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Quick Reference: APA Citations

In Text Citations||Formatting Entries||Books|| Articles||Web Sites||APA Citation Web Sites

Typically, the Behavior, Health and Social Sciences use the APA (American Psychological Association) style for research papers. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association provides the formats for notes and citations. To supplement this manual, the APA published the Concise Rules of APA Style as an official pocket guide to be used as a quick reference tool.

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association

Concise Rules of APA Style
In Text Citations

Type of Citation
First citation
Subsequent citations
First parenthetical
Subsequent parentheticals

One author
Szanto (2007)
Szanto (2007)
(Szanto, 2007)
(Szanto, 2007)

Two authors
Dudrah and Desai (2008)
Dudrah and Desai (2008)
(Dudrah & Desai, 2008)
(Dudrah & Desai, 2008)

Three authors
Culver, Arnow, and Ketter (2007)
Culver et al. (2007)
(Culver, Arnow, & Ketter, 2007)
(Culver et al., 2007)

Four authors
Feldman, Cage, Brown, and Satie (2005)
Feldman et al. (2005)
(Feldman, Cage, Brown, & Satie, 2005)
(Feldman et al., 2005)

Five authors
Silva, Matzner, Diaz, Singh, and Dummit (1999)
Silva et al. (1999)
(Silva, Matzner, Diaz, Singh, & Dummit, 1999)
(Silva et al., 2005)

Six or more authors
Duchamp et al. (2003)
Duchamp et al. (2003)
(Duchamp et al., 2003)
(Duchamp et al., 2003)

Groups as authors
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH, 2009)
NIMH (2009)
(National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2009)
(NIMH, 2009)

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Reference Lists

The reference list should be on a separate page at the end of the project with the label References centered at the top of the sheet.

All reference entries should be hanging; first line flush with left margin, each additional line shall be indented 5 spaces from left margin.

Reference entries should be double spaced.

Entries should be alphabetized by authors last name. Unauthored entries should be alphabetized by the first significant title word.

Formatting Entries

Author's and editor's names are always inverted. List the last name first, followed by a comma, then their initials and a period after them for up to and including seven authors or editors. In instances where the references have two to seven authors, use an ampersand (&) before the last author. For editor(s), the abbreviation should be placed parenthetically after the name, e.g. (Ed.) followed by a period.

Example 1: Beckett, S.

Example2: Bloom, H. (Ed.)

If there are eight or more author/editors, include the first six authors then insert three ellipses (...)and list the last author's name.

Example 3: Feldman, M., Cage, J., Brown, E., Satie, E., Wolff, C., Blum, E...Ziegler, M.

Publication dates are always placed in parentheses immediately after the author(s) or editor(s) and are followed by a period.

Example 4: Evans, K. (2008).

If there is no publication date or if the publication date is unknown simply use n.d.

Example 5: Pangloss, D. (n.d.).

Book titles should always be italicized. The first word of a title should be capitalized along with the first word of a subtitle. Proper nouns in the title are always capitalized.

Example 6: Szanto, A. (Ed.). (2007). What Orwell didn't know : Propaganda and the new face of American politics.

Publisher cities should be listed first followed by a common then the two letter abbrevation for the state. The location information should always be followed with a colon.

Example 7: Culver City, CA:

Publishers are listed for books without including Co., Inc., Publishers, etc... in the entry. A period follows the listing.

Example 8: Random House., Harvard University., Plain Press.

Journal titles are italized and all major words in the journal title are capitalized. The titles of individual essays from journals are not italicized but should follow the APA title capitalization format (see Ex. 6).

Example 9: Journal of Cognitive Dissonance Theory.

Citations for journal articles should include the volume and issue number (if there is one) in parentheses followed by a comma then the page number.

Example 10: 39(13), 139-153.

Books

Szanto, A. (Ed.). (2007). What Orwell didn't know : Propaganda and

the new face of American politics. New York, NY: PublicAffairs.

Joiner, T.E., Brown, J.S., & Kistner, J. (Eds.). (2006). The interpersonal,

cognitive, and social nature of depression . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence

Erlbaum.

Mishra, V. (2008). Towards a theoretical critique of Bombay cinema.

In R. Dudrah & J. Desai (Eds.), The Bollywood reader (pp. 32-45).

Berkshire, England: Open University Press.

Articles

Articles retrieved form databases are cited in 2 different ways. If the article has a DOI (digital object identifier) then use the first example below, if no DOI is assigned then follow the second example.

Culver, J. L., Arnow, B. A., & Ketter, T. A.. (2007). Bipolar disorder:

Improving diagnosis and optimizing integrated care. Journal of

Clinical Psychology,63(1), 72-93. doi:10.1002/jclp.20333

Silva, R.R., Matzner, F., Diaz, J., Singh, S., & Dummit III, E.S. (1999).

Bipolar disorder in children and adolescents: A guide to diagnosis

and treatment. CNS Drugs,12(6), 437-450.

http://adisonline.com/cnsdrugs/pages/default.aspx

Web Sites

National Institute of Mental Health. (2009, August 14). Bipolar disorder.

Retrieved August 18, 2009 from

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/bipolar-

disorder/index.shtml

World Health Organization. (2009). Psychotropic drugs. Retrieved

August 18, 2009 from

http://www.who.int/topics/psychotropic_drugs/en/

APA Citation Web Sites

The Owl at Purdue: APA Formatting and Style Guide(http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/) a handy APA resource developed by Purdue University.

APA Style Manual (http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/infosrv/lue/HTU/apa5th.PDF) a useful PDF created by the librarians at Bowling Green State University.

Learning APA Style (http://www.apastyle.org/learn/) Tutorials and products created by the American Psychological Association to facilitate learning the APA style.

Questions or comments, contact:
Michael Billings, Reference Librarian