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APA - How to cite sources in American Psychological Association Format

This guide is designed to help you with your APA questions.

Citing Journal Articles

Note: Citations with more than one line of text should have a hanging indent of 1/2 inch or 5 spaces.

Scholarly journal article:

Blattner, J., & Bacigalupo, A. (2007). Using emotional intelligence to develop executive leadership and team and organizational development. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 59(3), 209-219. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1065-9293.59.3.209

In Text (Paraphrase) - (Blattner & Bacigalupo (2007)

In Text (Quotation) - (Blattner & Bacigalupo, 2007, p. 30)

Important Elements:

  • Author (last name, initials only for first & middle names)
  • Date of publication of article (year and month for monthly publications; year, month and day for daily or weekly publications)
  • Title of article (capitalize only the first word of title and subtitle, and proper nouns)
  • Title of publication in italics (i.e., Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Newsweek, New York Times)
  • Volume number in italics and issue number, if given
  • Page numbers of article, if given
  • For articles retrieved online, include DOI, if available. Includes URLs only if they will work for readers. For articles retrieved through a database, do not include the database information or URL in the reference. For more information, see the APA Style and Grammar Guidelines pages on databases and DOIs and URLs. 

In APA, in-text citations are inserted in the body of your research paper to briefly document the source of your information. Brief in-text citations point the reader to more complete information in the reference list at the end of the paper.

  • In-text citations include the last name of the author followed by a comma and the publication year enclosed in parentheses: (Makhubu, 2021).
  • If you are quoting directly, the page number should be included, if there is a page number: (Louie, 2023, p. 117)
  • If you are paraphrasing, the page number is not required.
  • If the author's name is not given, then use the first word or words of the title. Follow the same formatting that was used in the title, such as italics or quotation marks: ("For California couple," 2024)

For more examples, see the APA Style and Grammar Guidelines entries for magazine, newspaper, and scholarly journal articles. 

Magazine article:

Swedin, E. G.  (2006, May/June). Designing babies: A eugenics race with China? The Futurist, 40, 18-21.

Will, G. F. (2004, July 5). Waging war on Wal-Mart. Newsweek, 144, 64.

Duhigg, C. (2019, October 10). Is Amazon unstoppable? The New Yorker.  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/21/is-amazon-unstoppable.

In Text Paraphrase: 

(Author's Last Name, Year)

Example: (Abramsky, 2012)

In Text Quote: 

(Author's Last Name, Year, p. Page Number)

Example: (Abramsky, 2012, p. 14)

Newspaper article:

Dougherty, R. (2006, January 11). Jury convicts' man in drunk driving death. Centre Daily Times, p. 1A.

Laber-Warren, E. (2019, October 17). You're only as old as you feel. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/well/mind/age-subjective-feeling-old.html

 

Book Review:

Rifkind, D. (2005, April 10). Breaking their vows. [Review of the book The mermaid chair, by S.M. Kidd]. Washington Post, p. T6.