Select Page

Writing a Bibliography: APA Format-standard formats and examples

Below are standard formats and examples for basic bibliographic information recommended by the American Psychological Association (APA). To learn more about the APA format, see http://www.apastyle.org.

Your range of works cited should begin at the end of the paper on a new page with the centered title, References. Alphabetize the entries in your list by the author’s last name, using the letter-by-letter system (ignore spaces and other punctuation.) Just the initials of the first and names that are middle given. An, or The if the author’s name is unknown, alphabetize by the title, ignoring any A.

For dates, spell out the names of months into the text of one’s paper, but abbreviate them into the list of works cited, except for May, June, and July. Use either the style that is day-month-year22 July 1999) or the month-day-year style (July 22, 1999) and stay consistent. With the style that is month-day-year make domyhomework.services reviews sure to add a comma after the year unless another punctuation mark goes there.

Underlining or Italics?

When reports were written on typewriters, the true names of publications were underlined since most typewriters had no way to print italics. If you write a bibliography by hand, you should still underline the names of publications. But, then publication names should be in italics as they are below if you use a computer. Check always along with your instructor regarding their preference of utilizing italics or underlining. Our examples use italics.

Hanging Indentation

All APA citations should use hanging indents, that is, the very first line of an entry should always be left that is flush plus the second and subsequent lines should really be indented 1/2″.

Capitalization, Abbreviation, and Punctuation

The APA guidelines specify using capitalization that is sentence-style the titles of books or articles, so you should capitalize just the first word of a title and subtitle. The exceptions for this rule will be periodical titles and proper names in a title which will still be capitalized. The title that is periodical run in title case, and it is followed by the quantity number which, with all the title, is also italicized.

If there is more than one author, use an ampersand (&) before the name of the author that is last. If there are many more than six authors, list only the first one and use et al. for the remainder.

Put the date of publication in parentheses immediately after the true name associated with author. Place a period of time after the closing parenthesis. Try not to italicize, underline, or put quotes round the titles of shorter works within longer works.

Format Examples

Allen, T. (1974). Vanishing wildlife of United States. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society.

Boorstin, D. (1992). The creators: a reputation for the heroes of the imagination. New York: Random House.

Nicol, A. M., & Pexman, P. M. (1999). Presenting your findings: a guide that is practical creating tables. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Searles, B., & Last, M. (1979). A reader’s guide to science fiction. New York: Facts on File, Inc.

Toomer, J. (1988). Cane. Ed. Darwin T. Turner. New York: Norton.

Encyclopedia & Dictionary

Bergmann, P. G. (1993). Relativity. In the encyclopedia that is new (Vol. 26, pp. 501-508). Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica.

Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary (10th ed.). (1993). Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster.

Pettingill, O. S., Jr. (1980). Falcon and Falconry. World book encyclopedia. (pp. 150-155). Chicago: World Book.

Tobias, R. (1991). Thurber, James. Encyclopedia americana. (p. 600). New York: Scholastic Library Publishing.

Magazine & Newspaper Articles

Format: Author’s last name, first initial. (Publication date). Article title. Periodical title, volume number(issue number if available), inclusive pages.

Note: Do not enclose the title in quotation marks. Put an interval following the title. Then supply the page range (in regular type) without “pp. if a periodical includes a volume number, italicize it and” If the periodical will not use volume numbers, as with newspapers, use p. or pp. for page numbers. Note: Unlike other periodicals, p. or pp. precedes page numbers for a newspaper reference in APA style.

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

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

Kalette, D. (1986, 21) july. California town counts town to quake that is big. USA Today, 9, p. A1.

Kanfer, S. (1986, July 21). Heard any good books lately? Time, 113, 71-72.

Trillin, C. (1993, 15) february. Culture shopping. New Yorker, pp. 48-51.

Website or Webpage

Online document: Author’s name. (Date of publication). Title of work. Retrieved month day, year, from full URL

Note: When citing Internet sources, relate to the specific website document. If a document is undated, use “n.d.” (for no date) immediately after the document title. Break a lengthy URL that goes to another line after a slash or before a period. Continually check your references to online documents. There isn’t any period following a URL. Note: If you cannot find some of this information, cite what is present.

Devitt, T. (2001, August 2). Lightning injures four at music festival. The Why? Files. Retrieved January 23, 2002, from http://whyfiles.org/137lightning/index.html

Dove, R. (1998). Lady freedom among us. The Electronic Text Center. Retrieved 19, 1998, from Alderman Library, University of Virginia website: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/subjects/afam.html june

Note: If a document is contained within a sizable and website that is complexsuch as that for a university or a government agency), identify the host organization together with relevant program or department before giving the URL for the document itself. Precede the URL with a colon.