APA style

Formatting Your Reference List:

The Basics:
- APA requires a hanging indent for its citations
- Documented only sources used in research and preparation
- Alphabetize the works
Pay Specific Attention To:
- Consistency in how you apply APA
- When referring to any work that is NOT a journal, capitalize on the first letter of the first word of a title and
subtitle, the first word after a colon or a dash in the title, and proper nouns. However, capitalize all major
words in journal titles.
- Punctuation (period, comma, semi-colon)
- Location and publisher for books
- Volume, issue and page numbers for articles
- Complete and correct information
- Spelling
The American Psychological Association reference style is one of the Author-Date reference styles. When
quoting directly or indirectly from a source, the source must be acknowledged in the text by author name, year
of publication and location reference. If quoting directly, a location reference such as page numbers and
paragraph numbers is also required.

In- text citation

Short quotations – directly quoting from a work.

According to Jones (1998), “Students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first
time” (p.199). Jones (1998) found ‘students often had difficulty using APA style” (p.199); what implications
does this have for teachers?

She stated, “Students often had difficulty using APA style,” but she did not offer an explanation as to why
(Jones, 1998, p.199).

Long quotations - direct

Jones’s (998) study found the following:

Students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time citing sources. This
difficulty could be attributed to the fact that many students failed to purchase a style manual or to ask their
teacher for help. (p.199)

Summary or Paraphrase:

According to Jones (1998), APA style is a difficult citation format for first-time learners.

APA style is a difficult citation format for first-time learners (Jones, 1998, p.199) – pg number here is
encourage although not required.

Reference List (must be in alphabetical order)

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1. Book, Single Author

William, S. (1984). Room for criticism: An essay. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press. [in text – (William, 1984).

2. Book, Multiple Authors, 2nd Edition

Fortinash, K. M., & Holoday-Worret, P. A. (2003). Psychiatric nursing care plans.

(2nd ed.). St. Louis, Mo: Mosby-Year Book. [in text – (Fortinash & Holoday-Worret, 2003).]

3. Six or More Authors

• For works with 6 or more authors, the 1st citation & subsequent citations use first author’ name followed by et
al. and year.
Reference in the text:
Wolchik et al. (2000) studied the use of … or (Wolchik et al., 2000).

References (at the end of your paper)

Wolchik, S. A., West, S. G., Sandler, I. N., Tein, J., Coatsworth, D., Lengua, L., et al. (2000). An experimental
evaluation of theory-based mother and mother-child programs for children of
divorce. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 68, 843-856.
(In the reference list, provide the initials and surnames of the 1st six authors, and shorten any remaining authors
to “et al.”)

4. Book, With No Author

Addison Wesley Longman author's guide. (1998). New York: Longman.

5. Books, with Editor.

Baker, R. (Ed.). (1993). The Norton book of light verse. New York: Norton.

6. Book, Non-English

Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1951). La genèse de l'idée de hasard chez l'enfant [The
origin of the idea of chance in the child]. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.

7. Book With A Translator

Ramos, J. (2001). Divergent modernities: Culture and politics in 19th century Latin
America (J. D. Blanco, Trans.).Durham: Duke University Press. (Original
work published 1989)

8. Article or Chapter In An Edited Book, two editors

Carley, K. M. (2002). Smart agents and organizations of the future. In L. A. Liewvrouw

& S. Livingstone (Eds.), Handbook of new media: Social shaping and consequences of ICTs
(pp. 206-220). London: Sage.

9. Magazine Article

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Goodstein, C. (1995, September 12). Healers from the deep. American Health, 34, 35-39.

10. Newspaper Article

Carlton, H. (2004, August 8). Growing up tough: New generation fights for its Life. Birmingham News. p.7.

11. Article in an Internet

Warrens, M. J., Gruijter, D. N. M. D., & Heiser, W. J. (2007). A systematic comparison between classical
optimal scaling and the two-parameter IRT model. Applied Psychological Measurement, 31, 106-120.
Retrieved May 19, 2007, from http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume3/pre0030001a.html

12. Article with no author

Drivers reject fuel prices driven by war threat. (2003, March 7). The Timaru Herald. p.1.

[in text- "Drivers reject fuel prices driven", 2003).]

17. Groups as Authors

If group author is easily identified by its abbreviation, you may abbreviate the name in the second and
subsequent citations:
1st citation:
(Ministry of Education [MOE], 2001)
Subsequent text citation:
(MOE, 2001)

Write down corporate author in full every time if the abbreviation is NOT common.
e.g., (University of Pittsburg, 1998)

18. Personal communication

Interviews, memos, letters, e-mail, and similar unpublished person-to-person communications should be cited as
follows:
Reference in the text:
One of Atkinson’s colleagues, who have studied the effect of the media on children’s eating habits, has
contended that advertisers or snack foods will need to design ads responsibly for their younger viewers (F.
Johnson, personal communication, October 20, 2004).

References (at the end of your paper)

Do not include personal communications in your reference list.

19. Secondary Sources

• Give the secondary source in the reference list.
• In text, name the original work.
Reference in the text:
Irene and John’s study (as cited in Tornhill, Curtis, Atkins, & Haller,1993)

References (at the end of your paper)

Tornhill, M., Curtis, B. Atkins, P., & Haller, M. (1993). Models of reading aloud: Dual-route and parallel-
distributed-processing approaches. Psychological Review, 100, 589-608.

20. Book Reference (Single Author )

When the author and publisher are identical, use the word "Author" as the name of the

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

21. Book Reference (Corporate Author)

General Format
Corporate Author. (Year). Title of book. Location: Publisher.

Institute of Banking & Finance. (2006). Managing personal fund. Toronto: Midwestern.

22. Edited Book Reference

General Format
Editor, A. (Ed.). (Year). Title of book. Location: Publisher.

One editor:
Michael, G. (Ed.). (1988). Psycholinguistics. Beijing: Peking University Press.
More than one editor
Grice, H., & Gregory, R. (Eds.). (1968). Early language development. New York: McGraw-Hill.

23. Book Chapter Reference

General Format
Article Author. (Year). Article Title. In Book Editor(s), Book Title (page numbers). Location: Publisher.

Blaxter, L. (1996). Thinking about research. In R. A. Lillian & J. F. Rebecca (Eds.), How to research (pp. 19-
25). Buckingham: Open University Press.

Notes:

- APA formatting and referencing guide:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
- report format:
http://www.vanguard.edu/faculty/ddegelman/index.aspx?doc_id=796

Personal names:

- English name (Invert all authors' names)  Patrick Kiger – Kiger, P.

- Indian name  Muthualagan a/l Thangavelu

[Thangavelu, M.(2009). Pengajian Malaysia. Petaling Jaya: Prentice Hall.

- Chinese name  Cheah Boon Keong.

[Cheah, B. K. (2002). Malaysia: The making of a nation. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.]
- Malay name  Mohamed Noordin Sopiee
[Mohamed Noordin Sopiee. (2005). From Malayan Union to Singapore separation: Political unification in
the Malaysia region 1945-65 (2nd ed.). Kuala Lumpur: University Malaya Press.]