APA (AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION) CITATION STYLE GUIDE

1. PERIODICALS

a. Journal article:

Bekerian, D. A. (1993). In search of the typical eyewitness.American Psychologist, 48,574-576.

Bekerian, D. A. (in press). In search of the typical eyewitness.American Psychologist, 48,574-576.

b. Magazine article:

Posner, M. I. (1993, October 29). Seeing the mind.Science, 262, 673-674.

-- Give the periodical title in full, in uppercase and lowercase letters.

-- Give the volume number of journals, magazines and newsletters. Do not use “Vol.” before the number.

-- Give the date shown after the year, month day.

-- If there is no volume number, include the month or season, for example (2001, August).

c. Newspaper article, no author:

New drug appears to sharply cut risk of death from heart failure. (1993, July 15).The WashingtonPost, p. A12.

-- Alphabetize works with no author by the first significant word in the title.

-- In text, use a short title for the parenthetical citation: (“New Drug,” 1993).

-- Precede page number(s) for newspaper articles with p. (single) or pp. (multiple)

d. Book review in a journal:

Baumeister, R. F. (1993). Exposing the self-knowledge myth [Review of the book The self-knower: A hero under control].Contemporary Psychology, 38, 466-467.

-- If the review is untitled, use the material in brackets as the title; retain the brackets to indicate that the material is a description of form and content, not a title.

-- Identify the type of medium being reviewed in brackets (book, motion picture, etc.).

2. BOOKS

a. By a single author:

Bandura, A. J. (1977).Social learning theory.EnglewoodCliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.   

-- Prentice Hall = Publisher

-- Only the first word of the title is capitalized.

b. By two or three authors:

Cone, J. D., & Foster, S. L. (1993).Dissertations and theses from start to finish: Psychology and related fields.Washington,DC: American Psychological Association.

-- If a book has more than six authors, follow the same rule for journals and abbreviate remaining authors as “et al.”

-- When a title is broken by a colon, capitalize the first letter of the following word.

c. Edited book:

Pereira, M. E., & Fairbanks, L. A. (Eds.). (1993).Juvenile primates: Life history, development, and behavior.New York:OxfordUniversityPress.

-- If only one editor, use (Ed.)

d. Book translated from original:

Laplace, P. S. (1951).A philosophical essay on probabilities (F. W. Truscott & F. L. Emory, Trans.).New York:Dover. (Original work published 1814).

-- For a book with the combination of one author and editor as well, list the editor in parentheses after the title, as a translator is treated (see following example)

e. No author given:

Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary(10th ed.). (1993).Springfield,MA: Merriam-Webster.

f. Edition other than first:

Mitchell, T. R., & Larson, J. R., Jr. (1987).People in organizations: An introduction to organizational behavior (3rd ed.).New York: McGraw-Hill.

g. Group or corporate author:

American Psychiatric Association. (1994).Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders(4th ed.).Washington,DC: Author.

-- When author and publisher are identical, use the word “author” as name of publisher.

h. Multi-volume edited work:

Koch, S. (Ed.). (1959-1963).Psychology: A study of science (Vols. 1-6).New York: McGraw-Hill.

i. Article or chapter in an edited book:

Bjork, R. A. (1989). Retrieval inhibition as an adaptive mechanism in human memory. In H. L. Roediger III & F. I. M. Craik (Eds.),Varieties of memory & consciousness(pp. 309-330).Hillsdale,NJ: Erlbaum.

-- The author at the beginning is the author of the chapter/article, not the book.

3. DISSERTATIONS AND THESES

a. Doctoral dissertation abstracted in DAI and obtained from UMI:

Bower, D. L. (1993). Employee assistant programs supervisory referrals: Characteristics of referring and nonreferring supervisors.Dissertation Abstracts International, 54(01), 534B. (UMI No. 9315947).

-- For a master’s thesis abstracted in Masters Abstracts International and obtained from UMI, use the format shown here.

-- Prior to Volume 24, the title ofMasters Abstracts International was Masters Abstracts, and prior to Volume 30, the title ofDissertation Abstracts International was Dissertation Abstracts.

b. Unpublished doctoral dissertation:

Wilfley, D. E. (1989). Interpersonal analyses of bulimia: Normal-weight and obese. Unpublished doctoral dissertation,UniversityofMissouri,Columbia.

-- For a master’s thesis abstracted inMasters Abstracts International and obtained from the university, use the format shown here.

4. CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

a. Unpublished paper presented at a meeting:

Lanktree, C., & Briere, J. (1991, January).Early data on the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSC-C). Paper presented at the meeting of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children,San Diego,CA.

b. Unpublished poster presented at a meeting:

Ruby, J., & Fulton, C. (1993, June).Beyond redlining: Editing software that works.Poster session presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Scholarly Publishing,Washington,DC.

5. REFERENCE WORKS AND TECHNICAL REPORTS

a. Encyclopedia article:

Bergmann, P.G. (1993).Relativity. In The new encyclopedia Britannica (Vol. 26, pp. 501-508).Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica.

-- If the entry has no byline, place the title in the author position.

b. Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) document:

Mead, J.V. (1992).Looking at old photographs: Investigating the teacher tales that novice teachers bring with them(Report No. NCRTL-RR-92-4).East Lansing,MI:NationalCenterfor Research on Teacher Learning. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 346 082)

c. Government document:

National Institute of Mental Health. (1990).Clinical training in serious mental illness(DHHS Publication No. ADM 90-1679).Washington,DC:U.S.Government Printing Office.

6. ELECTRONIC SOURCES

FORMAT FOR CITING ELECTRONIC SOURCES

The variety of materials available on the Web, and the variety of ways in which it is structured and presented, can present challenges for creating useable and useful references. Authors should observe the following two guidelines when citing Internet sources:

-- Direct readers as closely as possible to the information being cited – whenever possible, reference specific documents rather than home or menu pages.

-- Provide addresses that work.

 At the minimum, a reference of an Internet source should provide a document title or description, a date (either the date of publication or update or the date of retrieval), and an address (in Internet terms, a uniform resource locator, or URL). Whenever possible, identify the authors of a document as well.

Below are some examples of citations that you might use in writing your research paper:

a. Internet articles based on a print source:

VandenBos, G., Knapp, S., & Doe, J. (2001). Role of reference elements in the selection of resources by psychology undergraduates [Electronic version].Journal of Bibliographic Research, 5, 117-123.

-- If you have reason to believe that the online version differs from the text (e.g., the format differs or page numbers are not indicated) or that it includes additional data or commentaries, you will need to add the date you retrieved the document and the URL. For example:

VandenBos, G., Knapp, S., & Doe, J. (2001). Role of reference elements in the selection of resources by psychology undergraduates [Electronic version]. Journal of Bibliographic Research, 5, 117-123. Retrieved October 13, 2001, fromhttp://jbr.org/articles.html

b. Article in an Internet-only journal:  

Fredrickson, B. L. (2000, March 7). Cultivating positive emotions to optimize health and well-being.Prevention & Treatment, 3, Article 0001a. Retrieved November 20, 2000, from

http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume3/pre0030001a.html

c. Daily newspaper article, electronic version available by search:

Hilts, P. J. (1999, February 16). In forecasting their emotions, most people flunk out.New York Times. Retrieved November 21, 2000, fromhttp://nytimes.com.

d. Message posted to an electronic mailing list:

Hammond, T. (2000, November 20). YAHC: Handle Parameters, DOI Genres, etc. Message posted to RefLinks electronic mailing list, archived at http://www.doi.org/mail-archive/ref-link/msg00088.html.

-- Provide the name of the mailing list and the address for the archived version of the message.

e. Electronic copy of a journal article retrieved from database:

Borman, W. C., Hanson, M. A., Oppler, S. H., Pulakos, E. D., & White, L. A. (1993). Role of early supervisory experience in supervisor performance.Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 443-449. Retrieved October 23, 2000, from PsycINFO database.

-- If retrieving an abstract from a database, include “Abstract retrieved” after citation information.

f. Nonperiodical document on the Internet:

UniversityofCalifornia,San Francisco, Institute for Health and Aging. (1996, November).Chronic care inAmerica: A 21st century challenge. Retrieved September 9, 2000, from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Web site:http://www.rwjf.org/library/chrcare/.

g. Email:

Since the APA Publication Manual considers email personal correspondence rather than "recoverable data," it suggests that while messages can be cited within the text of the paper, they should not be included in the list of references. To cite within the text, include the author's first initials and last name as well as an exact date:

  

Some suggest that analysis of child maltreatment inPennsylvaniashould be carried out on disaggregated data (R.W. Wilson, personal communication, March 24, 1999).

PARENTHETICAL TEXT REFERENCES

Citations within the text of the paper follow detailed documentation of the research studies used to write the paper. These text references use author and date to briefly identify the study and to point readers to the more detailed information in the list of References at the end of the paper. Listed below are some common examples of reference citations within the text of the paper. As you can see from these examples, any information that is mentioned in the text does not need to be repeated within the parentheses.

a. One work by one author:

-- The author and date can be mentioned either with or without the parentheses:

AsBandura (1977) noted, human behavior can be seen as an ongoing interaction between an individual and her environment.

In1977, Bandura noted that human behavior can be seen as on ongoing interaction between an individual and her environment.

Human behavior can be seen as an ongoing interaction between an individual and her environment(Bandura, 1977).

b. One work by multiple authors:

When a work hastwo authors, always cite both authorswhenever the reference appears in the text of your paper.

-- If the citation occurs at thebeginning or within a sentence, spell out“and” (i.e., Bandura and Smith, 1977). If the citation is enclosed by parentheses at the end of the sentence use an ampersand(i.e., Bandura & Smith, 1977).

-- When a work hasthree, four or five authors,cite all authors the first time the reference appears followed by the year in parentheses. In subsequent appearances,cite the first author followed by "et al.," and the year in parentheses if it is the first subsequent mention in the paragraph. If there is more than one subsequent mention within a paragraph, then omit the year from the citation and include only the first author's last name followed by "et al."

-- When a work has six or more authors, cite only the last name of the first author followed by "et al.," and the year in parentheses for all citations that appear in the paper.

c. Corporate author:

The American Psychiatric Association defines Conduct Disorder as a persistent pattern of

behavior in which the basic rights of others are violated (1994). Conduct Disorder is defined as a persistent pattern of behavior in which the basic rights of others are violated (American Psychiatric Association, 1994).

-- The first text citation should write out the entire name of the organization, but subsequent text citations may use accepted abbreviations (i.e., Amer. Psych. Assoc.).

d. Direct Quotations:

-- Include the page number after the author and year:

The inner world of children suffering from abuse has been described as one in which "organized images and thoughts can be punctured without warning by fragmented pictures, flashes, sounds and feelings"(Heineman, 1998, p. 144)

e. Multiple works within the same citation:

-- If the works are by the same author, cite the author's or authors' last name followed by the years:

Past research(Edeline and Weinberger, 1991, 1993) tells us that…

-- If the works are by different authors, list them within the parentheses in alphabetical order, and separate the citations by a semicolon:

Several studies(Balda, 1980; Kamil, 1988; Pepperberg and Funk, 1990) have explored the relationship…

FOOTNOTES

Footnotes are used on occasion to supplement an idea from the text of the paper. These notes should be brief and should convey just one idea that enhances a point from the main content of the paper. When this additional information is necessary, place a number at that point in the text (slightly above the line) and place the information, correspondingly numbered, on a separate page at the end of the paper after the page of References. Double-space all content footnotes, and indent the first line, just like the first line of a paragraph. An example is listed below.

Text:

 This shows that the problem for research areas in which different measurement instruments and different cutoff points are employed is simply that the various studies address different questions. This is important to recognize because it rules out solutions that are based on research designs, data analysis, or statistical methods.¹

Note:

¹This is a much-debated and contentious issue in modern measurement theory. A proper treatment of this claim is well beyond the scope of this chapter. The claim, however, should not be taken lightly, since at its root are arguments that undermine the logical coherence of construct validity and axiomatic measurement theory. Interested readers can find a comprehensive treatment of the relevant issues inJackson(1996).