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APA Style 7th Edition: Citing Your Sources

Provide guidance on APA format style based on the 7th edition of the APA Publication Manual.

Formatting Rules

Keep in mind the following guidelines:

  • References cited in text must appear in the reference list and vice versa (exception for personal communication which is not included in a Reference list).
  • Make sure that all citation information (names of authors, titles, volume and issue numbers, edition number, page numbers, publisher name and location information) is correct.
  • All authors' names should be inverted (i.e., last names should be provided first).
  • Authors' first and middle names should be written as initials
  • When listing titles, the only words you should capitalize are the first word of the title, the first word of the subtitle (if there is one), and proper nouns (Oregon, Eleanor Roosevelt). 
  • The following should be italicized:  Titles of books, ebooks, newspapers, journals, magazines, movies, dissertation/thesis, films, videos, television series, podcasts, YouTube videos, artwork, maps, music albums and unpublished manuscripts.  Additionally, volumes of journals are also italicized.
  • Reference lists must be double-spaced, with a hanging indent.

Order of References in Reference List

  • Alphabetize letter by letter
  • Alphabetize prefixes such as Mc and Mac literally
  • Alphabetize surnames that contain articles and prepositions (de, la, du, von, etc.) according to the rules of the language of origin
  • Alphabetize items with numerals as if the numerals were spelled out
  • Alphabetize group authors such as associations or agencies by the first significant word of the name, and use the full official name, not an acronym
  • If the author is designated as Anonymous, then the entry is alphabetized as if Anonymous were a true name
  • If there is no author, the entry is alphabetized by the first significant word in the title