Citation Guide

(According to APA Manual 7th edition- See for more examples: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples )

In-text Citations

Capitalization of the titles

All journal titles, publishers, and web names should be in title case capitalization. See https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/title-case

All article/book/thesis/web source titles should be in sentence case. Edit all. See https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/sentence-case

Referencing an idea

The leading medical cause of Aboriginal mortality is due to circulatory system disease. Other important causes of death include diseases of the respiratory system and injury or poisoning (Anderson, 1999; Saggers & Gray, 1999; Thomson, 1995).

(order authors alphabetically in parentheses)

or

Anderson (1999), Thomson (1995), and Saggers and Gray (1999) all state that the leading cause of Aboriginal mortality is due to circulatory system disease, and that other important causes of death include diseases of the respiratory system and injury or poisoning.

Repeating citations at the same paragraph

If you’re citing the same author/source repeatedly throughout one paragraph, inserting multiple citations is technically correct but lacks flow and readability. Using the author's name in your writing can make the paragraph flow better and prevent you from having to repeat the citation subsequent sentences. (Also see p. 174 in the APA manual.) For example,

Smith (2015) notes that dogs are man’s best friend. In a randomized controlled trial conducted by Smith, dogs preferred their owners to all other people. The results of his study have implications for dog behavior. However, his study also had a small sample size, so more research into this area is necessary.

Long URLs in the reference list

Shorten all long URLs in the reference list by a web app.

Usage of "et al." for citations

The in-text citation for works with three or more authors is shortened right from the first citation. You only include the first author’s name and “et al.” https://www.scribbr.com/apa-style/apa-seventh-edition-changes/

Usage of the abbreviation

Please provide long titles at your first usage of the abbreviations. For proper use of abbreviations, see https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/abbreviations/

Author abbreviations in the reference list

Provide just long titles instead of author abbreviations in the reference list. For proper use of abbreviations, see https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/abbreviations/

Multiple works' citations with three or more authors shorten to the same form

To avoid ambiguity, when the in-text citations of multiple works with three or more authors shorten to the same form, write out as many names as needed to distinguish the references, and abbreviate the rest of the names to “et al.” in every citation. When only the final author is different, spell out all names in every citation. (see https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/basic-principles/same-year-first-author)

Referencing a quotation

Indeed, one researcher commented that “technological innovations have saved or extended the lives of many patients” (Lumby, 2001, p. 44). [Note: Specify page numbers only for direct quotations]

If the quotation is over 40 words, you must indent the entire quotation and start the quotation on a new line. No quotation marks are required. Cite the quoted source after the final punctuation mark.

Alberta is occasionally divided into two regions, Northern Alberta and Southern Alberta. The majority of Alberta's population is located in large urban cities, mostly located in the South. Alberta is Canada's most populous province of all three Canadian Prairie provinces. Edmonton is the Capital of Alberta. (Hern, 1996, p. 22)

Citing a source within a source

Where your source quotes or refers to another source, for example Unsworth refers to previous work by Halliday on linguistics, the citation might read thus:

(Halliday, as cited in Unsworth, 2004, p. 15)

Only Unsworth will appear in the reference list at the end of your manuscript.

Reference List

Your reference list should be ordered alphabetically by author and then chronologically by year of publication.

Book

De Vaus, D. A. (2014). Surveys in social research. Allen & Unwin.

Book chapter

McKenzie, H., Boughton, M., Hayes, L., & Forsyth, S. (2008). Explaining the complexities and value of nursing practice and knowledge. In I. Morley & M. Crouch (Eds.), Knowledge as value: Illumination through critical prisms (pp. 209-224). Rodopi.

Note: The publisher location is no longer included in the reference of the book and the book chapter.

Journal article

Bartoszeck, A. B., & Bartoszeck, F. K. (2017). Brazilian primary and secondary school pupils´ perception of science and scientists. European Journal of Educational Research, 6(1), 29-40. https://doi.org/10.12973/eu-jer.6.1.29

If you have the DOI for the journal article, you should include this as a link it in the reference. If the article without a DOI, provide the nondatabase URL of the article. (To find the DOI easily see: http://doi.crossref.org/simpleTextQuery)

Note: DOIs are formatted the same as URLs. The label “DOI:” is no longer necessary. 

Note: If there is no page numbers on the journal's website, provide article number as “Article …”

Journal article advance online publication (In press / Online first)

Min, M. H., & Chon, Y. V. (2020). Teacher motivational strategies for EFL learners: For better or worse. RELC Journal. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688219900812

Thesis/dissertation

Unpublished

Considine, M. (1986). Australian insurance politics in the 1970s: Two case studies [Unpublished doctoral dissertation/ Unpublished master's thesis]. University of Melbourne.

From a database

Hollander, M. M. (2017). Resistance to authority: Methodological innovations and new lessons from the Milgram experiment (Publication No. 10289373) [Doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin–Madison]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.

Web/online

Hutcheson, V. H. (2012). Dealing with dual differences: Social coping strategies of gifted and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer adolescents [Master’s thesis, The College of William & Mary]. William & Mary Digital Archive. https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/bitstream/handle/10288/16594/HutchesonVirginia2012.pdf

Webpage with an author

Welch, N. (2000, February 21). Toward an understanding of the determinants of rural health. Rural Health. http://www.ruralhealth.org.au/welch.htm

Note: URLs are no longer preceded by “Retrieved from” unless a retrieval date is needed. The website name is included (unless it’s the same as the author), and web page titles are italicized.

Conference Proceedings

Published online:

Blakey, N., Guinea, S., & Saghafi, F. (2017). Transforming undergraduate nursing curriculum by aligning models of clinical reasoning through simulation. In R. Walker, & S. Bedford (Eds.), HERDSA 2017 Conference: Research and Development in Higher Education: Curriculum Transformation  (pp. 25-37). Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia. Herdsa. http://www.herdsa.org.au/research-and-development-higher-education-vol-40-25

   Published in book:

Armstrong, D. B., Fogarty, G. J., & Dingsdag, D. (2007). Scales measuring characteristics of small business information systems. In W-G. Tan (Ed.), Proceedings of Research, Relevance and Rigour: Coming of age: 18th Australasian Conference on Information Systems (pp. 163-171). University of Southern Queensland.

   Paper presentation:

Green, D. B. & DeSilva, A. (2015, June 10-12). The toxicity levels of household chemicals [Paper presentation]. National Symposium on Air Pollution, University of Southern California, CA, United States.

Newspaper article

Bagnall, D. (1998, January 27-28). Private schools: Why they are out in front. The Bulletin, pp. 12-15.

Government publication

The Health Targets and Implementation (Health for All) Committee. (1988). Health for all Australians.  Government Publishing Service.

Legal reference (act, law et al.)

To cite federal laws (also commonly referred to as statutes or acts) in APA Style, include the name of the law, “U.S.C.” (short for United States Code), the title and section of the code where the law appears, the year, and optionally the URL. The year included is when the law was published in the source consulted, not when it was passed, amended, or supplemented. Format : Name of Law, Title number U.S.C. § Section number (Year). URL

Anti-Smuggling Act, 19 U.S.C. § 1701 (1935). https://www.loc.gov/item/uscode1958-004019005/      

In-text citation:  Anti-Smuggling Act, 1935)

Company and Industry Reports

Magner, L. (2016). IBISWorld Industry Report OD5381. Coffee Shops in Australia. Retrieved from IBISWorld database.

To cite a dictionary definition

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Citation. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved November 28, 2019 from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/citation

In order to distinguish between works by the same author with the same publication date, use the suffixes a, b, c, etc. after the year. The first resource would be (1995a), the second resource would be (1995b), etc. This format must also be used in the corresponding reference in the references list.

Cheever, J. (1995a). The enormous radio. In R. V. Cassill (Ed.), The Norton anthology of short fiction (5th ed., pp. 182–191). Norton. (Original work published 1947)

Cheever, J. (1995b). The five-forty-eight. In R. V. Cassill (Ed.), The Norton anthology of short fiction (5th ed., pp. 191–202). Norton. (Original work published 1954)

Arrange works by the same author by year of publication with the earliest year first.

Paraphrasing: 

The lecturer's understanding of teaching has an effect on the quality of student learning (Ramsden, 1992, 1994). …

Reference list entry:

Ramsden, P. (1992). Learning to teach in higher education. Routledge.

Ramsden, P. (1994). Using research on student learning to enhance educational quality. Griffith Institute for Higher Education.

Proper use of et al. in APA style

Author type

Parenthetical citation

Narrative citation

One author

(Savas, 2020)

Savas (2020)

Two authors

(Miller & Romine, 2020)

Miller and Romine (2020)

Three or more authors

(Sasson et al., 2020)

Sasson et al. (2020)

Group author with abbreviation- First citation

(American Psychological Association [APA], 2020) American Psychological Association (APA, 2020)

Note: The in-text citation for works with three or more authors is now shortened right from the first citation. You only include the first author’s name and “et al.”.

Surnames and initials for up to 20 authors (instead of 7) should be provided in the reference list.

Miller, T. C., Brown, M. J., Wilson, G. L., Evans, B. B., Kelly, R. S., Turner, S. T., Lewis, F., Lee, L. H., Cox, G., Harris, H. L., Martin, P., Gonzalez, W. L., Hughes, W., Carter, D., Campbell, C., Baker, A. B., Flores, T., Gray, W. E., Green, G., … Nelson, T. P. (2018).

YouTube video or other streaming video

Cutts, S. (2017, November 24). Happiness [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/244405542

Citing translated sources in APA style

If a source is in another language, write the original title then add its English translation in square brackets as the below example:

Grangeat, M. (2011) (Ed.). Les demarches d’investigation dans l’enseignement scientifique pratiques de classe, travail collectif enseignant, acquisitions des eleves. Ecole Normale Supérieure.

should be written as,

Grangeat, M. (2011) (Ed.). Les démarches d’investigation dans l’enseignement scientifique pratiques de classe, travail collectif enseignant, acquisitions des élèves [Investigative approaches in science teaching class practices, collective teacher work, student acquisitions]. Ecole Normale Supérieure.

Here is an example of an article in a journal.

Bussieres, E.-L., St-Germain, A., Dube, M., & Richard, M.-C. (2017). Efficacite et efficience des programmes de transition a la vie adulte: Une revue systematique [Effectiveness and efficiency of adult transition programs: A systematic review]. Canadian Psychology/ Psychologie canadienne, 58(1), 354–365. https://doi.org/10.1037/cap0000104

Note for this example that Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne is a bilingual journal that is published with a bilingual title; if the journal title were only in French it would not be necessary to translate it in the reference.

If the other language uses a different alphabet from the one you are writing in, transliterate the alphabet into the Roman alphabet. If transliteration is not possible or advisable, it is acceptable to reproduce the original alphabet in the paper.

E.g.,

Amano, N., & Kondo, H. (2000). Nihongo no goi tokusei [Lexical characteristics of Japanese language] (Vol. 7). Sansei-do.

Here’s another example, from a German journal. Again, brackets contain an English translation of the work’s title (the article, not the journal).

Janzen, G., & Hawlik, M. (2005). Orientierung im raum: Befunde zu entscheidungspunkten [Orientation in space: Findings about decision points]. Journal of Psychology/ Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 213(4), 179–186. https://doi.org/10.1026/0044-3409.213.4.179

Here’s how you would cite the original French edition of a work by Piaget (note that an English translation of the title is included in brackets):

Piaget, J. (1966). La psychologie de l’enfant [The psychology of the child]. Presses Universitaires de France. 

If you read an English translation of a foreign work, by including translator:

Piaget, J. (1969). The psychology of the child (H. Weaver, Trans.).  Basic Books. (Original work published 1900)

  • In-text citation: (Piaget, 1900/1969)