About APA

This guide is based on the 7th edition of the APA's style rules which are set out in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition.

The full style manual is not available as a library eBook. Print copies are available from the University of Melbourne library. Consult the official manual for more information.

For more information:

1. Information about In-Text Citations and References are also available on the APA Style website.
2. APA Style Blog https://apastyle.apa.org/blog

If there is no author include the title and the year in the in-text citation.  If the title is italicised in the reference list, it should also be italicised in the in-text citation. The title should be written in title case in the in-text citation, even if it is in sentence case in the reference list.

For example: (The Epic of Gilgamesh,  2022)

See APA Manual Section 8.14 pp.264-265

• For two authors, cite the family name of each author, separated by an ampersand,  followed by the year. eg. Nguyen & Um, 2020
• With three or more authors, cite only the surname of the first author followed by et al. and the year.
• When two sources would both abbreviate to the same “et al.” form, include as many surnames as needed to differentiate between them. If two or more sources have an identical author/authors and publication year, add letters to the years, e.g. (Smith, 1991a).

Use the name of the group or organisation as the author,  for example:

(Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2007)

If the abbreviated form of the organisation name is well known, it can be used in the in-text citations if you are going to cite the organisation at least three times. (APA Manual 8.21 p.268)

For example:

(OECD, 2007)

• When multiple references have the  same author/s and year of publication, include a lowercase letter after the year. This combination of year and letter is used in both the in-text citation and the reference list.  e.g., (Pascoe,  2023a), (Pascoe, 2023b).

These notes apply to the word-for-word reproduction from another author's work.

The quote is fewer than 40 words

• If the quote is fewer than 40 words, incorporate it into the text and use double quotation marks.
• Always provide author, year, and page number or paragraph number for non-paginated material, e.g.

  According to Palladino and Wade (2010), "a flexible mind is a healthy mind" (p. 147).

  In 2010, Palladino and Wade noted that "a flexible mind is a healthy mind" (p. 147).

  "A flexible mind is a healthy mind," according to Palladino and Wade's (2010, p. 147) longitudinal study.

• List the complete reference in the bibliography
• If the quote is at the end of a sentence, close the quote with quotation marks, cite the source in brackets after the quotation marks, and place a full stop after the bracket, e.g.

  In fact, "a flexible mind is a healthy mind" (Palladino & Wade, 2010, p. 147).

• If the quote is more than 40 words, display in a freestanding block of text and omit the quotation marks.
• Start the quote on a new line, and indent about half and inch (equal to a tab space or 1.27cm) from the left margin (in the same position as a new paragraph).
• If there are additional paragraphs in the same quote, indent the first line of each by half an inch (one tab space).
• Double-space the entire quotation. Cite the quoted source, page or paragraph number in brackets after the final punctuation mark.
• Use p. for a single page number (Example: p. 15) and pp. for multiple page numbers (Examples: pp. 125-126).
• If citing an online source without page numbers, cite the paragraph number (Example: para. 4).
• When citing multiple authors after a quotation use the ampersand symbol '&' instead of the word 'and'.
• If the quoted source is cited and included in the introductory sentence only the page or paragraph number is required at the end of the quotation.

Example

Jones's (1998) study found the following:
Students often had difficulty using APA style especially when it was their first time citing source. This difficulty could be attributed to the fact that many students failed to purchase a style manual or ask their teacher for help. (p. 199)

Block quote with author at beginning

Lyoob, Rossetti and Chen (2013) noted:
Many software providers take advantage of these developing technologies to provide new cloud computing services or transform their existing products to the cloud. Since the term cloud could refer to any infrastructure, platform or software that serves for cloud computing, every component in the cloud may be provided as a service. (p. 34)

Block quote with author at the end

Cyber threats are not the only challenge to cloud computing:
While security has been a major topic of interest, reliability is a much bigger concern. Cloud computing is based on Internet access, so a fast and constant Internet connection is critical to cloud computing solutions. Therefore, it is imperative to ensure the enterprise's connectivity to the Internet is well-established and that there are backup connections in case of connectivity failure. (Lyoob, Rosetti, & Chen, 2013 pp. 35-36)

• List author year and page number in brackets
• If paragraph numbers are available, use these when page numbers are absent
• Use the abbreviation para, e.g.

  Basu and Jones (2007) went so far as to suggest the need for a new "intellectual framework in which to consider the nature and form of regulation in cyberspace " (para. 4).

• If a subheading is available but no paragraph or page numbers, cite the heading and the numbers of the paragraph following it, e.g.

  In their study, Verbunt, Pernot, and Smeets (2008) found that "the level of perceived disability in patients with fibromyalgia seemed best explained by their mental health condition and less by their physical condition " (Discussion section, para. 1).

• If the subheading is too long and unwieldy to use (and there is no paragraph or page numbers) a short title enclosed in quotation marks will suffice, e.g.

  "Empirical studies have found mixed results on the efficacy of labels in education consumers and changing consumption behaviour " (Golan, Kuchler, & Kirssof, 2007, "Mandatory Labelling Has Targeted, " para. 4).

• To cite an entire website or a Facebook or Twitter feed as a whole or to discuss it in general, you need only to provide the site URL in parentheses in the text; there is no need for a reference list entry.
• A detailed discussion of important sources hosted on webpages, requires a reference list entry in addition to the in-text citation.

• For classical, major religious and very old works not included in the reference list, give the year of the translation or version that you used, with the word trans. or version, and give section numbers rather than page numbers, e.g., (Aristotle, trans. 1931); 1 Cor. 13:1 (Revised Standard Version). When the date of the original publication is available, include that date, e.g., James (1890/1983).

For more information and examples, see the APA Style Blog

• Order the reference list alphabetically by author surnames:
  • Where an item has no author it is cited by its title, and ordered in the reference list alphabetically by the first significant word of the title (not A or The) .
  • References by the same single or multiple authors are arranged by year of publication, the earliest first, e.g.,
    • Hong, B.H. & Yeung, K.L. (2001)
    • Hong, B.H. & Yeung, K.L. (2009)
  • References with the same first author and different second or third author are arranged alphabetically by the surname of the second author, or if the same, third, and so on, e.g.,
    • Brown, J., Gold, F., & Black, L. (2007)
    • Brown, J., Gold, F., & Greene, H. (2006)
  • References by the same author (or by the same two or more authors in the same order) with the same publication date are arranged alphabetically by the title (excluding A or The) that follows the date. Lower case letters – a, b, c – are placed immediately after the year in parentheses.
    • Smith, J.R. (2008a)
    • Smith, J.R. (2008b)

If a work has no author, use the first significant word of the title (ie. not "The", "A", "An") to determine its alphabetical order in the reference list.

Spell the name of the group out in full in the reference list.  The  group or organisation name determines its alphabetical order in the reference list. (Ignore "The")

For example:

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2007). Babies and bosses: Reconciling work and family life: A synthesis of findings for OECD countries. OECD Publishing.

• For a work with two authors, separate the author family name and initials with and ampersand, eg. Nguyen, C. & Um,  Y. (2020)...
• For a work with up to 20 authors, include all of the names in the reference. When the work has 21 or more authors, include only the first 19 names, an ellipsis(...), and the final name. (see section 9.8, p.286 of the APA Manual).

• When multiple references have the  same author/s and year of publication, include a lowercase letter after the year. This combination of year and letter is used in both the in-text citation and the reference list.  e.g.,
Pascoe, K. M. (2023a). Social workers’ Experiences of Bureaucracy: A Systematic Synthesis of Qualitative Studies. The British Journal of Social Work, 53(1), 513–533. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcac106
Pascoe, K. M. (2023b). Using Life-history Maps to Support Students in Connecting Theory to Practice: A Case study of a Social Work Teaching Intervention. Social Work Education, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2023.2283044

• APA requires that the reference list be double-spaced
• Entries in the reference list should have a hanging indent (the second and subsequent lines of the reference must be indented five spaces.) e.g.

American Psychological Association (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington D.C: Author.

• Book titles are italicised, e.g., Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. Chapter or section titles within a larger work are not italicised.
• Translated works: if you used the non-English version of a work, cite using the original title and immediately following that title, give the English translation in brackets. If you used the English translation, just cite the English translation.
• Give the publication date (the year the work was copyrighted) in brackets, e.g., (2009). Note: APA uses brackets (…) for standard parts of a reference, e.g., the year of publication, and square brackets […] for information that you have inserted, e.g., format information such as [Audio podcast].
• Inclusive page numbers for all articles and chapters in books should be included in the reference list.
• List page numbers in full (e.g., 132-135, not 132-5).
• Electronic sources: in general, include the same elements, in the same order, as you would for a reference to a printed source and add as much information as needed for others to locate the source.
• DOIs and URLs should both be presented as hyperlinks, i.e. beginning with 'http' or 'https'.

• Journal titles in the reference list must be italicised and be given in title case; do not abbreviate titles (e.g., Journal of Immunology, not J Immunol). Article titles are not italicised.

• Acceptable abbreviations in the reference list for parts of books and other publications include:

  ed.	edition
  Rev.ed.	revised edition
  2nd ed.	second edition
  Ed. ( Eds.)	Editor (Editors)
  Trans.	Translator(s)
  n.d.	no date
  p. (pp)	page (pages)
  Vol.	Volume (as in Vol. 4)
  Vols.	Volume (as in Vols. 1-4)
  No.	Number
  Pt.	Part
  Suppl.	Supplement
  Tech. Rep.	Technical report

There should be correspondence between references cited in the text and those listed in the reference list. Also, all references listed in the reference list must be cited in the text.

There are exceptions for the following, which are only cited in the text:

• Personal communications, such as letters, informal email, or private social media posts
• Classical works or major religious texts
• Web sites or Facebook orTwitter feeds when discussed as a whole.

Important references hosted within webpages, such as government reports, must be included in the reference list.

• If the journal does not use volume, issue, article or page numbers, leave those elements out of the reference
• If the elements (volume, issue, page numbers etc) have not yet been assigned, use the format for advance online publication.
• For more information on what to do if information is missing from a reference,  see the APA style blog entry.