking. In Conference proceedings: YouTube and the 2008 election cycle (pp. 159–76). Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts. Retrieved from http://scholarworks.umass.edu/jitpc2009

39. PAPER PRESENTED AT A MEETING OR SYMPOSIUM, UNPUBLISHED

Cite the month of the meeting if it is available.

Jones, J. G. (1999, February). Mental health intervention in mass casualty disasters. Paper presented at the Rocky Mountain Region Disaster Mental Health Conference, Laramie, WY.

40. POSTER SESSION

Barnes Young, L. L. (2003, August). Cognition, aging, and dementia. Poster session presented at the 2003 Division 40 APA Convention, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

41. FILM, VIDEO, OR DVD

Nolan, C. (Director). (2010). Inception [Motion picture]. United States: Warner Bros.

42. ONLINE AUDIO OR VIDEO FILE

Klusman, P. (2008, February 13). An engineer’s guide to cats [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHXBL6bzAR4

O’Brien, K. (2008, January 31). Developing countries [Audio file]. KUSP’s life in the fast lane. Retrieved from http://kusp.org/shows/fast.html

43. TELEVISION PROGRAM, SINGLE EPISODE

Imperioli, M. (Writer), & Buscemi, S. (Director). (2002). Everybody hurts [Television series episode]. In D. Chase (Executive Producer), The Sopranos. New York, NY: Home Box Office.

44. TELEVISION SERIES

Abrams, J. J., Lieber, J., & Lindelof, D. (2004). Lost. [Television series]. New York, NY: WABC.

45. AUDIO PODCAST (DOWNLOADED AUDIO FILE)

Noguchi, Yugi. (2010, 24 May). BP hard to pin down on oil spill claims. [Audio podcast]. NPR morning edition. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org

46. RECORDING

The Avalanches. (2001). Frontier psychiatrist. On Since I left you [CD]. Los Angeles, CA: Elektra/Asylum Records.