APA Style Guide
Developed by the American Psychological Association and used most often
in the social sciences, the APA style is a set of guidelines for writing
research papers that meet a certain set of scholarly standards. For a
detailed description of these standards, see
The Publication Manual
of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.) available at
the Reference Desk and on the shelves at
REF BF 76.7.P83 2010. Below is
a list of APA-style cited sources taken from that work.
Please Note: We've updated this page to reflect the most recent APA guidlines in
The Publication Manual
of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition. For highlights on the new guidlines see What's New in APA Style by Bedford/St.Martin's.
APA requires that you create your list of references on its own page after the last page of your text. Center the title, References, one inch from the top of the page. Double space. Alphabetize the list of references by the last name of the authors and double space (unless your professor requires otherwise). If the work has no author or editor, alphabetize the work by the first word of the title (excluding A, An, or The). Capitalize only the first letter of each sentence.
Whenever you incorporate other authors' text and ideas in your paper, you must indicate where in the text you refer to them. If you have a citation in the References page, you must have a corresponding parenthetical reference in the text of your paper. Links to APA tutorials and guides from other colleges and universities can be found at the bottom of this page.
Book, one author
Beck, C.A.J. (2001). Family mediation: Facts, myths, and future prospects. Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association. Book, multiple authors
Groom, A., Campbell, R.T., & Gould, W. (1999). Psychology and you: a bright world and a
bright future. New York: John Wiley.
Article in a Newspaper
Kustanovich, A. (2009, September 23). Taming a wild goose. The Louisville Times , p. A14.
Online
Watson, P. (2008, October 19). Biofuel boom endangers orangutan habitat.
Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://www.latimes.com.Article in a Scholarly Journal
Mellers, B.A. (2000). Choice and the pleasure of consequences
Psychological Bulletin, 126 , 7-9. Online
Note: Online articles and books sometimes include a DOI (digital object identifier).
APA uses the DOI, when available, in place of a URL in reference list entries.
Whitmeyer, J. M. (2000). Power through appointment. Social Science Research, 29, 535-555.
doi:10.1006/ssre.2000.0680Article in a Magazine
Smith, J.P., & Wasserman M. (2009, November). Neurozoology: Creating a futuristic monkey.
Online
Chen, B.X.(2010, March. Indie Coder Proves Android Apps Can Make Money, Too.
WIRED. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com.DVD
Lam, M.W. (Producer), & Ali, A. (Director). (2004). Why are we here? [DVD].
United States: Whitespace Pictures. Article in an Encyclopedia
Bergmann, P. G. (1993). Relativity. In The new encyclopedia Britannica (Vol. 9, pp. 1031-1032).
Chicago:Encyclopedia Britannica. Online
Feminism. (n.d.) In Encyclopædia Britannica online. Retrieved from http:// www.britannica.com.
Article from a Library Database
Note: Online articles and books sometimes include a DOI (digital object identifier).
APA uses the DOI, when available, in place of a URL in reference list entries.
If thre's no DOI, include the URL for the homepage of the journal.
Eid, M., & Langeheine, R. (1999). The measurement of consistency and occasion specificity with
latent class models. Psychological Methods, 4, 100-116. Retrieved
from
http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/met/index.aspx.Website
Entire Website
Note: When citing an entire website, it is sufficient to give the address of the site in just the text (http://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/cite-website.aspx)
Kidspsych is a wonderful interactive website for children (http://www.kidspsych.org).
Webpage that Lists No Author
Note: When there is no author for a web page, the title moves to the first position of the reference entry(http://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/web-page-no-author.aspx)
New child vaccine gets funding boost. (2001). Retrieved from
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/health/story_13178.asp.Webpage that Lists No Author, No Year, and No Page Numbers
Note: When a DOI is not available, and a URL is included, do not include retrieval dates unless the source material may change over time (e.g., wikis)
(http://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/cite-website-material.aspx)
Heuristic. (n.d.). In Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary (11th ed.). Retrieved from
http://www.m-
w.com/dictionary/heuristic