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APA 7: Reference List

Format the Reference List

The reference page provides information about the resources used in your paper. Except for a few exceptions (classical works and personal communications, etc.), any source cited in your paper must have an entry in the reference list. 

To format the reference page of the paper:

  1. Center the word References at the top of the page.

  2. Place your references in alphabetical order

  3. Select all of the references and set them to be double spaced and have a hanging indent.

Reference List

Journal Articles

General Format

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Article title. Journal Title, volume number(issue number), pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyy

Examples

Freeman, R., Doughty, J., Macdonald, M. E., & Muirhead, V. (2020). Inclusion oral health: Advancing a theoretical framework for policy, research and practice. Community Dentistry & Oral Epidemiology, 48(1), 1–6. https://doi-org.suscorp.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/cdoe.12500

Grady, J. S., Her, M., Moreno, G., Perez, C., & Yelinek, J. (2019). Emotions in storybooks: A comparison of storybooks that represent ethnic and racial groups in the United States. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 8(3), 207–217. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000185

Note: If the journal article does not have a DOI and is from an academic research database, end the reference after the page range. Do not include database information in the reference unless the journal article comes from a database that publishes works of limited circulation or original, proprietary content, such as UpToDate.

Newspaper Articles

General Format

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year, Month Day). Title of article. Title of Newspaper, pages.

Examples

Carey, B. (2019, March 22). Can we get better at forgetting? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/health/memory-forgetting-psychology.html

Rodell, B. (2020, January 15). Looking toward a new era of Australian cuisine. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/dining/australian-food-restaurants.html

Websites

Webpage with Author

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name. URL

National Institute of Mental Health. (2018, July). Anxiety disorders. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders/index.shtml

Woodyatt, A. (2019, September 10). Daytime naps once or twice a week may be linked to a healthy heart, researchers say. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/10/health/nap-heart-health-wellness-intl-scli/index.html

 

Website: No Author Listed

Title of page. (Year, Month Day). Site name. URL

Programming language. (2020, February 15). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_language

 

Webpage with an organization group author

Organization Name. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. URL

World Health Organization. (2018, May 24). The top 10 causes of death. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death

Magazine Articles

General Format

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year, Month Day). Article title. Magazine Title, volume number(issue number), pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyy

Examples

Lyons, D. (2009, June 15). Don’t ‘iTune’ us: It’s geeks versus writers. Guess who’s winning. Newsweek, 153(24), 27.

Schaefer, N. K., & Shapiro, B. (2019, September 6). New middle chapter in the story of human evolution. Science, 365(6457), 981–982. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aay3550

Schulman, M. (2019, September 9). Superfans: A love story. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/16/superfans-a-love-story

Books

General Format

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. Publisher Name.

  • Use the same format for both print books and ebooks.
  • Use the copyright date shown on the book’s copyright page as the year of publication in the reference, even if the copyright date is different than the release date.
  • Include any edition information in parentheses after the title, without italics.
  • If the book includes a DOI, include the DOI in the reference after the publisher name.

Whole Book

Rabinowitz, F. E. (2019). Deepening group psychotherapy with men: Stories and insights for the journey. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000132-000

Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst. Penguin Books.

Edited Book Chapter

Aron, L., Botella, M., & Lubart, T. (2019). Culinary arts: Talent and their development. In R. F. Subotnik, P. Olszewski-Kubilius, & F. C. Worrell (Eds.), The psychology of high performance: Developing human potential into domain-specific talent (pp. 345–359). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000120-016

Torino, G. C., Rivera, D. P., Capodilupo, C. M., Nadal, K. L., & Sue, D. W. (Eds.). (2019). Microaggression theory: Influence and implications. John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119466642

Images

General Format

Creator. (Year). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle [Type of work, e.g, Painting, Photograph, Sculpture, etc.]. Source name (usually the name of the website). URL.

Image with no attribution required

If the license associated with clip art or a stock image states “no attribution required,” then do not provide an APA Style reference, in-text citation, or copyright attribution. For example, an image from Pixabay might have a license that says the image is free to reproduce with no attribution required. To use the image as a figure in an APA Style paper, provide a figure number and title and then the image. If desired, describe the image in a figure note. In a presentation (such as a PowerPoint presentation), the figure number, title, and note are optional.

Figure 1
Beach on an island
Beach

Note. The study took place on an island in the Pacific Ocean.

Image requiring attribution

Figure 2

Dog in the snow

Dog in snow

Note. From Lava [Photograph], by Denali National Park and Preserve, 2013, Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/denalinps/8639280606/). CC BY 2.0.

In reference section:

Denali National Park and Preserve. (2013). Lava [Photograph]. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/denalinps/8639280606/


Artwork

van Gogh, V. (1889). The starry night [Painting]. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, United States. https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/vincent-van-gogh-the-starry-night-1889/

See the APA Style Guide website for details on how to cite using popular social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, TikTok, and Twitter.

Film

Director Last name, First initial. (Director).(Year). Film title [Film]. Production company or companies separated by a semicolon.

Fleming, V. (Director). (1939). Gone with the wind [Film]. Selznick International Pictures; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

TED Talk Video

Speaker Last name, First initial. (Year, Month Day). Talk title [Video]. TED Conferences. URL

Cuddy, A. (2012, June). Your body language may shape who you are [Video]. Ted Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_may_shape_who_you_are

TV Series

Executive producer Last name, First initial. (Executive Producer).(Years aired). Series title [TV Series]. Production company or companies separated by a semicolon.

Serling, R. (Executive Producer). (1959–1964). The twilight zone [TV series]. Cayuga Productions; CBS Productions.

YouTube Video

Name of the account. (Upload date Year, Month Day). Video title [Video]. YouTube. URL

Harvard University. (2019, August 28). Soft robotic gripper for jellyfish [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guRoWTYfxMs

Report by a Government Agency

Agency responsible for the report. (Year, Month Day). Report title. Parent agencies. URL

National Cancer Institute. (2019). Taking time: Support for people with cancer (NIH Publication No. 18-2059). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.cancer.gov/publications/patient-education/takingtime.pdf

  • Parenthetical citation: (National Cancer Institute, 2019)
  • Narrative citation: National Cancer Institute (2019)