Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association by APA Style uses the author-date method of citing references within the text. With this method, each item used in a paper has two parts: a citation in the text and an entry in the list of references. The in-text citation should include the author's last name and the year of publication such as (Murray, 2012).
In-text citations only require an author name and a date if you are referring to an idea but not directly quoting the material, or referencing an entire book, article, or other work. These more general references do not require a page number or other specific part of a source.
When you are quoting directly or borrowing from a specific portion of a work, you should maintain that specificity. The page number should, therefore, be included at the end of the parenthetical citation. In APA style, the abbreviation "p." or "pp." is included before listing the page numbers and a dash is used for page ranges. For example: (Murray, 2012, p. 124) or (Murray, 2012, pp. 121-127).
There are two forms of in-text citations: parenthetical and narrative. The author name and date appear in parentheses in parenthetical citations and narrative citations include some of this information in the text as part of the narrative. Parenthetical citations often appear at the end of a sentence, in which case, the ending punctuation for the sentence should come after the parenthesis. For narrative citations, the author name appears in the text with the year in parenthesis directly after the author's name. In some cases, both the year and the author's name can be worked into the narrative, which means neither appear in parentheses.
Narrative citation: Murray (2012)
Parenthetical citation: (Murray, 2012)
Both authors should be named in the narrative or the parentheses each time the work is cited. Use the word "and" for a narrative citation and the ampersand for a parenthetical citation.
Narrative citation: Cargill and Burgess (2018)
Parenthetical citation: (Cargill & Burgess, 2018)
Narrative citation: Markovac et al. (2018)
Parenthetical citation: (Markovac et al., 2018)
If you’re citing multiple works with similar groups of authors, and the shortened “et al” citation form of each source would be the same, avoid ambiguity by including more names. For example, if you cited works with these authors:
Jensen, Ritz, Ejlerskov, Molgaard, and Michaelsen (2015)
Jensen, Ritz, Hansen, Gerhard, and Streibig (2015)
Both of these would shorten to Jensen, et al. (2015). To differentiate these entries, cite them in the text in the following manner:
(Jensen, Ritz, Ejlerskov, et al., 2015)
(Jensen, Ritz, Hansen, et al., 2015)
The abbreviation "et al." means "and other", which makes it plural. Therefore, it cannot replace a single name. If only the final author is different, spell out all names in every in-text citation.
Fransen, Nackerud, and Soria (2013)
Fransen, Nackerud, Peterson, and Mastel (2013)
If the work does not have an author, cite the source by its title. Titles of books and reports are italicized; titles of articles, chapters, and web pages are in quotation marks. APA style calls for capitalizing important words in titles when they are written in the text (but not when they are written in reference lists).
Very rarely, the term "Anonymous" is used for the author of a work. In that instance, treat it as the author's name. (Anonymous, 2020). It should also be listed as the author in the reference list.
If the work you are referencing has a group or organization as an author, cite it as you would an individual. You may also choose to use the abbreviation for a group if it is a well-known abbreviation. The first time you mention that group in the text, you must spell out the name of the group and include the abbreviation in brackets. Once it has been introduced, you may use the abbreviation in subsequent citations. Be careful of different groups with the same abbreviations. Using those abbreviations could be confusing and spelling them out each time is clearer.
First citation: (United States Department of Agriculture [USDA], 2020)
Subsequent citations: (USDA, 2020)
If no date is given on the resource, use the abbreviation "n.d." in the citation.
The information in this guide is adapted from the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2019).
If a reference does not have a recoverable source, it cannot be included in the reference list. These include personal emails or classroom lectures and should be cited only in the text as personal communications. This is mentioned in the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association in Section 8.9 and Section 9.37.
Your reference list should be in alphabetical order of the last name of the first author followed by the initials of the author's first name or names. If there is no author, list the reference by the first word of the title, not including articles such as "a", "an", and "the". If the first word of the title is a number, alphabetize it as if it were spelled out.
James, M. X., Miller, G. J., & Wyckoff, T. W. (2019). Comprehending the cultural causes of English writing plagiarism in Chinese students at a western-style university. Journal of Business Ethics, 154(3), 631-642. https://doi-org/10.1007/s10551-017-3441-6
Van Hees, V., Moyson, T., & Roeyers, H. (2015). Higher education experiences of students with autism spectrum disorder: Challenges, benefits, and support needs. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 45(6), 1673-1688. http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-7027122
Do not include the database name or URL as these are generally library-specific and require a login or they are sessions specific, meaning they will not be accessible to most readers. For these reasons, the library database or URL is not suitable for inclusion in a reference list.
Walton, C. (2019). Spies,election meddling, and disinformation: Past and present. Brown Journal of World Affairs, 26(1), 107–124.
Kirby, J. (2020, May). Into the economic abyss. Maclean's, 133(4), 46-49.
Warzel, C. (2020, April 5). The coronavirus misinformation war. New York Times, 169(58654), 4.
Ashton, J. (2020, June 2). What history can tell us about infectious diseases. OUPblog. https://blog.oup.com/2020/06/what-history-can-tell-us-about-infectious-diseases/
Seemiller, C., & Grace, M. (2019). Generation Z: A century in the making. Routledge.
Lloyd-Morgan, C., & Poppe, E. (Ed.), (2019). Arthur in the Celtic languages: The Arthurian legend in Celtic literatures and traditions. University of Wales Press.
Kaegi, W. (2019).Confronting Islam: Emperors versus caliphs (641-c. 850). In J. Shepard (Ed.), The Cambridge history of the Byzantine Empire (2nd ed., pp. 365-394). Cambridge University Press.
United States Natural Resources Conservation Service. (2011). Conservation of wetlands in agricultural landscapes in the United States: Summary of the CEAP-Wetlands literature synthesis. https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/50183/PDF
Shaw, E. L. (1918). Milk goats. (Farmers' Bulletin 920). United States Department of Agriculture. https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/5420625/PDF
Burton, V., Jr. (1991). Explaining adult criminality: Testing strain, differential association, and control theories [Unpublished doctoral dissertation], University of Cincinnati.
Burgess, E. S. (2008). Stakeholder perceptions of strategic planning in higher education: A comparative case study of two institutions (Publication No. 3340073) [Doctoral dissertation, University of North Dakota]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.
Williams, M. A. (2009). Land cover characteristics in the Karst region of southeastern Minnesota [Doctoral dissertation, University of Minnesota]. University Digital Conservancy. http://hdl.handle.net/11299/59059
Fogarty, M. [Grammar Girl]. (2020, January 23). Grammar Girl #755. How to write anything [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGOekZTdQ4g
The person or group who uploaded the video is considered the author even if they did not create the work.
Stroud, K.. (Host). (2013, October 18). The oldest English (No. 32) [Audio podcast episode]. In The history of English. https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/2013/10/18/episode-32-the-oldest-english/
Needham, J. (2020, June 4). Austria's tiny village with 10,000 day-trippers. BBC. http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200603-hallstatt-austrias-tiny-village-with-10000-day-trippers
American Dairy Goat Association. (2020, May 18). AGDA breed standards. http://adga.org/breed-standards/
The information in this guide is adapted from the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2019).
Please give attribution to the University of Minnesota Crookston
