APA Style (7th Edition) Citation Guide

APA style, created by the American Psychological Association, is a set of rules for formatting manuscripts, including research papers. It is used by social science disciplines such as communication studies, economics, education, psychology, and sociology; it is also used by business and nursing.

In APA, you must cite sources that you have paraphrased, quoted or otherwise used to write your research paper. Cite your sources in two places:

1. In the body of your paper where you add a brief in-text citation.
2. In the References list at the end of your paper where you give more complete information for the source.

A reference generally has these four elements: author, date, title, and source. Each element answers a question and is listed in your citation in the following order:

• author: Who is responsible for this work?
• date: When was this work published?
• title: What is the work called?
• source: Where can I retrieve this work?

APA Paper-formatting requirements are in the Clark Library's APA 7th ed. Sample Paper:

On a References page, all citations should be double spaced and have a hanging indent.

A "hanging indent" means that each subsequent line after the first line of your citation should be indented by 0.5 inches.

This Microsoft support page contains instructions about how to format a hanging indent in a paper.

General Tips

Author

If an item has no author, start the citation with the article title.

When an article has one to twenty authors, all authors' names are cited in the References List entry. When an article has twenty-one or more authors list the first nineteen authors followed by three spaced ellipse points (. . .) , and then the last author's name. Rules are different for in-text citations; please see the examples provided.

Cite author names in the order in which they appear on the source, not in alphabetical order (the first author is usually the person who contributed the most work to the publication).

Titles

Italicize titles of journals, magazines and newspapers. Do not italicize or use quotation marks for the titles of articles.

Capitalize only the first letter of the first word of the article title. If there is a colon in the article title, also capitalize the first letter of the first word after the colon.

Dates

If an item has no date, use the short form n.d. where you would normally put the date.

Volume and Issue Numbers

Italicize volume numbers but not issue numbers.

Retrieval Dates

Most articles will not need these in the citation. Only use them for online articles from places where content may change often, like a free website or a wiki.

Page Numbers

If an article doesn't appear on continuous pages, list all the page numbers the article is on, separated by commas. For example (4, 6, 12-14)

Library Database

Do not include the name of a database for works obtained from most academic research databases (e.g. APA PsycInfo, CINAHL) because works in these resources are widely available. Exceptions are Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, ERIC, ProQuest Dissertations, and UpToDate.

DOI or URL

Include the DOI (formatted as a URL: https://doi.org/...) if it is available. If you do not have a DOI, include a URL if the full text of the article is available online (not as part of a library database). If the full text is from a library database, do not include a URL or database name. Always include a DOI if you have it. 

Formatting URLs

It is acceptable to either format the URLs as plain text, or to use the default display settings for links in your word processing program (e.g. links are usually in a blue font and underlined). Choose one format and be consistent. The links should remain live (hyperlinked) if the work will be read or published online.

Government & Legal Documents Tips

Author

Government Documents often have a group/corporate author listed instead of a specific person's name. The author may be the name of a department, commitee or agency.

When the government department, agency or committee that created the document is also the publisher, omit the publisher name to avoid repetition. The names of parent agencies, if applicable, may be used as the publisher.

Titles

Capitalize the first letter of the first word of the title. If there is a colon (:) in the title, also capitalize the first letter of the first word after the colon.

Capitalize the first letter of proper names in titles, such as names of places or people.

Place of Publication

Omit the publisher location in the reference unless they are works associated with specific locations (e.g. a conference presentation). For cities in the US and Canada list the city name and the province or state code. For other countries, list the city name and the country. Examples: Toronto, ON ; Tokyo, Japan

Electronic Government Documents

Many government documents are now published electronically as well as in print. Provide the publisher name and the url.

Website Tips

Author

It can sometimes be difficult to find out who the author of a website is. Remember that an author can be a corporation or group, not only a specific person. Author information can sometimes be found under an "About" section on a website.

If there is no known author, start the citation with the title of the website instead.

Date

The best date to use for a website is the date that the content was last updated. Otherwise look for a copyright or original publication date. Unfortunately this information may not be provided or may be hard to find. Often date information is put on the bottom of the pages of a website.

If you do not know the complete date, put as much information as you can find. For example you may have a year but no month or day.

If an original publication date and a last updated date are provided, use the last updated date. If the more current date is "last reviewed" instead of "last updated," use the original publication date (since the review may not have changed the content).

If there is no date provided, put the letters (n.d.) in round brackets where you'd normally put the date.

Title

Titles should be italicized when the document stands alone (e.g. books, reports, websites, etc.), but not when it is part of a greater whole (e.g. chapters, articles, webpages, etc.).

Website Name

Provide website names in title case without italics after titles of work. Include a period after the website name, followed by the URL. When the author of the work is the same as the website name, omit the site name from the reference.

Retrieval Date

If the content of a website is likely to change over time (e.g. Wikis), you must provide the date you last visited the website.

Long URLs

If a URL is too long to fit onto one line, try to break it at a slash (/).

Books, Journals, Reports, Webpages, etc.: When you refer to titles of a “stand-alone work,” as the APA calls them on their APA Style website, such as books, journals, reports, and webpages, you should italicize them. Capitalize words as you would for an article title in a reference, e.g., In the book Crying in H Mart: A memoir, author Michelle Zauner (2021) describes her biracial origin and its impact on her identity.

Article or Chapter: When you refer to the title of a part of a work, such as an article or a chapter, put quotation marks around the title and capitalize it as you would for a journal title in a reference, e.g., In the chapter “Where’s the Wine,” Zauner (2021) describes how she decided to become a musician.