APA References Page
APA Style has four defined elements that appear in their references: Author, Date, Title, and Source. APA defines these elements in the following way,
- Author – the person, group, or entity that is responsible for the work.
- Date – the date or time frame in which the work was published.
- Title – the name of the work itself, what is it called?
- Source – this defines where you found the work and tells others how to find it too.
Different scenarios may arise where one or more of these elements is missing from your source material. If the scenario you run across is not covered by the examples below, stop by the Casper College Writing Center and we will help you find the answer.
References Format
APA Style has the following requirements for your reference page:
- Start a new page.
- The title of the page (References) should be centered and bold.
- The page is be double-spaced.
- Make sure to alphabetize entries on your reference list by author
- Use the hanging indent format for each reference.
- This means that the first line of each reference will be flush against the margin while any following line for the reference will be indented (1/2 inch).
- When stating the author’s name, only use last names and first initials, not full first names. Also, last names are listed first. (LastName, A.)
- Make sure the full title of the journal article is used in the entry. Only capitalize the first word of the title, the subtitle, or a word that appears after a colon or dash. All other words in the title are to be lower case unless they are proper nouns. The article title is not in quotes and is not underlined.
- Use the same punctuation for the journal title in your reference that the journal uses. The journal title is italicized.
- Use italics for the titles of longer works such as books and journals
- Do NOT use italics, underlines, or quotes around titles of articles or essays
- Only references cited in your paper appear in the References. Likewise, anything cited in your paper must appear in the References.
- If you did not actually read an article but read about it (secondary sources), you must cite the article of interest and the source you read within the text of your paper. Only the source you actually read appears in the References.
All items that appear on your reference page must be cited in your paper and vice versa (all citations in your paper must appear as an entry on your reference page).
When using printed books, information about the publisher is included in the entry instead of the volume and issue information. Page numbers are only included when the entry is for a specific chapter or article included in the book.
Referencing the Whole Book (Singular Author)
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. Publisher Name.
If there is an editor, translator, or narrator listed, use
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of work: Subtitle of work (B. B. Editor, Ed.; T. Translator, Trans.; N. Narrator, Narr.). Publisher Name.
When you have found the book online (eBook, Kindle book, or through an online database, the DOI or URL is placed after the Publisher Name.
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. Publisher Name. http://website.com/eBook/Name_Of_Book
A Specific Edition of a Book
If the book you are referencing has a specific edition, then the format will include the edition of the book as well. Edition information goes in the parentheses after the book title.
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of work: Subtitle of work (2nd ed.). Publisher Name.
Note: If the author of the chapter is the same as the author then you can skip the editors after the “In…” phrase.
A Chapter in the Book
Sometimes a book’s chapters are broken up in such a way that it wouldn’t make sense to cite the entire book when what you read was a singular chapter.
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of chapter. In Title of work: Subtitle of work (pp. #-#). Publisher Name.
Note: In the example above ‘pp.’ is used to preface the page numbers. This nomenclature is not used for any other reference type.
A Book with Separate Authors in Each Chapter
In some text books or anthologies, a chapter or story will have a different author than those who edited the book as a whole. Below is an example that shows how to cite the author of the chapter and the editors of the book.
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of chapter. In B. B. Editor (Ed.), Title of work: Subtitle of work (pp. #-#). Publisher Name.
Book Review
A review of a book is sometimes a helpful source. You will need to give the name of the author of the review as well as the review title AND also the original book’s title and author.
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the review [Review of the book Title of book, by B. B. Author]. Source for the Review, Volume Number(Issue), Pages. https://www.BookReviewWebsite.com/Review
One Author
Journals are generally not cited as a whole, the articles within them are cited instead. You will need to find the author(s) of the article and have the article title to start. The source element will have the Journal name, the volume and issue number, as well page numbers and/or a URL.
In print:
Author, A. (Year). Article title. Journal, Volume Number(Issue), Pages.
Online:
Author, A. (Year). Article title. Journal, Volume Number(Issue), Pages. https://doi.org/1100211.1/12254.2
What is a DOI?
DOI is defined as a Digital Object Identifier. Some online content will have a DOI specified other content will not. If an article that you’ve found appears with a DOI already defined, APA Style Guides recommends its usage in the reference entry rather than the URL. DOI is usually an alphanumeric code (e.g., 10.1000/xyz123), which can be used in place of a URL. (Like this one https://doi.org/10.1109/5.771073).
DOI Reference Lookup: http://www.crossref.org/guestquery/
When a DOI is listed for an article, use it in your reference entry.
Two Authors
APA utilizes the ampersand (&) in it’s in-text citations and in its reference listings. When listing two authors in the references, you will use the ‘&’ in place of the word ‘and’.
In print:
Author, A., & Author, B. ( Year). Article title. Journal Name, Volume Number (Issue), Pages.
Online:
Author, A., & Author, B. ( Year). Article title. Journal Name, Volume Number (Issue), Pages. https://doi.org/1100211.1/12254.2
Three or More Authors
When you have more than two authors, you will separate the authors with commas. Before the last author to be listed, use the ‘&’.
APA requires that you write out a complete list of authors in the references (up to 20 authors). If there are more than 20 authors, you can shorten the list using the ellipses as seen in the second example in this section.
Example 1:
Author, A., Author, B., Author, C., & Author, D. (Year). Article title. Journal Title, Volume Number(Issue), Pages.
Example 2:
Author, A., Author, B., Author, C., Author, D., Author, E., Author, F., Author, G., Author, H., Author, I., Author, J., Author, K., Author, L., Author, M., Author, N., Author, O., Author, P., Author, Q., Author, R., Author, S., … Author, Z. (Year). Article title. Journal Title, Volume Number(Issue), Pages.
Print Dictionary
Editor, E. (Ed.). (Year). Word being cited. Title of Dictionary (2nd ed.). Publisher Name.
Online Dictionary
Use the name of the dictionary for the Author, (n.d.) in the place of the year, and include the URL to the specific word you are citing a definition of and the retrieval date.
Dictionary Name. (n.d.). Word being cited. In, Name of Dictionary Website. Retrieved Month DD, YYYY, from https://www.dictionarywebsite.com/word.
The same general format is used for articles or information found in other printed materials (i.e., Newspapers, Magazines, Letters, Reviews, or Books). For items that are published on a regular basis, like a newspaper is published daily, the full publishing date is used in place of the year. The formats for the date is YYYY, Month DD.
Magazine
Author, A. A. (YYYY, Month DD). Article title. Magazine Name, Volume Number(Issue), Pages.
Note: Not all magazines have issue numbers, others are labeled by month. Including the month of publication in the publication date (as seen above) means you do not have to repeat this information for the issue number. If there is no volume number separate from the year of publication, do not repeat the information.
Newspaper
Author, A. A. (YYYY, Month DD). Article title. Newspaper, 1A.
Author, A. A. (YYYY, Month DD). Article title. Newspaper, 1A, 2C.
Note: These example reflect how physically printed newspapers number their pages.
Letter to the Editor
Author, A. A. (YYYY, Month DD). Letter heading/tile [Letter to the editor]. Magazine/Newspaper, Volume Number(Issue), Pages.
Websites
When you are using a webpage that has published the information as a source in your paper or perhaps a PDF document that you found online, the entry in your reference page will be similar to that of a printed source. The major difference is that the web address (in full) will be a part of your entry.
Author, A. A., & Author B. B. (Year). Title of page. Site Name. https://www.website.com/webpage.htm
Note: For webpages the italics is on the page title rather than the site title.
No Author
Title of web page goes here. (Year). Website Name Goes Here. https://www.website.com/thing-i-looked-at.com
Organization as Author
Organization Name. (Year). Title of the web page. Title of the Website. https://www.thewebsite.com/the-thing-i-looked-at.com
Regularly Updated Data Online
The date retrieved only needs to be included if the information you’ve referenced from the webpage is likely to change or be updated continuously (e.g., statistics, volatile research, news, etc.). In this case, use the following format:
Author, A. (n.d.). Title of the web page. Website Name. Retrieved Month DD, YYYY, from http://website.com/web-page.htm
Note: (n.d.) was used to show an example of an online source that does not have a specific publication date noted on the webpage.
Audio and Visual
Audiovisual media covers movies, T.V. shows, music, and podcasts. Each of these types of sources have a slightly different definition of who or what to put down as the “author” of the reference. Below is a table to help you decipher who is the author of the media you need to reference.
Source: APA 7th Edition Style Manual, Audiovisual Media section, p. 341
The media being referenced will need to be described in square brackets after the title of the work in the reference. Here are some examples of what the reference will look like.
Producer, P. (Executive Producer). (Date). Title of work [Description]. Production Company. http://webpage.com/film.htm
Composer, C. (Date). Title of song [Description]. On Title of the album. Label.
Writer, W. (Writer), & Director, D. (Director). (Date). Title of episode (Season No., Episode No.) [Description]. Title of TV Series. Production Company.
YouTube (or other online videos)
Sometimes you might find an interview or commercial you need to cite on YouTube. If there is no real name to put for the author, the screen name can be used in place of the author’s name. In parenthesis, put the date the video was posted. The title of the video is in italics.
Author, A. (YYYY, Month DD). Video title [Description]. YouTube. http://youtube.com/video_address
screenname. (YYYY, Month DD). Video title [Description]. YouTube. http://youtube.com/video_address
Dissertations and Theses
Sometimes, you may find a source that is the Masters Thesis or Doctoral Dissertation a student wrong as a part of their graduation requirements. These documents are considered published if you have found them in a database (e.g., ProQuest or other library search database). You will know that it is a thesis or dissertation because the document will identify itself in the front matter as a one. The document will also tell you what university the author graduated from as well as the members of their committee.
Some instructors will guide you to no cite the dissertation or thesis, but instead to go through the document’s references list and gather your information from the primary source. If you aren’t sure what your instructor prefers, ask them.
Make sure your citation includes what kind of document you are citing and the university from which the author graduated. Additionally, include the name of the database from which the document was discovered.
Master Thesis
Author, A. (YYYY). The title of the master’s thesis: And its subtitle [Masters thesis, Name of the University]. Database Name. https://thewebaddress.com/masters-thesis.
Doctoral Dissertation
Author, A. (YYYY). The title of the dissertation: And its subtitle [Doctoral dissertation, Name of the University]. Database Name. https://thewebaddress.com/dissertation-is-here.
APA References in Living Color
The info-graph below (separated into three sections) will help with visualizing how APA sources are made into a citation. The “Table of Format” can be used as a quick reference to how different kinds of information are formatted when added to the citation.
Let's Begin
Table of Formats
The End Resulst
