APA - ENVS 200 - Writing the Environment - Library at Western Colorado University

APA Reference Examples

BOOKS

One Author:

Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. Publisher Name. DOI (if available)

Gleick, J. (1987). Chaos: Making a new science. Penguin.

Two Authors:

Calfee, R. C., & Valencia, R. R. (1991). APA guide to preparing manuscripts for journal publication. American Psychological Association.

Book with No Author:

Title (# ed.). (Year of Publication). Publisher.

Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary (11th ed.). (2003). Merriam- Webster.

Whole Edited Book:

Editor, E. E. (Ed.). (Year of publication). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. Publisher. DOI (if available)

Duncan, G. J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (Eds.). (1997). Consequences of growing up poor. Russell Sage Foundation.

Edited Book with an Author or Authors:

Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle (E. Editor, Ed.). Publisher. DOI (if available)

Plath, S. (2000). The unabridged journals (K. V. Kukil, Ed.). Anchor.

Edition Other Than the First:

Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle (# edition). Publisher. DOI (if available)

Helfer, M. E., Kempe, R. S., & Krugman, R. D. (1997). The battered child (5th ed.). University of Chicago Press.

PERIODICALS IN PRINT

Article in Journal Paginated by Volume:

Journals that are paginated by volume begin with page one in issue one, and continue numbering issue two where issue one ended, etc.

Harlow, H. F. (1983). Fundamentals for preparing psychology journal articles. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 55, 893-896.

Article in Journal Paginated by Issue:

Journals paginated by issue begin with page one every issue; therefore, the issue number gets indicated in parentheses after the volume. The parentheses and issue number are not italicized or underlined.

Scruton, R. (1996). The eclipse of listening. The New Criterion, 15(3), 5-13.

Article in a Magazine:

Henry, W. A., III. (1990, April 9). Making the grade in today's schools. Time, 135, 28-31.

PERIODICALS ONLINE

Journal Article:

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number(issue number), page range. DOI

Buhs, J. B. (2013). Camping with Bigfoot: Sasquatch and the varieties of middle-class resistance to consumer culture in late twentieth-century North America. Journal of Popular Culture, 46(1), 38–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpcu.12015

Magazine:

With issue & volume numbers:

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

Without issue & volume numbers:

Nasar, S., & Gruber, D. (2006, August 28). Manifold destiny. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/08/28/manifold-destiny

WEBPAGES

Webpage on a website with an individual author:

Author, A. (Year, Month Date of Publication). Title of webpage. Publisher. url

Desilver, D. (2023, November 22). Online shopping has grown rapidly in U.S., but most sales are still in stores. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/11/22/online-shopping-has-grown-rapidly-in-u-s-but-most-sales-are-still-in-stores/

Webpage on a website with an organizational group author:

Organization Name. (Year, Month Date of Publication). Title of webpage. Publisher. url

Leslie J. Savage Library (n.d.). Citations: APA. Western Colorado University. https://library.western.edu/lib/citations-apa

E-BOOKS

Use the same formats for both print books and ebooks. For ebooks, the format, platform, or device (e.g., Kindle) is not included in the reference.

Uncommon Citations in APA

YOUTUBE VIDEOS:

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of video [Video]. YouTube. URL

Example:

WSCUniversity. (2014, February 20). The Western Way [Video]. YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaWu3cCH1bo.

FILMS/MOVIES:

Director, D. D. (Director). (Date of publication). Title of motion picture [Film]. Production company.

Example:

Burton, T. (Director). (1994). Ed Wood [Film]. Touchstone.

PERSONAL INTERVIEWS:

In APA, no personal communication is included in your reference list; instead, parenthetically cite the communicator's name, the phrase "personal communication," and the date of the communication in your main text only.

Examples:

(E. Robbins, personal communication, January 4, 2001).

A. P. Smith also claimed that many of her students had difficulties with APA style (personal communication, November 3, 2002).

More APA Resources

APA - OWL at Purdue
A collection of tips and examples in APA style from the Online Writing Lab at Purdue.
APA Style from American Psychological Association
Quick tutorials & guides for basic APA style, as well as a the APA blog where you'll find the latest updates to the style manual.
How to Cite Something You Found on a Website
From the APA Style Blog.

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association by American Psychological Association
Call Number: BF76.7 .P83 2020
ISBN: 9781433832154
Publication Date: 2019-10-01
Located on the "Permanent Reserves" shelves behind the main desk.

Librarian

Emma Schmidtke

she / her / hers

Email Me

APA General Rules

Titles of works are in sentence case: Capitalize the first word, the first word after a colon, and any proper nouns. Otherwise, lowercase.
- Example: Modern library services: An overview of Leslie J. Savage Library
If available, APA 7 requires a DOI for all works that have one — whether print or digital. If a print work does not have a DOI do not include it in the reference citation.
- A DOI, or Digital Object Identifier, is a string of numbers, letters and symbols used to permanently identify an article or document and link to it on the web. A DOI will help your reader easily locate a document from your citation. Think of it like a Social Security number for the article you’re citing — it will always refer to that article, and only that one. While a web address (URL) might change, the DOI will never change.
URLs are optional. If you want to include the URL, place it at the end of the citation.

Basic Format for In-Text Citations:

Parenthetical citation: (Gleick, 1987)

Narrative citation: This is a fact, according to Gleick (1987).

If you are paraphrasing an idea from another work, you only have to make reference to the author and year of publication in your in-text reference and may omit the page numbers.

Leslie J. Savage Library

ENVS 200 - Writing the Environment: APA

ENVS 200