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APA Style Guide

How would I cite...

Books
Book Chapter
Journal Article
Magazine Article
Newspaper Article
Movie or Video
Other Examples

Material within the Body of the Paper (Parenthetical References)

Preparing The References List

APA style requires two elements for citing outside sources: parenthetical (in-text) references, and a references list. Together, these elements allow your reader access to the sources you consulted.

For the system to function, all authors cited in the text must appear in the references list, and all authors listed must have been cited in the text.

Formatting the References List: If you need more detailed information about the APA style's requirements for the references list, consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed., 2010), or your course instructor.

General guidelines: Type the word 'References' at the top of a new page, centered. All entries should be double-spaced, unless your assignment instructs you otherwise.

Appearance of Entries: Although the current Publications Manual advises standard (five spaces, first line) indentation for a references list, this is primarily designed to make typesetting easier; the typeset version will have hanging indents (first line flush left, the following lines five spaces indent). If your final version will be turned in for a grade rather than publication, we recommend that you use hanging indents for enhanced readability. We have formatted our sample references list with hanging indents.

Capitalize only the first work of titles of books and articles and the first word after a colon.

Use a comma to separate: 1) surnames (i.e., last names) from initials; 2) a newspaper title from p. or pp.; 3) a journal title from a volume number; 4) a volume number from page numbers; 5) when given, an issue number from page numbers; 6) (Ed.) from book title; 7) city of publication from state.

Don't panic! The examples below will make this clearer!

Please refer to the APA Publication Manual 6th edition or APA website for more detailed information. Listed below are some reference examples:

Book

Author, A. A. (1999). Title of work. Location: Publisher.

Example:

Brown, H., & Milstead, J. (1968). Patterns in poetry: An introductory anthology. Glenview, IL: Scott,

Foresman.

Editor as author

Dykes, S. L. (Ed.). (1983). Early developmental stages. Bethesda, MD: Norcroft Books.

English translation

Dykes, S. L. (1987). Cognition and development (J. Nuise, Trans.). New York: Academic Press. (Original

work published 1958).

Corporate author as publisher

National Institute of Mental Health. (1989). Manual of cognitive learning. Washington, DC: Author.

Chapter in a Book

Author, A. A. (year). Title of chapter. In A. A. Editor (Ed.), Title of book (pages of chapter). Location:

Publisher.

Example:

Rusbult, C. E., Olsen, N., Davis, J. L., & Hannon, P. A. (2001). Commitment and relationship maintenance

mechanisms. In J. H. Harvey & A. E. Wenzel (Eds.), Close romantic relationships: Maintenance and

enhancement (pp. 87-113). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Journal Article

Online journal article with DOI available

Herbst-Damm, K. L., & Kulik, J. A. (2005). Volunteer support, marital status, and the survival times of

terminally ill patients. Health Psychology, 24, 225-229. doi:10.1037/0278-6133.24.2.225

Journal article in an Internet-only journal, with no DOI available

Sillick, T. J., & Schutte, N. S. (2006). Emotional intelligence and self-esteem mediate between perceived

early parental love and adult happiness. E-Journal of Applied Psychology, 2(2), 38-48. Retrieved from

http://ojs.lib.swin.edu.au/index.php/ejap

Magazine Article

Chamberlin, J. Novotney, A. , Packard, E.,& Price, M. (2008, May). Enhancing worker well being:

Occupational health psychologists convene to share their research on work, stress, and health. Monitor

on Psychology, 39(5), 26-29.

Newspaper Article

Schwartz, J. (1993, September 30). Obesity affects economic, social status. The Washington Post, pp. A1,

A4.

Movie or Video

Producer, A. A. (Producer), & Director, A. A. (Director). (Year). Title of motion picture [Motion picture].

Country of origin: Studio.

Example:

Scorsese, M. (Producer), & Longergan, K. (Writer/Director). (2000). You can count on me [Motion picture].

United States: Paramount Pictures.

Other Examples

Corporate author, government report

Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood

Institute. (2003). Managing asthma: A guide for schools(NIH Publication No. 02-2650). Retrieved from

http://www..nhlbi.nih.gov/health/prof/lung/asthma/asth_sch.pdf

Conference Poster or Paper Presentation

Presenter, A. A. (Year, Month). Title of paper or poster. Paper/poster session presented at the meeting of

Organization Name, Location.

Conference Symposium Presentation

Presenter, A. A. (Year, Month). Title of presentation. In E. E. Chairperson (Chair), Title of the symposium.

Symposium conducted at the meeting of Organization Name, Location.

Manuscript in Progress or Submitted

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of manuscript. Manuscript submitted for publication/in progress.

 

Guidelines for parenthetical references

Placement

Place citations within sentences and paragraphs so that is is clear which material has come from which sources. Use pronouns and transitions to help you indicate whether several sentences contain material from the same source or from different sources:

Symthe (1990) found that positioning influences ventilation. In his quasi-experimental study of 20 ICU patients, he used two methods to... However, his findings did not support the work of Karcher (1987) and Atley (1989) who used much larger samples to demonstrate that...

Two or more authors

When a work has a single author or two authors, cite their names and the date of publication whenever you refer to their work in the text. (Exception: Within a given paragraph, do not include the date after the initial citation unless you are citing other publications elsewhere in your paper by the same authors), Join two co-authors in the text with the word "and", but within parentheses use an ampersand (&).

If authors have the same surname, always include their initial in each citation.

When citing co-author groups of three to five authors, cite all names and the date in the initial citation, but only the first author followed by et al. and the date in the subsequent citations.

For co-author groups of six or more authors, cite in the text only the surname of the first author followed by et al. and the date. If two or more six-author groups shorten to the same surname, cite the surnames of as many subsequent authors as need to distinguish between references.

No author

If a work has no author, use the first two or three words of the title (omitting a beginning article), and capitalize each word of your shortened version. Place the short title in quotation marks if it is an article or chapter, or underline it if it is a book or periodical. Substitute the short title for the name of the author. An article: ("Learned Helplessness," 1985). The full title appears alphabetically in the references list (without quotation marks) in the author position.

When citing an edited work (a book, a report, a monograph) and that work has no author, the editor(s) assume the author position.

Multiple references

Alphabetize multiple references within parentheses and separate author groups with a semicolon. You may separate a major reference from others by inserting "see also" before remaining references, which appear alphabetically:

Ex. (Patel, 1990; see also Arndt, 1986; Turgel, 1992).

When selecting one or more authors to represent the work or findings of a large group of authors, inform the reader by including "e.g." within the citation:

Ex. A large number of studies have shown that variations in brain waves are common (e.g., Engle, 1993a; Reuter, 1990, Trautman, 1987).

Punctuation

When an author-date citation appears at the end of a sentence, place the period after the parentheses. When an author-date citation appears mid-sentence, punctuation depends on the context.

Spacing has changed in the new APA guidelines: only one space after periods, excepts for initials within parentheses. For. ex.: (U.S.)

Other guidelines

Indicate in the text when you are citing from a secondary source in one of the following ways:

Place both authors in the same citation at the end of the sentence: (Smith, 1976, cited in Carrginton, 1989)

or

Cite them separately within the same sentence: Smith (1976) fornulated a theory about deviant behavior (cited in Carrington, 1989).

Use appropriate verbs to distinguish between empirical and nonempirical works:

"Zuckerman (1989) compared two groups of..." [empirical] vs. "Basil (1991) wrote extensively about..." [nonempirical].

Also inform the reader about background information: "For a review, see..." or "(see discussion in Ryan, 1990)."

When citing more than one article published by an author in the same year, repeat the year but add a suffix to represent each article (Wilbourn, 1988a, 1988b). Suffixes are assigned according to the alphabetical order of the first major word in each title and also appear in the reference list, where the author's name is repeated for each article.

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