APA Style Guide 5th Edition

 

Examples of APA referencing format for the most common types of resources

 

The following set of referencing examples is adapted from a handout created by the University of Southern Mississippi Libraries. The full handout describes many more types of resources and offers some additional explanatory information. To view the original handout, click here. The Purdue University Writing Centre has created an excellent comprehensive guide to writing in APA style; it is available here.

 

Note that the references provided in PsycINFO contain all the information needed, and they can be copied onto your wiki page; however, the information will have to be rearranged to create a reference that conforms to APA style.

 

 

Books

 

Typical book entry -- single author

The basic form is author, date, title, city of publication, publishers name. Notice that the book title is italicized and that only the first word of the title is capitalized. Many titles contain colons, and the first word after a colon should also be capitalized.

 

Arnheim, R. (1971). Art and visual perception. Berkeley: University of California Press.

 

Polkinghorne, D. E. (1988). Narrative knowing and the Human Sciences. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

 

Multiple authors

When a work has up to (and including) six authors, cite all authors. When a work has more than six authors cite the first six followed by "et al."

 

Festinger, L., Riecken, H., & Schachter, S. (1956). When prophecy fails.  Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

 

Roeder, K., Howdeshell, J., Fulton, L., Lochhead, M., Craig, K., Peterson, R., et.al. (1967). Nerve cells and insect behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

 

Corporate  or institutional authorship

 

Institute of Financial Education. (1982). Managing personal funds. Chicago:  Midwestern.

 

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

 

Edited collections

 

Higgins, J. (Ed.). (1988). Psychology. New York: Norton.

 

Grice, H. P., & Gregory, R. L. (Eds.). (1968). Early language development. New York: McGraw-Hill.

 

Citing items in an anthology or chapter in an edited book

The basic form is author(s) of chapter, date, chapter title, editor(s), book title, chapter page numbers, city of publication, publisher. Note the word ³In² prior to the editor¹s name, and note that the editor¹s initials are placed before the surname.

 

Rubenstein, J.P. (1967). The effect of television violence on small children. In B.F. Kane (Ed.), Television and juvenile psychological development (pp. 112-134). New York: American Psychological Society.

 

 

Journals and other periodicals

 

Typical journal articles

The basic form is author, date, article title, journal title, volume (issue), article page numbers. If the journal begins each new issue with page 1, then it is essential to include the issue number. Many journals, however, number the first page of an issue consecutively from the last page of the previous issue until a new volume begins. In these cases the issue number is not included in the reference. Only the first word of the article title is capitalized, but all words in the journal title are capitalized. The journal title and the volume number following it are italicized.

 

Passons, W. (1967). Predictive validities of the ACT, SAT, and high school grades for first semester GPA and freshman courses. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 27, 1143-1144.

 

Sawyer, J. (1966). Measurement and prediction, clinical and statistical. Psychological Bulletin, 66(3), 178-200.

 

 

Citing articles in monthly periodicals

 

Chandler-Crisp, S. (1988, May) "Aerobic writing": a writing practice model. Writing Lab Newsletter, pp. 9-11.

 

Citing articles in weekly periodicals

 

Kauffmann, S. (1993, October 18). On films: class consciousness. The New Republic, p.30.

 

­Newspaper articles

 

Monson, M. (1993, September 16). Urbana firm obstacle to office project. The Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette, pp. A1,A8.

 

No author identified

 

Clinton puts 'human face' on health-care plan. (1993, September 16). The New York Times, p. B1.

 

 

Dissertations

Depending on the source of the information about the dissertation, some information may not be known (the university, for example, or the UMI No. for ordering from Dissertation Abstracts International).

 

Bower, D.L. (1993). Employee assistant programs supervisory referrals: Characteristics of referring and nonreferring supervisors. Dissertation Abstracts International, 54(01), 534B. (UMI No. 9315947)

 

Ross, D. F. (1990). Unconscious transference and mistaken identity: When a witness misidentifies a familiar but innocent person from a lineup (Doctoral dissertaton, Cornell University, 1990). Dissertation Abstracts International, 51, 417.

 

 

Other Media

 

Citing films or videotapes

The main people responsible for the videotape are given, with their roles identified in parentheses after their names. After the title, the medium is identified (here, a motion picture). The distributor's name and location comprises the last part of the entry.

 

Weir, P.B. (Producer), & Harrison, B.F. (Director). (1992). Levels of consciousness [Motion picture]. Boston, MA: Filmways.

 

Citing recordings

The basic format is songwriter, date of copyright, title of song, [recording artist if different from writer], title of album, [medium of recording: CD, record, cassette, etc.], location, label, (recording date if different from copyright date)

 

McFerrin, Bobby (Vocalist). (1990). Medicine music [Cassette Recording].  Hollywood, CA: EMI-USA.

 

 

Electronic Information

 

The type of medium can be, but is not limited to the following: aggregated databases, online journals, Web sites or Web pages, newsgoups, Web- or e-mail based discussion groups or Web or e-mail based newsletters. Pagination in electronic references is unavailable in many cases, thus left out of the citation. The APA Manual has a short section demonstrating the format for electronic references on pp. 268-281. For other examples, visit http://www.apastyle.org/elecref.html

 

Full-Text Database (i.e., book, magazine, newspaper article)

Because database and other internet material is updated frequently, it is necessary to indicate the date on which the user retrieved the material. Notice that there is no period following an Internet Web address.

 

Schneiderman, R. A. (1997). Librarians can make sense of the Net. San Antonio Business Journal, 11, 58+. Retrieved January 27, 1999, from EBSCO Masterfile database.

 

Article in an Internet-only journal

 

Kawasaki, J. L., & Raven, M.R. (1995). Computer-administered surveys in extension. Journal of Extension, 33, 252-255. Retrieved June 2, 1999, from http://joe.org/joe/index.html

 

Article in an Internet-only newsletter

 

Waufton, K.K. (1999, April). Dealing with anthrax. Telehealth News, 3(2). Retreived December 16, 2000, from http://www.telehearlth.net/subscribe/newslettr_5b.html#1

 

Internet technical or research reports

 

University of California, San Francisco, Institute for Health and Aging. (1996, November). Chronic care in America: A 21st century challenge. Retrieved September 9, 2000, from the Robert Wood Foundation Web site: http://www.rwjf.org/library/chrcare