How do I cite in APA?
Answer
This table shows some of the top things to keep in mind when citing in APA 6 and 7. At the bottom are links to the APA 6 and APA 7 Quick Guides, which have example citations for the most common types of sources. You can find even more information on our APA 7 Style Guides!
| APA 7 | |
| At the top of the citations page... | References |
| Capitalization |
Capitalize the first word, first word after a colon, and proper nouns in titles: Focusing “upstream” to address maternal and child health inequities: Two local health departments in Washington State make the transition Capitalize all main words in a journal, magazine, or newspaper title: Maternal and Child Health Journal |
| Period or comma? |
Periods after author name(s), year, title, publishers, page numbers, and the end of print source citations. Commas after periodical title and volume/issue. |
| Italics |
Italicize titles of books, periodicals, webpages/websites, and volume |
| DOI, permalink, or URL? |
Use the DOI (format: https://doi.org/xxxxx). If there is no DOI, for most books or articles from library databases, do not list a URL. For other works, use a hyperlinked URL that links directly to the cited work. For more guidance, see the APA Style page for DOIs and URLs. |
| Author(s) |
Two authors: Gibbs, J. T., & Huang, L. Three to twenty authors: Franco, R., Schoneveld, O. J., Pappa, A., & Panayiotidis, M. I. More than twenty authors (list the first 19 authors, an ellipsis, then the last author): Gilbert, D. G., McClernon, J. F., Rabinovich, N. E., Sugai, C., Plath, L. C., Asgaard, G., Botros, N., . . . Li, I. |
| In text citations |
One author: (Walker, 2017) Two authors: (Dorris & Erdrich, 2014) Three or more authors (Wasserstein et al., 2005) Include the page number(s) for a direct quote: "Medical needs are met by those in the medical disciplines" (Csikai & Chaitin, 2006, p. 112). When there is no author, use the title (shorten it if it's long): ("Study Finds," 2017, pp. 1-2) For more examples see pages 264-265 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. |
| Secondary/indirect sources |
If you read a work by Lyon (2014) in which Rabbitt (1982) was cited, and you were unable to read Rabbitt's work yourself, list Lyon's work in the reference list. In the text, use the following citation: (Rabbitt, 1982, as cited in Lyon et al., 2014) If the year of the primary source is unknown, omit it from the in-text citation. …Allport's diary (as cited in Nicholson, 2003). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, p. 258 |
