APA Citations

1.The American Psychological Association Name and Year Documentation System is the form used by

•   social, biological, and earth sciences

•   psychology

•   anthropology

•   business

•   education

•   home economics

•   linguistics

physical education

2. In APA style, source material is cited using a system that emphasizes the author and date of publication in its in-text citations.

3. General guidelines to be followed when preparing a reference page using APA documentation.

Ordering References

•   list alphabetically according to the author's last name.

•   more than one author, use the first's author's last name

•    no author, alphabetize based upon the first significant word in the title of the source.

•   more than one publication by the same author or authors, order according to the year of publication, earliest first.

•   References by the same authors with the same publication date are arranged alphabetically by title. Lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.) are placed immediately after the year within parentheses.

•   first author and different second or third authors, arrange the items alphabetically according to the last name of the second author

Capitalization

•  first word of the title and subtitle of a book, article, or chapter title and any proper names.

•   Capitalize each significant word in a journal title, publication information.

Punctuation

•  journal articles and book chapters appear without quotation marks.

•   Book titles, journal titles, and volume numbers are italicized.

•   When there are two or more writers, use a comma followed by an ampersand (&) before the final name.

•   Use parentheses around the year of publication of books, the date of publication of articles, functions of people in the citation (editors, translators, etc.), report numbers, or volume and edition numbers of book entries.

•   If email addresses or URLs for web pages will not fit on one line, break the line after a mark of punctuation (that is, after a period or slash).

Examples

Book

Geissler, E. M.  (1998). Pocket guide to cultural assessment (2nd ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby.

INTERVIEWS, E-MAILS, PHONE CONVERSATIONS, etc.

"Because they do not provide recoverable data, personal communications are not included in the reference list. Cite personal communications in text only.  Give the initials as well as the surname of the communicator, and provide as exact a date as possible." (APA Manual, section 3.102)  Example: I. M. Certain (personal communication, April 1, 2000).