Reviews the basic elements of an APA citation.

1. APA Formatting Tips
● Layout & Capitalization
● Author Names
● Titles
● Dates
● Volume & Issues
● Publishers
● Page Numbers
● DOI & URLS

2. Components
of References
Books Journal Articles Newspaper Articles Websites
Author(s) Author(s) Author(s) Author(s)
Date (year) Date
(year, month)
Date
(year, month day)
Date
(year, use n.d. if none)
Chapter title
(optional)
Article title Article title Website title
Editor(s)
(if given)
Title of Journal Title of Newspaper Retrieval statement
(always necessary)
Book title Volume Pagination
(use p. or pp.)
Edition
(if given)
Issue
(if given)
Retrieval statement
(when necessary)
Volume
(if given)
Pagination
Pagination
(when citing a chapter)
Retrieval statement
(when necessary)
Place of publication
Publisher
Retrieval statement
(when necessary)
Table copied from Alexis Carlson’s APA Style Guide (Indian River State College) under
a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

3. Layout &
Capitalization
References
Patterson, L. M. (2012) The Science of sleep: What is it, what makes it
happen and why do we do it? In Green, A., & Westcombe, A.
(Eds.), Sleep : Multi-Professional Perspectives (pp. 18-40).
London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Pressman, S. D., Jenkins, B. N., Kraft-Feil, T. L., Rasmussen, H., &
Scheier, M. F. (2017). The whole is not the sum of its parts:
Specific types of positive affect influence sleep differentially.
Emotion, 17(5), 778-793. doi:10.1037/emo0000256
Pressman, S. D., Kraft, T. L., & Cross, M. P. (2015). It’s good to do good
and receive good: The impact of a ‘pay it forward’ style kindness
intervention on giver and receiver well-being. Journal of Positive
Psychology, 10(4), 293-302.doi:10.1080/17439760.2014.965269
● “References” should be centered at the top of
the page
● Alphabetize the entries
● One inch margin
● Double spaced
● After the first line, indent all entries in your
reference list one-half inch from the left margin
(Hanging indent)
● Include only sources that were cited in the
paper

4. Authors
Anch, A. M.
One Author
Two Authors
Kinfemichael, H., & Raju, M. R.
Three to Seven Authors
Pressman, S. D., Kraft, T. L., & Cross, M. P.
Organization Author
The Rand Corporation.
Troxel, W. M., Shih, R. A., Penderson, E., Geyer,
L., Fisher, M. P., Griffin, B.,…Steinberg, P. S.
More Than Seven Authors
● List the author's last name first, followed by their
initials (including initials for the middle name if
provided by the source).
● Articles by the same author
○ List the entries beginning with the oldest
date and ending with the newest date.
● Same first author with a different second
author
○ List alphabetically by the second author’s
last name

5. Titles
● Capitalize the first word of the title and any
subtitles
● Capitalize proper nouns, initials, and
acronyms
● Italicize book and periodical titles
● Do not alter the punctuation and/or
capitalization used in the title of a journal
publication
References
Anch, A. M. (1988). Sleep: A scientific perspective. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Czeisler, C. (2015, January 15). How to sleep better: Harvard
sleep expert offers tips & tricks [Video file]. Retrieved from
https://youtu.be/pg_oSsPqyRc
Kinfemichael, H., & Raju, M. R. (2017). Cultural interpretations of
dreams: The case of native Amharic language speakers in
Amhara region, Ethiopia. Indian Journal of Health &
Wellbeing, 8(3), 237-241. Retrieved from http://0-search.
proquest.com.sophia.agnesscott.edu/docview/
1890811533?accountid=8381

6. DatesReferences
Anch, A. M. (1988). Sleep: A scientific perspective. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Czeisler, C. (2015, January 15). How to sleep better: Harvard
sleep expert offers tips & tricks [Video file]. Retrieved from
https://youtu.be/pg_oSsPqyRc
Kinfemichael, H., & Raju, M. R. (2017). Cultural interpretations of
dreams: The case of native Amharic language speakers in
Amhara region, Ethiopia. Indian Journal of Health &
Wellbeing, 8(3), 237-241. Retrieved from http://0-search.
proquest.com.sophia.agnesscott.edu/docview/
1890811533?accountid=8381
● Within parentheses, add the date immediately
after the author(s) statement
● Books and journal articles include the year of
publication
● Articles in magazines, newspapers, and blogs
include the year, month, and day of publication
unless a day is not listed
● If no date is listed, use (n.d.)

7. Volumes &
Issues
References
Krieger, L. (2016, December). Sleep well… wherever. Cosmopolitan,
26(6), Retrieved from http://0-search.ebscohost.com.sophia.
agnesscott.edu/login.aspx? direct=true&db=fth&AN=
119140627&site=eds-live
Pressman, S. D., Jenkins, B. N., Kraft-Feil, T. L., Rasmussen, H., &
Scheier, M. F. (2017). The whole is not the sum of its parts: Specific
types of positive affect influence sleep differentially. Emotion,
17(5), 778-793. doi:10.1037/emo0000256
Pressman, S. D., Kraft, T. L., & Cross, M. P. (2015). It’s good to do
good and receive good: The impact of a ‘pay it forward’ style
kindness intervention on giver and receiver well-being. Journal of
Positive Psychology, 10(4), 293-302. doi:10.1080/17439760.
● For journals, the italicized volume
number is followed (no spacing) by the
issue number in parentheses
● Some periodicals do not include an
issue number

8. Publishers
● Located on the title page or verso
● Use the first city listed or the city where the
publisher is headquartered
● Add country names to cities outside of the
United States
● List the publisher after the location using a
colon
● Youtube, GALILEO, and Google Books are
content curators and not publishers
● Blogs and websites may be considered
publishers if they created the content
Kalohe, HI: Kahoolawe University Press
New Haven, CT: Bayside Books
Chicago, IL: American Library Association
London, United Kingdom: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Pew Research Trust

9. Page Numbers
● Books
○ Do not use when citing an entire book
○ For chapters include the first and last
page of the chapter
○ Use p. for one page and pp. for more
than one page
● Articles
○ Journal page numbers appear after the
volume and issue number
■ Ex. 17(5), 778-793
○ Magazine page numbers, if given,
appear after the volume and issue
number
○ Newspaper page numbers appear after
References
Patterson, L. M. (2012) The Science of sleep: What is it, what
makes it happen and why do we do it? In Green, A., &
Westcombe, A. (Eds.), Sleep: Multi-Professional
Perspectives (pp. 18-40). London: Jessica Kingsley
Publishers.
Pressman, S. D., Jenkins, B. N., Kraft-Feil, T. L., Rasmussen, H.,
& Scheier, M. F. (2017). The whole is not the sum of its
parts: Specific types of positive affect influence sleep
differentially. Emotion, 17(5), 778-793. doi:10.1037/
emo0000256

10. DOI & URLS
● A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) includes
numbers and characters that uniquely
identify an article
● If a DOI is given, do not list other retrieval
information such as a URL
● If no DOI is given, add the statement
Retrieved from before the Uniform
Resource Locator (URL)
● Do not add a period after the DOI or URL
References
Kinfemichael, H., & Raju, M. R. (2017). Cultural interpretations of
dreams: The case of native Amharic language speakers in
Amhara region, Ethiopia. Indian Journal Of Health & Wellbeing,
8(3), 237-241. Retrieved from http://0-search.proquest.com.
sophia.agnesscott.edu/docview/1890811533?accountid=8381
Pressman, S. D., Jenkins, B. N., Kraft-Feil, T. L., Rasmussen, H., &
Scheier, M. F. (2017). The whole is not the sum of its parts:
Specific types of positive affect influence sleep differentially.
Emotion, 17(5), 778-793. doi:10.1037/Emo0000256
Stair, E. (2014, October 28). Sounds like sleep [Web log post]. Retrieved
from http://blog.snoozester.com/sounds-like-sleep/