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Citations: APA Style (7th ed.)

How to create a document and cite using the most recent edition of APA.

Journal Articles: Explaining all the Pieces

Author Date Article Title Source Info DOI or URL

Author, A. A.

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B.

(2019).

(2019, October).

(2019, October 24).

(2019, Fall/Winter).

Title of the article.

Title of the article: This one has a subtitle.

 Name of Periodical, vol(no), p-p. https://doi.org/xxx
  • List all authors up to 20. If there are 21 authors or more, list the first 19, then ... and the final author.
  • Authors should be given last name followed by initials. Do not write out authors' first names in the reference.
  • If no author exists for a piece, unless it is specifically signed Anonymous, do not use anonymous as the author. Simply move the title of the journal article to the place of the author.

 

Group Authors

A group author is an organization or institution that takes credit/responsibility for information instead of a single person.

  • If the group author is the same as the publisher, omit the publisher element to avoid repetition.
  • If multiple layers of an organization are identified, use only the agency most directly responsible for the work as the author. The other layers may appear as publisher information later in the citation.
  • Do not include an abbreviation of the name in the reference list; that is, it's Environmental Protection Agency, not EPA or even Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). You may abbreviate the agency name in the text of your paper though.
  • Place the date in parentheses.
  • Journal articles typically won't have an individual date. Web articles usually will, on the other hand. Occasionally you'll see a season or quarter given instead of a month.
  • Articles should be written like sentences: proper nouns and acronyms will be capitalized, as will the first word of title and subtitle*. Everything else should be lower-case.
    • *If an article title has a colon in it, the part following the colon is probably a subtitle.

 

  • If an article title includes other punctuation in it, keep that in your citation. If the article title ends with punctuation like a question or exclamation mark, you will not add a period after.

 

  • Italicize the name of the journal and the volume number.
  • The issue number goes in parentheses.
  • Do not label with "vol." or "issue" or "no." before the numbers.
  • Give the range of pages an article spans. Do not label these as pages with p. or pp. Do not include the total number of pages.

DOI = Digital Object Identifier

Use a DOI (if assigned to the article) when citing articles, whether accessed in the print or electronic form.

A DOI is a digital object identifier – a unique alphanumeric code that gives a persistent link to the web location for an electronic item, sort of like an ISBN. DOIs are commonly seen on current electronic journal articles, but are often also included in the print version of the article. You're more likely to see them on articles for the sciences than the humanities.

A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is preferable to a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) when citing an online resource.

 

How do I find the DOI for an article?

  • A DOI is identified as such on the first page of an article near the copyright notice, and it starts with  "https://doi.org/" or "http://dx.doi.org" or "DOI:" and is following by string of letters and numbers.  e, g, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anireprosci.2006.12.005
  • Use https://search.crossref.org​ to search for DOI.
  • DOIs are often included in database records.  You can often spot it from just the search results page, as well.
  • DOIs may also be found in the bibliography of an article as authors are now using DOIs as a citation tool. If you find a DOI in a bibliography and want to find the actual article (or at least further citation information), you need to use a DOI resolver (see http://dx.doi.org/).
  • After a DOI or URL in a citation, there is no ending punctuation.
  • You may use a URL shortener like tinyurl or bit.ly if you wish.

Online Journal Article with DOI

Guthrie, J., & Kunkel, A. (2013). Tell me sweet (and not-so-sweet) little lies: Deception in romantic relationships. Communication Studies, 64(2), 141-157. https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2012.755637

Parenthetical citation: (Guthrie & Kunkel, 2013). (Guthrie & Kunkel, 2013, p. 143).

Reed, M. J., Kennett, D. J., Lewis, T., Lund-Lucas, E., Stallberg, C., & Newbold, I. L. (2009). The relative effects of university success courses and individualized interventions for students with learning disabilities. Higher Education Research & Development, 28(4), 385–400. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360903067013

Parenthetical citation: (Reed et al., 2009). (Reed et al., 2009, p. 390).

List all authors up to 20:

Krimigis, S. M., Mitchell, D. G., Hamilton, D. C., Livi, S., Dandouras, J., Jaskulek, S., Armstrong, T. P., Boldt,  J. D., Cheng, A. F., Gloeckler, G., Hayes,  J. R., Hsieh, K. C., Ip, W.-H., Keath, E. P., Kirsch, E., Krupp,  N., Lanzerotti, L. J., Lundgren, R., Mauk, B. H., McEntire, R. W., Roelof, E. C., Schlemm, C. E., Tossman,  B. E., Wilken, B., & Williams, D. J. (2004). Magnetosphere Imaging Instrument (MIMI) on the Cassini Mission to Saturn/Titan. Space Science Reviews, 114, 233-329. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-004-1410-8

Parenthetical citation: (Krimigis et al., 2004). (Krimigis et al., 2004, p. 300).

Articles with 21 Or More Authors:

Include the first 19 authors in the reference, then an ellipsis, i.e. dot dot dot ( ... ), and then the last author. There is no ampersand in this case. 

Cao, B., Wang, Y., Wen, D., Liu, W., Wang, J., Fan, G., Ruan, L., Song, B., Cai, Y., Wei, M., Li, X., Xia, J., Chen, N., Xiang, J., Yu, T., Bai, T., Xie, X., Zhang, L., Li, C, ... Wang, C. (2020). A trial of lopinavir-ritonavir in adults hospitalized with severe Covid-19. New England Journal of Medicine 382(19), 1787-1799. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2001282

In the in-text citation, only include the first author and add et al. e.g. (Cao et al., 2020). (Cao et al., 2020, p. 1790).

 

Online Journal Article without DOI

If a journal article doesn't have a DOI [digital object identifier], cite it as a print source -- i.e. you can end the citation at the page numbers.

You do not need to link to a journal's homepage, per the 7th edition. However, if an article is open access, you may choose to link directly to the article's full text.  Please note that the journal home page is not the URL of the article you retrieved, nor is it the homepage of the library. 

Deitz, S. R., & Sissman, P. L. (1984). Investigating jury bias in a child molestation case. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 2(4), 423-434. 

Parenthetical citation: (Deitz & Sissman, 1984). (Deitz & Sissman, 1984, p. 427).

Dybvik, A. C. (2004). Autism and the inclusion mandate: What happens when children with severe disabilities like autism are taught in regular classrooms? Daniel knows. Education Next, 4(1), 42-49.

Parenthetical citation: (Dybvik, 2004). (Dybvik, 2004, p. 45).

González Canché, M. S. (2014). Is the community college a less expensive path toward a bachelor’s degree? Public 2- and 4-year colleges’ impact on loan debt. Journal of Higher Education, 85(5), 723–759.

Parenthetical citation: (González Canché, 2014). (González Canché, 2014, p. 725).

Website Articles

In APA 7th edition, articles published in online news sources (e.g., BBC News, Bloomberg, CNN, HuffPost, MSNBC, Reuters, Salon, Vox) will have the title of the article italicized but not the name of the source. Sources that have both an online and print presence (e.g., The Washington Post or New York Times), will italicize the name of the source but not the title of the article.

Available Online-Only

Beaven, B. (2020, January 20). The modern phenomenon of the weekend. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200117-the-modern-phenomenon-of-the-weekend

Parenthetical citation: (Beaven, 2020, Business Opportunity section).

 

Bologna, C. (2018, June 27). What happens to your mind and body when you feel homesick? HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-happens-mind-body-homesick_n_5b201ebde4b09d7a3d77eee1

Parenthetical citation: (Bologna, 2018, How to Treat section).

Available both Web and Print

Herrera, T. (2020, October 23). Don’t work on your party laptop or party on your work laptop. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/23/smarter-living/what-not-to-do-work-computer.html

Parenthetical citation: (Herrera, 2020, para. 3).

 

McGonigal, K. (2020, January 21). Here's how exercise reduces anxiety and makes you feel more connected. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/01/21/heres-how-exercise-reduces-anxiety-makes-you-feel-more-connected/

Parenthetical citation: (McGonigal, 2020).

Magazine Article

Farelly, E. (2008, March/April). Fear of not having had. Orion. https://orionmagazine.org/article/fear-of-not-having-had/

Parenthetical citation: (Farelly, 2008).

Ludden, D. (2020, September 29). Subtle ways your language shapes the way you think. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-apes/202009/subtle-ways-your-language-shapes-the-way-you-think

Parenthetical citation: (Ludden, 2020).

Technical and Research Reports

Technical and research reports are cited much like books, except for the inclusion of the report number, which may take a variety of forms. 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2009). Inventory of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and sinks: 1990-2007 (EPA 430-R-09-004). https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-12/documents/ghg2007entire_report-508.pdf  

Parenthetical citation: (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2009).

 

Personal Author

James, D. J. & Glaze, L. E. (2006). Mental health problems of prison and jail inmates (NJC 213600). U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/mhppji.pdf

Parenthetical citation: (James & Glaze, 2006).

Same Author, Same Year, 2 Articles

If you have more than one article by the same creator and from the same year (or all with no known year, n.d.), you'll add letters after the year to distinguish the sources. Works with no date will look like (n.d.-a), (n.d.-b), and so on (note the hyphen).

Koriat, A. (2008a). Easy comes, easy goes? The link between learning and remembering and its exploitation in metacognition. Memory & Cognition, 36, 416–428. https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.36.2.416

Koriat, A. (2008b). Subjective confidence in one’s answers: The consensuality principle. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34, 945–959. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.34.4.94

Parenthetical citations: (Koriat, 2008a) and (Koriat, 2008b).