Listed here are standard formats and examples for basic bibliographic information recommended by the American Psychological Association (APA). For more information on the APA format, see http://www.apastyle.org.
Your set of works cited should begin at the conclusion of the paper on a new page with the centered title, References. Alphabetize the entries in your list because of the author’s last name, making use of the letter-by-letter system (ignore spaces and other punctuation.) Just the initials associated with first and names that are middle given. An, or The if the author’s name is unknown, alphabetize by the title, ignoring any A.
For dates, spell out of the names of months into the text of the paper, but abbreviate them into the range of works cited, except for May, June, and July. Use either the style that is day-month-year22 July 1999) or the month-day-year style (July 22, 1999) and stay consistent. Aided by the style that is month-day-year make sure to add a comma after the year unless another punctuation mark goes there.
Underlining or Italics?
When reports were written on typewriters, the true names of publications were underlined because most typewriters had not a way to print italics. In the event that you write a bibliography by hand, you should still underline the names of publications. But, then publication names should be in italics as they are below if you use a computer. Always check with your instructor regarding their preference of utilizing italics or underlining. Our examples use italics.
Hanging Indentation
All APA citations should use hanging indents, that is, the very first line of an entry should be left that is flush and the second and subsequent lines should always be indented 1/2″.
Capitalization, Abbreviation, and Punctuation
The APA guidelines specify using capitalization that is sentence-style the titles of books or articles, therefore you should capitalize only the first word of a title and subtitle. The exceptions to the rule would be periodical titles and proper names in a title that ought to still be capitalized. The title that is periodical run in title case, and it is is eliteessaywriters.com safe accompanied by the quantity number which, with all the title, can also be italicized.
If there is more than one author, use an ampersand (&) ahead of the name of the author that is last. If there are more than six authors, list just the first one and use et al. for the rest.
Place the date of publication in parentheses soon after the true name regarding the author. Place a period after the closing parenthesis. Usually do not italicize, underline, or put quotes around the titles of shorter works within longer works.
Format Examples
Allen, T. (1974). Vanishing wildlife of The United States. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society.
Boorstin, D. (1992). The creators: a history of the heroes of the imagination. New York: Random House.
Nicol, A. M., & Pexman, P. M. (1999). Presenting your findings: A practical guide for creating tables. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Searles, B., & Last, M. (1979). A reader’s guide to science fiction. New York: Facts on File, Inc.
Toomer, J. (1988). Cane. Ed. Darwin T. Turner. New York: Norton.
Encyclopedia & Dictionary
Bergmann, P. G. (1993). Relativity. In The new encyclopedia britannica (Vol. 26, pp. 501-508). Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica.
Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary (10th ed.). (1993). Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster.
Pettingill, O. S., Jr. (1980). Falcon and Falconry. World book encyclopedia. (pp. 150-155). Chicago: World Book.
Tobias, R. (1991). Thurber, James. Encyclopedia americana. (p. 600). New York: Scholastic Library Publishing.
Magazine & Newspaper Articles
Format: Author’s last name, first initial. (Publication date). Article title. Periodical title, volume number(issue number if available), inclusive pages.
Note: Do not enclose the title in quotation marks. Put a period after the title. If a periodical includes a volume number, italicize it and then provide the page range (in regular type) without “pp.” If the periodical does not use volume numbers, like in newspapers, use p. or pp. for page numbers. Note: Unlike other periodicals, p. or pp. precedes page numbers for a newspaper reference in APA style.
Harlow, H. F. (1983). Fundamentals for preparing psychology journal articles. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 55, 893-896.
Henry, W. A., III. (1990, April 9). Making the grade in the present schools. Time, 135, 28-31.
Kalette, D. (1986, 21) july. California town counts town to big quake. USA Today, 9, p. A1.
Kanfer, S. (1986, 21) july. Heard any good books lately? Time, 113, 71-72.
Trillin, C. (1993, 15) february. Culture shopping. New Yorker, pp. 48-51.
Website or Webpage
Online document: Author’s name. (Date of publication). Title of work. Retrieved day, year, from full URL month
Note: When citing Internet sources, make reference to the specific document that is website. If a document is undated, use “n.d.” (for no date) soon after the document title. Break a URL that is lengthy goes to another line after a slash or before a period of time. Continually look at your references to online documents. There isn’t any period following a URL. Note: If you cannot find several of this information, cite what is available.
Devitt, T. (2001, 2) august. Lightning injures four at music festival. The Why? Files. Retrieved January 23, 2002, from http://whyfiles.org/137lightning/index.html
Dove, R. (1998). Lady freedom in our midst. The Electronic Text Center. Retrieved June 19, 1998, from Alderman Library, University of Virginia website: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/subjects/afam.html
Note: If a document is contained within a big and complex website (such as for example that for a university or a government agency), identify the host organization plus the relevant program or department before giving the URL for the document itself. Precede the URL with a colon.
