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Citing Sources

APA Citation Style

Overview

The APA (American Psychological Association) citation style is used by many disciplines including the social sciences, psychology, and education. In addition to rules regarding the formatting of citations, the APA style also provides guidelines for grammar, punctuation, page layout, and bias-free language.


Page Contents:

Formatting APA Notes and Bibliographies

These general rules apply to APA formatted notes and bibliographies:

  • Double-space all content on the page. 
  • Author names are presented using the last name followed by the initials of the first and middle names. Authors' first and middle names are not spelled out in APA Style.
  • Capitalize the first letter of the first words of the titles and subtitles of books, journals, chapters, and articles. The first letter of names and proper nouns are also capitalized. 
  • Titles of books and journals are italicized.

APA Bibliography/Reference Page

The bibliography, or reference page, is a stylized list of all the resources you consulted for your project. It normally appears at the end of your project, allowing your readers to locate and independently consult sources that were cited as part of a work. Each source you use in your project must be included in your reference list, whether you directly quote from it, paraphrase it, or are merely informed by it.

Click here for a sample of a professional bibliography from the journal Training and Education in Professional Psychology.

General Rules for an APA Bibliography:

  • Entries are alphabetized by the last name of the first author of each work 
  • Second and all subsequent lines are always indented using a half-inch hanging indent. This means that the first line of each reference entry is flush with the left margins and subsequent lines are indented by 0.5 inch. See these steps for creating a hanging indent in Google docs.
  • For a work with more than 20 authors, include up to 20 names followed by an ellipsis (...) and the final author's name. 
  • Do not number or bullet bibliographies, and do not use headings or separate the entries by source type. 

Each entry must should include most if of the following elements as appropriate to the source type: 

  • Author's name
  • Title of the source
  • Title of the larger work/container of the article (such as a book, journal, etc.) 
  • Publisher's name 
  • Publication date
  • Location (such as a URL, DOI and volume, issue, and page numbers for periodicals.

APA In-Text Citation Samples

When you paraphrase or directly quote a work in your paper, APA format requires the use of in-text citations. Direct quotes are set off by quotation marks within the text. Author's name, publication date, and pages are included as illustrated:

Citation Variation Citation Sample
Direct quotation with author’s name as part of the narrative According to Jones (1998), "Students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time" (p. 199).
Direct quotation with fully parenthetical citation A study found that "students often had difficulty using APA style" (Jones, 1998, p. 199).
Paraphrase or summary  APA style is a difficult citation format for first-time learners (Jones, 1998, p. 199).

Scientific papers may include many authors. Your citation will vary in APA depending on the number of authors and how you quote or paraphrase a work. 

Author Variation Author Sample
Two authors: Name both authors in the citation Giving credit to another author's work by citing the text is an essential part in writing papers (Johnson & Williams, 2009).
Three or more authors: The first author's name is followed by et al. (an abbreviation of the Latin phrase et alia, meaning "and others") Studying humanities has a positive effect on well-being of individuals, communities, and societies (Vaziri et al., 2018).
Corporate author: Use the same format as a single author, putting the name in parenthesis or including entity in an introductory phrase.  According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (2021)....
Unknown author: If an individual, group, or corporate author isn't listed, provide the title of the source or use the first couple of words in the title.  Writing anonymously allows people to share their ideas "without fear of retribution." ("Write anonymously", n.d.) 

Following are examples of the basic citation formats for the most commonly used types of sources. 

Digital Object Identifier

You can find the DOI number on an article's abstract page or article detail pages. Not every article will have a DOI assigned. For works without DOIs from academic research databases, do not attach a URL. Instead, cite the work the same as the printed version.

Location of the DOI in on the abstract page of a scholarly article available in a database

 

Location of the DOI on the first page of a scholarly article available as a PDF

Resources for APA Style

For more information about formatting and citing sources in APA format, see: