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APA 7 Style Guide

CITING AUTHORS IN APA

Format

Last name first, followed by author initial(s)

 

Examples

Coppola, F. F. (1983). The outsiders [Film]. Zoetrope Studios. 

Thomson, H. (2022). Two years of the coronavirus. New Scientist, 253(3368), 10-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0262-4079(22)00003-3

Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954). The fellowship of the ring. George Allen & Unwin.

Format

Two to Twenty Authors: List by last names and initials. Separate author names with a comma. Use "&" instead of "and" before the last author name.

Additional Authors: After the first 19 authors’ names, use an ellipsis in place of the remaining author names. Then, end with the final author's name (do not place "&" before it). There should be no more than twenty names in the citation in total.

 

Examples

Bloom, M. B., Salim, A., & Malinoski, D. J. (2015). Critical care of the organ donor. In E. A. Pretto Jr., G. Biancofiore, A. DeWolf, J. R. Klinck, C. Niemann, A. Watts, & P. D. Slinger (Eds.), Oxford textbook of transplant anaesthesia and critical care (pp. 69-75). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199651429.003.0008

Gecker, J., & Lovan, D. (2022, August 17). Youth mental health is in crisis. Are schools doing enough? AP News. https://apnews.com/article/mental-health-crisis-schools-768fed6a4e71d694ec0694c627d8fdca

Pegion, K., Kirtman, B. P., Becker, E., Collins, D. C., LaJoie, E., Burgman, R., Bell, R., DelSole, R., Min, D., Zhu, Y., Li, W., Sinsky, E., Guan, H., Gottschalck, J., Metzger, E. J., Barton, N. P., Achuthavarier, D., Marshak, J., Koster, R., . . .  Kim, H. (2019). The subseasonal experiment (SubX): A multimodel subseasonal prediction experiment. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 100(10), 2043-2061. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0270.1

Format

One Author: Use the author's name for all entries, and arrange the entries chronologically by year. List references with no date (n.d.) before references with dates.

Multiple Authors: When an author appears both as a sole author and, in another citation, as the first author of a group, list the one-author entries first. References that have the same first author and different second and/or third authors are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the second author or by the last name of the third if the first and second authors are the same.

Same Year: If using more than one source by the same author or group of authors listed in the same order, check for more specific dates and arrange chronologically. If no specific dates are provided, assign a lowercase letter suffix (a, b, c, d, etc.) to the year in Reference List entries and in-text citations, and arrange alphabetically by title of the article, chapter, etc.

 

Examples

Agnew, C. R. (Ed.). (2014). Social influences on romantic relationships: Beyond the dyad. Cambridge University Press.

Agnew, C. R., & South, S. C. (Eds.). (2014). Interpersonal relationships and health: Social and clinical psychological mechanisms. Oxford University Press.

Arriaga, X. B., Capezza, N. M., Reed, J. T., Wesselman, E. D., & Williams, K. D. (2014). With partners like you, who needs strangers?: Ostracism involving a romantic partner. Personal Relationships, 21(4), 557-569.

Arriaga, X. B., Kumashiro, M., Finkel, E. J., VanderDrift, L. E., & Luchies, L. B. (2014). Filling the void: Bolstering attachment security in committed relationships. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5(4), 398-405.

Raycraft, J. (2018). Dilemmas of Representation in Contemporary Environmental Anthropology: Documenting Dynamite Fishing in Southeastern Tanzania. Ethnobiology Letters, 9(2), 289-298. https://doi.org/10.14237/ebl.9.2.2018.1115

Raycraft, J. (2020a). Seeing from Below: Scuba Diving and the Regressive Cyborg. Anthropology & Humanism, 45(2), 301-321. https://doi.org./10.1111/anhu.12306

Raycraft, J. (2020b). The (un)making of marine park subjects: Environmentality and everyday resistance in a coastal Tanzanian village. World Development, 126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.104696

 

Format

Group authors can include corporations, government agencies, organizations, etc. In this case, simply treat the publishing group the same way you'd treat the author's name and format the rest of the citation as normal. Be sure to give the full name of the group author in your reference list, although abbreviations may be used in your text (refer to the In-Text Citations page > Group Author tab in this guide).

Entries in reference works (e.g., dictionaries, thesauruses, and encyclopedias) without credited authors are also considered works with group authors.

When a source has multiple layers of group authorship (e.g., The Office of the Historian, which is part of the Department of State, publishes something), list the most specific agency as the author and the parent agency as the publisher.

 

Examples

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. (2019, November 21). Justice served: Case closed for over 40 dogfighting victims. https://www.aspca.org/news/justice-served-case-closed-over-40-dogfighting-victims

Bureau of International Organization Affairs. (2018). U.S. contributions to international organizations, 2017 [Annual report]. U.S. Department of State. https://www.state.gov/u-s-contributions-to-international-organizations

Merriam-Webster. (2008). Braggadocio. In Merriam-Webster’s Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary. Merriam-Webster.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (2022, August 26). James Webb Space Telescope. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/webb/main/index.html

Format

When an author is not named, move the title of the source to the beginning of the reference entry and follow with the date of publication. Only use “Anonymous” if the author is specifically identified as “Anonymous.”

 

Examples

Anonymous. (2018). Letter from a Young Muslim. Survival, 60(4), 207-212. https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2018.1495449

On the march. (2017). Nature, 554, 137. https://www.nature.com/articles/544137a.pdf

GUIDELINES FOR APA STYLE REFERENCES

Guidelines:
  • Your Reference List is the last section of your paper. It provides information about sources you used and cited within your paper.
    • Each source you cite within your paper must appear as an entry in your reference list. Refer to the page in this guide about In-Text Citations for more information and examples.
  • Begin your reference list on a new page separate from the main body of your paper.
  • Title this page References in bold, and center at the top of the page (do not underline or use quotation marks for the title).
  • Double space and use hanging indentation for each entry in your reference list.
    • From Microsoft Word, select your text > click the pop-out icon next to "Paragraph" > select "Hanging" from the special indentation dropdown menu > click "Ok" to apply formatting
  • Alphabetize reference list entries by the last name of the first author of each work.
  • For multiple sources by the same author(s), list entries in chronological order from earliest to most recent.
    • If there is no year of publication, use the abbreviation "n.d." for "no date"