The information provided is from the APA Manual, 7th ed. Section 9.4 and Figure 9.1
There are four elements involved in a reference:
Basic Format:
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date). Title of the work. Source where you can retrieve the work. URL or DOI if available
The information provided is from the APA Manual, 7th ed. Sections 9.8, 9.12
Authors are listed by surname and initial(s). Use only the initial(s) of the author’s given name(s), not the full name, even when the full name is given.
Author, A. A.
If there are two authors, use commas and the ampersand (&) to separate them.
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B.
For 20 authors, provide surnames and initials for each of them, use an ampersand (&) before the last author.
Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C.
If a reference has 21 or more authors, list the first 19 followed by ellipses and the final name listed.
Author, A. A., Author, B. B., Author, C. C., Author, D. D., Author, E. E., Author, F. F., Author, G. G., Author, H. H., Author, I. I., Author, J. J., Author, K. K., Author, L. L., Author, M. M., Author, N. N., Author, O. O., Author, P. P., Author, Q. Q., Author, R. R., Author, S. S., . . . Author, Z. Z. (Date) Title of the work. Source where you can retrieve the work. URL or DOI if available.
If there is a group author, such as a corporation, government entity, institution or organization, etc, treat the publishing organization as the author name and format the rest of the citation as normal. This example follows the structure of an institutional report accessed from a website.
Name of Organization. (2019). Title of publication. URL
If there is no known author, move the title of the work to the author position, before the date of publication.
Generalized anxiety disorder. (2019).
For more information regarding the reference element, author, please refer to the APA Manual, 7th ed. Sections 9.7 - 9.12.
The information provided is from the APA Manual, 7th ed. Section 9.13 - 9.14 & 9.17
Give the year that the work was published. It may take one of the following forms:
Format Examples:
If no date is available, write n.d. in parentheses, followed by a period.
Garcia, R. (n.d.).
For more information regarding the reference element, date, please refer to the APA Manual, 7th ed. Sections 9.13 - 9.17.
The information provided is from APA Manual, 7th ed. Section 9.19
For works that are part of a larger product (e.g., article within a journal), capitalize the title using sentence case, located in section 6.17. Do not italicize the title or use quotation marks around it.
The virtue gap in humor: Exploring benevolent and corrective humor.
For stand-alone works (e.g. books, reports), italicize the title, and capitalize it using sentence case, located in section 6.17.
Adoption-specific therapy: A guide to helping adopted children and their families thrive.
For book and report references, enclose in parentheses after the title any additional information given in the publication for its identification and retrieval (e.g., edition, report number, volume number). Do not add a period between the title and the parenthetical information, and do not italicize the parenthetical information. If both edition and volume information are included, separate with a comma placing edition first.
Nursing: A concept-based approach to learning (2nd ed., Vol. 1).
For more information regarding the reference element, title, please refer to the APA Manual, 7th ed. Sections 9.18 - 9.22.
The information provided is from the APA Manual, 7th ed. Sections 9.23 & 9.24 and the APA Style website
Sources fall under two broad categories: works that are part of a greater whole and works that stand alone.
Format of the Source:
| Reference Type | Components of the source | Example source element |
|---|---|---|
| Journal article | Periodical title, volume, issue, page range, and DOI or URL | Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice, 8(3), 137-151. https://doi.org/10.1037/cfp0000121 |
| Journal article with article number | Periodical title, volume, issue, article number, and DOI or URL | PLoS ONE, 14(9), Article e0222224. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222224 |
| Authored book or whole edited book | Publisher name and DOI or URL | Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25513-8 |
| Edited book chapter | Information about the whole book (including editor name, book title, edition and/or volume number, page range, and publisher name) and DOI or URL |
In G. R. Samanez-Larkin (Ed.), The aging brain: Functional adaptation across adulthood (pp. 9-43). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000143-002 |
| Webpage on a website (when authors are different from the site name) | Website name and URL | Mayo Clinic. https://www.maoclinic.org/drugs-supplements-acidophilus/art-20361967 |
| Webpage on a website (when authors are the same as the site name) | URL | https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/kinds.htm |
For more information regarding the reference element, source, please refer to the APA Manual, 7th ed. Sections 9.23 - 9.37
The information provided is found in the APA Manual, 7th ed. Section 9.34
This section addresses when to include digital object identifiers (DOIs) and uniform resource locators (URLs) in APA Style references. Also, check out the related topic of when to include database information in references (see Section 9.30).
The DOI or URL is the final component of a reference list entry. Because so much scholarship is available and/or retrieved online, most reference list entries end with either a DOI or a URL.
Example:
https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2018.1560449
For more information regarding DOIs and locating a DOI on a source, please refer to the APA Manual, 7th ed. Sections 9.34 - 9.36.