Reference lists in APA are arranged alphabetically by author.
When citing sources in the reference list, invert all authors’ names. Give surnames and initials for up to seven authors. When author number exceeds seven, include the first six authors’ name. Then insert three ellipsis points and add the last author’s name.
The following examples are based on information provided in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Six Edition. Or, access the Quick Answers.
Entire book
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of work: Subtitle (edition.)<if not the first>. Location: Publisher.
Editor, A. A. (Ed.). (Year). Title of work: Subtitle. Location: Publisher.
Chan, T. C., & Sin, H. (2009). Construction project management: From theory to practice. Singapore: Prentice Hall.
Gibert, D. G., McClernon, J. F., Rabinovich, N. E., Sugai, C., Plath, L. C., Asgaard, G., Botros, N. (2004). Television: The critical view (5th ed.).
Singapore: Prentice Hall.
Note: Capitalize only the first word of the title and of the subtitle, and any proper nouns.
Book chapter - in an edited book which contains a collection of chapters written by different authors and collated by editor(s)
Author of Part, A. A., & Author of Part, B. B. (Year). Title of chapter. In A. A. Editor & B. B. Editor (Eds.), Title of book: Subtitle of book (pp. xxx-xxx). Location: Publisher.
Amtenbrink, F. (2011). Securing financial independence in the legal basis of a central bank. In S. Milton & P. J. N. Sinclair (Eds.), The capital needs of central banks(pp. 83-95). New York, NY: Routledge.
Note: Italicize the book title, but not the chapter/part title.
Journal article
Article Author, A. A., & Article Author, B. B. (Year). Title of article: Subtitle of article. Title of Journal, volume number(issue number if necessary), pp-pp. doi:xx.xxxxxxxxxx
Sperry, R. W. (1986). Science, values, and survival. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 26(2), 8-24. doi:10.1177/0022167886262002
Stanev, E. V. & Kandilarov, R. (2012). Sediment dynamics in the Black Sea: Numerical modelling and remote sensing observations. Ocean Dynamics, 62, 533-53.
Note: Capitalize all the major words in the journal title. Italicize the journal title and volume number. Issue number is not given if page numbers are continuous throughout an annual volume (i.e. issue number is given only when each new issue starts on page 1). For example, the second article above is in vol. 62, issue 4, but issue 4 does not start on page 1. The issue number is therefore not given in the citation.
Online journal article
Article Author, A. A., & Article Author, B. B. (Year). Title of article: Subtitle of article. Title of Journal, volume number(issue number if necessary), pp-pp. doi:xx.xxxxxxxxxx <or Retrieved from Internet address>
Sperry, R. W. (1986). Science, values, and survival. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 26(2), 8-24. doi:10.1177/0022167886262002
Ogletree, S. M. (2012). Pats on the back or pointing the finger: Judgments of praise and blame. E-Journal of Applied Psychology, 8(1), 18-24. Retrieved from http://ojs.lib.swin.edu.au/index.pho/ejap
Newspaper article
Article Author, A. A. (Year, Month date). Title of article. Title of Newspaper, pp-pp.
Schwartz, J. (1993, September 30). Obesity affects economics, social status. The Washington Post, pp. A1, A4.
Harrabin, R. (2003, July 2). Dyslexics turn to coloured specs. BBC News. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/
Doctoral dissertation or master's thesis available from a database service
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of dissertation or thesis (Doctoral dissertation or master's thesis). Retrieved from Name of database. (Accession or Order No.)
Francis, J. (2001). Essays on globalization, unemployment, and economic geography (Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses A&I. (UMI No. 3009107)
Unpublished dissertation or thesis
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of dissertation or thesis (Unpublished doctoral dissertation or master's thesis). Name of Institution, Location.
Chow, E. P. (2010). Decade of challenge: Youth elite sports development in Hong Kong (Unpublished master’s thesis). City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Internet document or website
Author, A. A. (Year). Title: Subtitle. Retrieved from Source or supplier information: http://www.xxxx
Antipolis, S. (2008). Essential step achieved in the creation of the European Air Traffic Management Network. Retrieved from European Telecommunications Standards Institute website: http://www.etsi.org/file259803.htm
City University of Hong Kong. (2012). Rules on academic honesty: Effective from semester A 2012/13. Retrieved from http://www.cityu.edu.hk/provost/academic_honesty/rules_on_academic_honesty.htm
Healthy eating for a healthy weight. (n.d.). Retrieved from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website: http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/healthy_eating/index.html
Note: If there is no author, title moves to the first position. When no date is available, "n.d." replaces the date.
Online video file
Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of video [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.xxxx
BirdTricks. (2008, April 27). Tips for training a parrot to talk [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=89dZNPPYOdk
Online forum, blog, newsgroup
Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of post [Description of form]. Retrieved from http://www.xxxx
Rampersad, T. (2005, June 8). Re: Traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions [Online forum comment]. Retrieved from http://www.wipo.int/roller/comments/ipisforum/Weblog/theme_eight_how_can_cultural#comments
*** Please note that the guidelines for citing articles retrieved from databases can often call for the author to use his or her own judgment on whether or not to provide a URL or database name. Most often, a DOI will be provided. For more detailed information about citing databases in your List of References, consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, p. 198-199.
MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities.
Begin your Works Cited page on a separate page at the end of your research paper. It should have the same one-inch margins and last name, page number header as the rest of your paper.
Label the page Works Cited (do not italicize the words Works Cited or put them in quotation marks) and center the words Works Cited at the top of the page.
Double space all citations, but do not skip spaces between entries.
Indent the second and subsequent lines of citations by 0.5 inches to create a hanging indent.
List page numbers of sources efficiently, when needed. If you refer to a journal article that appeared on pages 225 through 250, list the page numbers on your Works Cited page as 225-250. Note that MLA style uses a hyphen in a span of pages.
If you're citing an article or a publication that was originally issued in print form but that you retrieved from an online database, you should type the online database name in italics. You do not need to provide subscription information in addition to the database name.
Additional basic rules new to MLA 2016
For online sources, you should include a location to show readers where you found the source. Many scholarly databases use a DOI (digital object identifier). Use a DOI in your citation if you can; otherwise use a URL. Delete “http://” from URLs. The DOI or URL is usually the last element in a citation and should be followed by a period.
All works cited entries end with a period.
A scholarly journal can be thought of as a container, as are collections of short stories or poems, a television series, or even a website. A container can be thought of as anything that is a part of a larger body of works. In this case, cite the author and title of article as you normally would. Then, put the title of the journal in italics. Include the volume number (“vol.”) and issue number (“no.”) when possible, separated by commas. Finally, add the year and page numbers.
Examples:
Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Journal, Volume, Issue, Year, pages.
Bagchi, Alaknanda. "Conflicting Nationalisms: The Voice of the Subaltern in Mahasweta Devi's Bashai Tudu." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, vol. 15, no. 1, 1996, pp. 41-50.
Duvall, John N. "The (Super)Marketplace of Images: Television as Unmediated Mediation in DeLillo's White Noise." Arizona Quarterly, vol. 50, no. 3, 1994, pp. 127-53.
Case, Sue-Ellen. “Eve's Apple, or Women's Narrative Bytes.” Technocriticism and Hypernarrative, special issue of Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 43, no. 3, 1997, pp. 631-50. Project Muse, doi:10.1353/mfs.1997.0056.
The author’s name or a book with a single author's name appears in last name, first name format. The basic form for a book citation is:
Examples:
Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Date.
*Note: the City of Publication should only be used if the book was published before 1900, if the publisher has offices in more than one country, or if the publisher is unknown outside North America.
Henley, Patricia. The Hummingbird House. MacMurray, 1999.
Gillespie, Paula, and Neal Lerner. The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring. Allyn and Bacon, 2000.
Personal interviews refer to those interviews that you conduct yourself. List the interview by the name of the interviewee. Include the descriptor Personal interview and the date of the interview.
Smith, Jane. Personal interview. 19 May 2014.
List films by their title. Include the name of the director, the film studio or distributor, and the release year. If relevant, list performer names after the director's name.
The Usual Suspects. Directed by Bryan Singer, performances by Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Stephen Baldwin, and Benicio del Toro, Polygram, 1995.
For Print sources like books, magazines, scholarly journal articles, and newspapers, provide a signal word or phrase (usually the author’s last name) and a page number. If you provide the signal word/phrase in the sentence, you do not need to include it in the parenthetical citation.
Examples:
Human beings have been described by Kenneth Burke as "symbol-using animals" (3).
Human beings have been described as "symbol-using animals" (Burke 3).
These examples must correspond to an entry that begins with Burke, which will be the first thing that appears on the left-hand margin of an entry in the Works Cited:
Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method. Berkeley: U of California P, 1966.
