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Education: APA Style

Complete APA Guide

See the library's Complete APA Citation Guide for more assistance.

Reference Management Tools

A reference management tool can help you organize your sources and cite them correctly in APA or another style. See the Zotero Guide for information on a useful, free reference manager.

Formatting References in APA Style

References in APA style generally follow this order: authors, date, title of article/chapter, title of journal/book, publication information, DOI (digital object identifier) for online works. Here's an example of an article from a scholarly journal:

Baker, T., & Clark, J. (2011). Educational equity in ethnically diverse group work. Intercultural Education, 22(5), 411–422. http://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2011.643138

Several examples are provided below.

Journal article found online

For a journal article found online or through a library database, follow this example:

Last Name, F. I. (Year of publication). Full article title. Journal Title, Volume number(Issue number), Beginning page-final page. DOI

Hillyard, C., Gillespie, D., & Littig, P. (2010). University students’ attitudes about learning in small groups after frequent participation. Active Learning in Higher Education, 11(1), 9–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787409355867

Magazine or newspaper article found online

For a magazine or newspaper found using Google or another internet search engine, follow this example:

Last Name, F. I. (Year of publication, Month day). Full article title. Newspaper/magazine title. URL

Waxman, O. B. (2016, December 20). When does winter start? It depends on what you mean by “winter”. Time. http://time.com/4607873/2016-first-day-of-winter-solstice

Book

For a book by a single author, follow this example:

Last Name, F. I. (Year of publication). Book title. Publisher.

Davis, J. R., & Arend, B. D. (2012). Facilitating seven ways of learning: A resource for more purposeful, effective, and enjoyable college teaching. Stylus Publishing.

Edited book

For an edited book with no authors, list the editors in place of the author(s) and the abbreviation Eds. in parentheses.

Goodin, R. E., & Hans-Dieter, K. (Eds.). (1996). A new handbook of political science. Oxford University Press.

Chapter from an edited book

For a chapter from a book, include information for both the chapter and the book.

Author Last Name, F. I. (Year of publication.) Chapter title. In F. I. Editor Last Name & F. I. Editor Last Name (Eds.), Book title (pages of chapter). Publisher.

Christians, C. G. (2011). Ethics and politics in qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (pp. 61-80). Sage Publications.

Tips

Keep these tips in mind when compiling your References list:

  • Alphabetize and double-space all entries.
  • Do not spell out first and middle names of authors and editors; use initials only.
  • Use hanging indents (i.e., all lines except the first of each citation should be indented).
  • Use “sentence case” for article and book titles (i.e., capitalize the first letter of the first word, the first letter of the first word after a colon or dash, and the first letter of proper nouns).
  • Capitalize the first letter of all major words in journal titles.
  • Omit the DOI if none is available. Include a URL if an article was not found through a library database.

More information