American Psychological Association (APA)
style examples |
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APA syle is an author-date citation style developed mainly for use in psychology
but has been adopted by other disciplines as well. The following instructions
and examples are based on more detailed information in:
The 6th edition, 2009 of the APA manual is available in the library.
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In text citing: General principles
Give the surname of the author(s), in the order they appear on the front page
of the publication, followed by the year of publication. When there is more
than one author, each author is separated by a comma except for the last two
which are separated by an ‘and’ if outside brackets or an ‘&’ if
inside brackets.
When citing a given source more than once within the same paragraph, include
the year of publication the first time the reference is cited then only the
author name(s) in following citations unless this would create confusion.
In text citing: Examples
| Type of citation |
Example and comments |
| 1 author |
...This was seen in an Australian study (Conger, 1979).
OR
Conger (1979) has argued that... |
| 2 authors |
...(Davidson & Harrington, 2002).
OR
Davidson and Harrington (2002)... |
| 3 to 5 authors |
Cite all names and publication year the first time, thereafter only
the first name followed by et al.
The first time cited:
...(Brown, Smith, & Jones, 1990).
Brown, Smith, and Jones (1990)...
thereafter:
...(Brown et al., 1990).
Brown et al. (1990)... |
| 6 or more authors |
Cite only the surname of the first author followed by et al. and
the year from the first citation.
Provide all six author names (followed by et al. if more authors) in the
reference list.
.... (Jones et al., 2003).
Jones et al. (2003)... |
Different authors:
same surname |
Add initials to the authors names to distinguish them
P.R. Smith (1923) to distinguish from S. Smith (1945)
...
(Jones & S.A. Brown, 1961) to distinguish from (W.O. Brown & Smith,
1985). |
Multiple authors:
ambiguous citations |
If a multiple (3+) author citation abbreviated with et al. looks the
same as another in text citation similarly shortened, add enough surnames
to make a distinction.
...(Brown, Smith, et al., 1998) to distinguish from (Brown,
Taylor, et al., 1998). |
Multiple works:
by same author |
When cited together give the author's surname once followed by the
years of each publication, which are separated by a comma.
... (Stairs, 1992, 1993).
Stairs (1992, 1993)... |
Multiple works
by same author AND same year |
If there is more than one reference by an author in the same year,
suffixes (a, b, c, etc.) are added to the year.
If cited together, list by suffix as shown below.
Allocation of the suffixes is determined by the order of the references
in the reference list.
Suffixes are also included in the reference list, and these references
are listed alphabetically by title.
Stairs (1992b)... later in the text ... (Stairs, 1992a).
...(Stairs, 1992a, 1992b). |
| If author name is given as 'anonymous' |
Use Anonymous as the author's name.
... (Anonymous, 1997). |
| Unknown author |
Give the first few words of the title.
If the title is from an article (eg a website article) or a chapter
use double quotation marks. If the title is from a periodical, book brochure
or report then use italics.
...the worst election loss in the party's history ("This
is the end," 1968). |
| Corporate or group of authors |
If organization is recognized by abbreviation, cite the first time
as follows:
... (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [AIHW],
2005)
thereafter
... (AIHW, 2005).
If abbreviation not widely known, give the name in full every time:
... (Australian Research Council, 1996). |
| Multiple references |
List the citations in alphabetical order and separate with semicolons.
... (Burst, 1995; Turner & Hooch, 1982; Zane, 1976). |
| Citing specific parts of a source |
For a direct quote the page number(s) must be given.
Indicate page, chapter, figure, table, etc. as specifically as possible.
Use accepted abbreviations, i.e. chap. or para.
As one writer put it "the darkest days were still
ahead" (Weston, 1988, p. 45).
Weston (1988) argued that "the darkest days were still ahead" (p.
45).
This theory was put forward by Smith (2005, chap. 7) |
| Quote from an electronic source |
Where page numbers are not provided use paragraph numbers.
...(Sturt, 2001, para. 2)
...(Sturt, 2001, ¶ 2) where ¶ is interchangeable with para. |
Personal communication:
for email and other 'unrecoverable' data |
Personal communications are not included in the reference list.
... (R. Smith, personal communication, January 28, 2002).
R. Smith (personal communication, January 28, 2002)... |
| Citation of a secondary source (i.e. a
source referred to in another publication) |
In the reference list you ONLY include the details of the source you
actually read - not the original source.
In the example below, the original source would be Farrow (1968),
which you saw cited in a paper by Ward and Decan (1988).
... (Farrow, 1968, as cited in Ward & Decan, 1988).
Farrow (1968, as cited in Ward & Decan, 1988) ...
Ward and Decan (1988) cited Farrow (1968) as finding... |
Reference list: General principles
- the reference list should begin on a new page
- the title of the reference list should be ‘References’ and
should be centred on the page
- the reference list should be double-spaced and have a hanging
indent
- a hanging indent is where the first line of each reference is fully left
justified while subsequent lines are indented to the right. The width of
the hanging indent should be 5-7 spaces or 1.25 cm. Hanging indents and double
spacing are set by the word processors
- all references in the reference list must be cited in the text
- all references cited in text must be included in the reference list. Exceptions
are unpublished items such as correspondence
- references are listed in alphabetical order by author surname/family name
- the author names for each reference are given in the order they appear
in the source
- where there are two articles with the same authors and date, the references
are ordered alphabetically by article title and a suffix (i.e., a,b,c) is
added to the date
- organisation names should be written in full unless they are obviously
recognisable
- when citation ends with a URL do not add a full stop
Common abbreviations:
& = and
chap. = chapter
ed. = edition
Ed. = Editor
(Eds.) = multiple editors
n.d. = no date
No. = Number
p. = page number (single)
pp. = page numbers (plural)
¶ = paragraph
para. = paragraph
Pt. = Part
Rev. ed. = Revised edition
Suppl. = Supplement
Tech. Rep. = Technical Report
Vol. = Volume
Reference list: Examples
There are a number of different types of sources that you might need to cite
in your reference list, including:
Further information:
American Psychological Association. (2007). APA
style guide to electronic references. Washington, D.C.: Author.
American Psychological Association. (2007). Electronic
references. Available from http://www.apastyle.org/
American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication
manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington,
D.C.: Author.
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