Learning to Love APA

The Dreaded Reference Page

FormatA typical bibliographic entry for a book will appear as follows:

Arnheim, R. (1971). Art and visual perception. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. • The author's name is listed first. It is followed by the date of publication, in parentheses,

ended with a period.• Next is the book title, which should be in italics. Capitalize only the first word of the title

(and the first word of the subtitle, if any) and any proper names. Include any additional information necessary for retrieving the book (such as "3rd ed." or "Vol. 4") in parentheses, immediately after the title. Close with a final period.

• The publication information comes last. Identify the city and, if the city is not well known or could be confused with another city, the state where the publisher is located. States should be named using their two-letter abbreviations in all caps (e.g. IL, VA, MD). Place a colon (:) after the city name, then identify the name of the publisher, clearly and briefly. Spell out the names of associations and university presses, but omit superfluous terms such as "Publishers," "Co.," or "Inc." Keep the words "Books" and "Press." If two or more locations are given, give the location listed first or the publisher's home office. Close with a period.

Once you are familiar with the basic pattern to APA journal references, it is relatively easy to format a variety of journal references, no matter how strange the journal may seem.

Page, E. (1968). The use of the computer in analyzing student essays. International Review of Education, 14, 253-263.

Points to Note:AuthorsAuthors are listed with the last name first, followed by a comma and the initial of the first name. Include the last name and the first initial for all authors. For an article with multiple authors, separate the names with commas after the initials. Include an ampersand before the last author. For example: Parham, K., Fischer, C., & Austin, K. If there is no author given, treat the article title as the author, and move it into the author slot before the publication date. If the author is a corporate group, spell out the full name of the corporate author. Signal the end of the author element with a period.

Date of publication

Enclose in parentheses the year the text was copyrighted. Type a period outside the parentheses to finish the element. For non-journal periodicals, such as magazines or newspapers, give the year first, then the month and day, if specified in the publication.

Article titleDo not underline the title or place quotations around it. Capitalize only the first word of the title. If there is a subtitle, capitalize it as well. Place a period at the end of the title. If there is important information about the form of the article, this should be enclosed in brackets and placed after the title. The terminal period is placed after the bracketed information. Example: The future of writing centers [President's address].

Journal titleInclude the full journal title, using upper and lowercase letters. The journal title is italicized. Follow the journal title with a comma.

Publication information

After the journal title, include the volume number in italics. Do not use the abbreviation "Vol." Do not include the issue number, unless the journal begins on page one with each issue. Give inclusive page numbers, i.e., the page numbers for the whole article rather than the first page. Separate the page numbers from the volume number with a comma. Include a period after the last page number. Only use the abbreviation "pp." before page numbers from newspapers. For journal articles, just include the page numbers with no abbreviation or label.

Monthly Periodicals

The new health-care lexicon. (1993, August/September). Copy Editor, 4, 1-2.

Brown, L. S. (1993, Spring). Antidomination training as a central component of diversity in

clinical psychology education. The Clinical Psychologist, 46, 83-87.

There is no author listed for the first newsletter article. If this is the case, start with the name of the title of the article and place the date after it in parenthesis, with the year listed first.

Weekly Periodicals

Kandel, E. R., & Squire, L. R. (2000, November 10). Neuroscience: Breaking down scientific barriers to the study of brain and mind. Science, 290, 1113-1120.

Since this magazine comes out weekly, the month and day of publication follows the year in the parentheses.

Newspaper ArticlesWhen a newspaper article is cited, a typical bibliographic entry will appear as follows:

Monson, M. (1993, September 16). Urbana firm obstacle to office project. The Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette, pp. 1, 8.

If the article appears on discontinuous pages, give all of the page numbers and separate them with a coma (ex. pp. A1, A3, A6-A7).

A film or videotape is listed in a reference page as follows:

Weir, P. B. (Producer), & Harrison, B. F. (Director). (1992). Levels of consciousness [Videotape]. Boston, MA: Filmways.

Here, the primary contributors (the director or the producer, or both) are given first, with their roles identified in parentheses after their names. After the title, the medium is identified (here, a videotape). The distributor's name and location comprises the last part of the entry.

Unpublished interviews do not need a reference page entry because they are what the Publication Manual of the APA calls "personal communications" and so "do not provide recoverable data." Include these references in the text of your document, according to the following format:

(N. Archer, personal communication, October 11, 1993)

Here, the entry consists of the first initial and last name of the interviewee, the words "personal communication," and the date of the interview.

Electronic SourcesBasic Format

Author, A. A. (2007). Title of work. Retrieved month day, year, from source

Begin the entry with the last name of the author, and the author's first and middle initials. Place the date that the document was published in parenthesis. Include the title of the work, the day that the source was retrieved, and the address of the source.

Article in an Internet-only Journal

Fredrickson, B. L. (2000, March 7). Cultivating positive emotions to optimize health and well-being. Prevention & Treatment, 3, Article 0001a. Retrieved November 20, 2000, from http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume3/pre0030001a.html

Include the author's last name and first and middle initials. Place the date that the document was published in parenthesis. Include the title of the document (do not place it in italics or in quotes) and the title of the on-line journal and volume number in italics. Make sure to include the date that the document was retrieved and the web address of the source.

Stand-alone Document (no author or date)

GVU's 8th WWW user survey. (n.d.). Retrieved August 8, 2000, from http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/user_surveys/survey-1997-10/ If the document does not have an author or date, begin the entry with the title of the document. After the title, place "n.d." ("no date") in parenthesis, the date that you accessed the document, and the web address of the source.

Electronic Version of Newspaper Article

Hilts, P. J. (1999, February 16). In forecasting their emotions, most people flunk out. New York Times. Retrieved

November 21, 2000, from http://www.nytimes.com

National Institute of Mental Health. (1990). Clinical training in serious mental illness (DHHS Publication No. ADM 90-1679). Washington, DC: U.S.

Government Printing Office.

In-text Citation

In-Text Citation FormatBasic Format

The basic format for APA in-text citation is as follows:(Author's last name, year of publication):

One recent study finds a genetic link to alcoholism (Jones, 1997).

If the author’s last name appears in the citation, then only the year is required:

Jones (1997) finds a genetic link to alcoholism.

Multiple Authors

When a work has only two authors, use both of their names each time their work is cited, joined by an ampersand (&) if in parentheses, or by the word "and" if in text:

• In parentheses: (Cortez & Jones, 1997) • In text: Cortez and Jones (1997)

For three, four, or five authors, refer to all authors in the first citation, then use the first author’s last name followed by the abbreviation "et al." (not italicized and with a period after "al") in all subsequent citations:

• First citation: (Cortez, Jones, Gold, & Hammond, 1998) • Subsequent citations: (Cortez et al., 1998)

For six or more authors, use the first author's last name followed by the abbreviation et al.:• In all citations: (Burke et al., 1999)

Different Authors with the Same Last Name

When citing different authors with the same last name, include their first and middle initials, so that a reader can differentiate between them:

B. A. Jones (1998) and R. F. Jones (1998) also found

More Than One Work by the Same AuthorIf you are citing more than one work by the same author, include enough information so that your reader can differentiate between them. For instance, if you have used two studies by the same authors (from different years), you simply need to include their dates of publication:

• (Jones, Crick, & Waxson, 1989); (Jones, Crick, & Waxson, 1998)

or, if you are citing both at once:

• (Jones, Crick, & Waxson, 1989, 1998)

If you are citing more than one work from the same year, use the suffixes "a," "b," "c" etc., so that your reader can differentiate between them (these suffixes will correspond to the order of entries in your references page):

• (Jones, Crick, & Waxson, 1999a); (Jones, Crick, & Waxson, 1999b)

No Author AvailableIf no author is available, use a short form of the title (the shortest form that will allow you to recognize the work properly). For instance, if you are working with a study called "The Effects of Aspirin on Heart Attack Victims" you might use the following:

• ("The Effects," 1995)

If you were working with an entire book called Aspirin and Heart Attacks, and the book had no author, you might cite the source as follows:

• (Aspirin, 1991)

If the text is attributed to "Anonymous," then use the following format:

• (Anonymous, 1999)

Citing Quotations

To cite a direct quote, include the name(s) of the author(s), the date of publication, and the page number:

• (Asaki & Klotzky, 1987, p. 333)

• Asaki & Klotzky (1987) found that "the addition of the compound problematized the results" (p. 333).

Personal Communication

Personal communications receive a slightly more elaborate in-text citation, since they are not cited in the references section of an APA-style document:

• (H. J. Simpson, personal communication, September 29, 1999)

Using Direct Quotations

The Uses of Quotation

In most writing, you should use quotations for one or more of the following specific purposes:Use quotation to reproduce distinctive, admirable, or felicitous phrasing--that is, when a paraphrase would be an inadequate representation.

• In his Introduction to Lysistrata, Douglass Parker denies that the play is a "hoard of applied lubricity."

Use quotation when your source uses words in a specialized or unorthodox way.

• Both Calidorus and Pseudolus agree that Phoenicium's letter is "terrible," but they mean different things.

Use quotation when the speaker or writer is an expert on the subject or an otherwise famous person whose specific words might be newsworthy, of general interest, or add credibility to your paper.

• Samuel Pepys called Twelfth Night "one of the weakest plays that ever I saw on the stage."

Use quotation to reproduce important statements of information, opinion, or policy.

• According to the Code on Campus Affairs, "No absence from class is excused."

Use quotation to reproduce exactly a passage that you are explaining or interpreting.

• Corrigan refers to the world of comedy as a "protected realm."

The ultimate test of whether a quotation is necessary or not is this does it help support your thesis?

Punctuating Quotations without Documentation

Periods and commas, whether or not they are part of the quoted material, always go inside the closing quotation marks:

• "The comic mask," says Aristotle, "is ugly and distorted, but does not imply pain."

Colons and semicolons at the end of independent clauses which end with a quotation go outside the closing quotation marks:

• Pseudolus calls Phoenicium's letter "terrible" he means it is badly written.

Question marks and exclamation points go inside or outside the closing quotation marks, depending on whether they are part of your sentence or the quoted sentence:

• Malvolio asks, "My masters, are you mad?" • Why does Olivia call Malvolio "poor fool"?

An ellipsis (three spaced periods) goes in the middle of a quotation or at the end--never at the beginning. To indicate words omitted from inside a quotation, use three spaced periods:

• "Some are born great . . . and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em."

If the quotation goes on where your sentence ends, you can mark the missing material with 4 spaced periods, the first following the last word of the quotation with no space:

• Cesario’s most impressive speech begins, "Make me a willow cabin at your gate. . . ." Verse (i.e., poetry) quotations of 3 lines or fewer should be incorporated directly into your paragraph, with a slash marking the division between lines:• Lysistrata ends with a religious invocation"sing to honor her-- / Athene of the Bronze

House! / Sing Athene!"