Author
Today, scientific articles can have many authors due to large-scale experiments run by large teams. In some research areas, an article can even have hundreds of authors! Generally, the first author is considered the lead author, so when citing it is important not to change the order co-authors are listed in. For details on how to balance efficiency and accuracy when citing academic articles with long lists of authors, see the various examples on this page.
Titles
Italicize titles of journals, magazines and newspapers. Do not italicize the titles of articles.
Capitalize only the first letter of the first word of the article title. If there is a colon in the article title, also capitalize the first letter of the first word after the colon.
Dates
If an item has no date, use the short form n.d. where you would normally put the date.
Volume and Issue Numbers
Italicize volume numbers but not issue numbers
Retrieval Dates
Most articles will not need these in the citation. Only use them for online articles from places where content may change often, such as a social media site like Academia.edu.
Page Numbers
If an article doesn't appear on continuous pages, list all the page numbers the article is on, separated by commas. For example (4, 6, 12-14)
Not sure whether your article is from a journal? Look for these characteristics:
Articles may also come from magazines or newspapers.
DOI Numbers in Library Databases
Some electronic content is assigned a unique number called a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). If a DOI is provided for a journal article, include it after the page numbers of the article as a hyperlink - https://doi.org/xxxxx
You do not need to put a period after a DOI number.
Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year of Publication). Title of article: Subtitle if any. Name of Journal, Volume Number(Issue Number), first page number-last page number. DOI formatted as a hyperlink
| Example |
Bailey, N.W. (2012). Evolutionary models of extended phenotypes. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 27(3), 561-569. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000126 |
| In-Text Paraphrase |
(Author's Last Name, Year) Example: (Bailey, 2012) |
| In-Text Quote |
(Author's Last Name, Year, p. Page Number) (Bailey, 2012, p. 562) |
Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given., & Last Name of Second Author, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year of Publication). Title of article: Subtitle if any. Name of Journal, Volume Number(Issue Number), first page number-last page number. DOI formatted as a hyperlink
Note: Separate the authors' names by putting a comma between them. For the final author listed add an ampersand (&) after the comma and before the final author's last name.
| Example |
Pempek, T.A., Yermolayeva, Y.A., & Calvert, S.L. (2009). College students' social networking experiences on Facebook. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 3(2), 227-238. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2008.12.010t |
| In-Text | See Chart Below |
Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year of Publication). Title of article: Subtitle if any. Name of Journal, Volume Number(Issue Number), first page number-last page number.
Note: The APA Manual (7th ed.) recommends not including the database or the URL of the journal home page for online articles without a DOI.
| Example |
Carlisle, D. (2012). In the line of fire. Nursing Standard, 26(39), 18-19. |
| In-Text Paraphrase |
(Author's Last Name, Year) Example: (Carlisle, 2012) |
| In-Text Quote |
(Author's Last Name, Year, p. Page Number) Example: (Carlisle, 2012, p. 18) |
Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given., & Last Name of Second Author, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year of Publication). Title of article: Subtitle if any. Name of Journal, Volume Number(Issue Number), first page number-last page number if given.
Note: In the reference list invert all authors' names; give last names and initials for only up to and including twenty authors. When a source has twenty-one or more authors, include the first twenty authors’ names, then three ellipses (…), and add the last author’s name.
Note: The APA Manual (7th ed.) recommends not including the library database for journal articles without a DOI as these works are widely available.
| Example |
Bogan, E., & Paun, E. (2011). The assimilation of immigrants into the British labor market. Geopolitics, History, and International Relations, 3(2), 272. |
| In-Text | See Chart Below |
Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year of Publication). Title of article: Subtitle if any. Name of Journal, Volume Number(Issue Number if given), first page number-last page number if given. URL
| Example |
Flachs, A. (2010). Food for thought: The social impact of community gardens in the Greater Cleveland Area. Electronic Green Journal, 1(30). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6bh7j4z4 |
| In-Text Paraphrase |
(Author's Last Name, Year) (Flachs, 2010) |
| In-Text Quote |
(Author's Last Name, Year, p. Page Number) Example: (Flachs, 2010, Conclusion section, para. 3) Note: In this example there were no visible page numbers or paragraph numbers, so you can cite the section heading and the number of the paragraph in that section to identify where your quote came from. |
Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year of Publication). Title of article: Subtitle if any.
| Example |
Jungers, W.L. (2010). Biomechanics: Barefoot running strikes back. Nature, 463(2), 433-434. |
| In-Text Paraphrase |
(Author's Last Name, Year) Example: (Jungers, 2010) |
| In-Text Quote |
(Author's Last Name, Year, p. Page number) Example: (Jungers, 2010, p. 433) |
When a journal article has twenty-one or more authors:
References List
List the first nineteen authors followed by three spaced ellipse points (. . .) , and then the last author's name.
| Example |
Kalnay, E., Kanamitsu, M., Kistler, R., Collins, W., Deaven, D., Gandin, L., Iredell, M., Sha, S., White, G., Woollen, J., Zhu, Y., Chelliah, M., Ebisuzaki, W., Higgins, W., Janowiak, J., Mo, K. C., Ropepelewski, C., Wang, J., Leetmaa, A., ... Joesph, D. (1996). The NCEP/NCAR 40-year reanalysis project. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 77(3), 437-471. https://doi.org/fg6rf9 |
| In-Text Paraphrase |
(First author's last name et al., Year) Example: (Nilsson et al., 2016) |
| In-Text Quote |
(First author's last name et al., Year, p. Page number quote is from) Example: (Nilsson et al., 2016, p. 103) |
| Number of Authors/Editors | First Time Paraphrased | Second and Subsequent Times Paraphrased | First Time Quoting | Second and Subsequent Times Quoting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Two |
(Case & Daristotle, 2011) |
(Case & Daristotle, 2011) |
(Case & Daristotle, 2011, p. 57) | (Case & Daristotle, 2011, p. 57) |
| Three or more |
(Case et al.,2011) |
(Case et al., 2011) | (Case et al., 2011, p. 57) | (Case et al., 2011, p. 57) |
| Type of Group | First Time Paraphrased | Second and Subsequent Times Paraphrased | First Time Quoting | Second and Subsequent Times Quoting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Groups readily identified through abbreviations |
(National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2003) |
(NIMH, 2003) |
(National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2003, p. 5) | (NIMH, 2003, p. 5) |
| Groups with no abbreviations | (University of Pittsburgh, 2005) | (University of Pittsburgh, 2005) | (University of Pittsburgh, 2005, p. 2) | (University of Pittsburgh, 2005, p. 2) |
When you are citing two different sources that share the same author and year of publication, assign lowercase letters after the year of publication (a, b, c, etc.). Assign these letters according to which title comes first alphabetically. Use these letters in both in-text citations and the Reference list.
Example In-Text:
Paraphrasing content from first source by this author (Daristotle, 2015a). "Now I am quoting from the second source by the same author" (Daristotle, 2015b, p. 50).
Example Reference List entries:
Daristotle, J. (2015a). Name of first article. Made Up Journal, 26(39), 18-19.
Daristotle, J. (2015b). Title of second article. Another Made Up Journal, 35(1), 48-55.