Skip to Main Content

Ely Library at Westfield State University

Academic Calendar Bookstore Class cancellations How do I Registrar Technology support University catalog My Westfield Email Plato - Online learning Emloyee self-service Online service Request space Copy Center Store Library home Westfield State University home page Image Map

Citation Guides: How to Document Information: Creating a Reference List

This guide is based on the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th ed.

About this guide

This guide is based on the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th ed.

For more details and examples, consult the APA publication manual in Ely Library Reference (REF BF76.7 B83 2020 c.2).

 

Authors

This guide is based on the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th ed.

For more details and examples, consult the APA Publication Manual in Ely Library Reference (REF BF76.7 B83 2020 c.2).

 

Use these formats when citing authors in a reference list. Surnames are listed first, followed by a comma and the author’s initials.

Single Author

Schwartz, J. A.

Multiple Authors...up to 20 authors

List all authors and separate with a comma. Include an ampersand (&) before the last author.

Herbst-Damm, K. L., & Kulik, J. A.
Chamberlin, J., Novotney, A., Packard, E., & Price, M.

More Than 20 Authors

List the first 19 authors, followed by three ellipsis points (no ampersand) and add the last author.

Gilbert, D. G., McClernon, J. F., Rabinovich, N. E., Sugai, C., Plath, L. C., Asgaard, G., . . . Botros, N.

Books

This guide is based on the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th ed.

For more details and examples, consult the APA Publication Manual in Ely Library Reference (REF BF76.7 B83 2020 c.2).

 

Basic Format

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

Note: The title of the book is italicized.

 

Basic Examples

Adams, F. L., Cantor, P., Hoctor, C., Johnson, P. A., Mulroy, S. A., & Peters, M. T. (2001). Raising large families in the 21st century. Pages Press.

Glister, P. (1993). The internet navigator (2nd ed). New York: Wiley.

Wallach, M. A., & Wallach, L. (1983). Psychology’s sanction for selfishness: The error of egoism in theory and therapy. W. H. Freeman.

 

Books that are Edited

Hollin, C. (Ed.). (1995). Contemporary psychology: An introduction. Taylor & Francis.

 

Books by a Group (or Corporate) Author

American Medical Association. (1989). The American Medical Association encyclopedia of medicine. Random House.

 

Books with No Author or Editor

Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary (10th ed.). (1993).  Merriam-Webster.

 

Electronic Books with an Author and a DOI

Brown, L.S. (2018). Global economics (4th ed.). Random House. https://doi.org/10.1027/0000081-000

 

Authored Books without a DOI from most academic research databases or print version

Burgess, R. (2019). Rethinking public health: Frameworks and solutions. Routledge.

 

Article or Chapter in an Edited Book

Chowning, J. (1999). Perceptual fusion and auditory perspective. In P. R. Cook (Ed.), Music, cognition, and computerized sound: An introduction to psychoacoustics (pp. 261-275). MIT Press.

 

Chapter in an edited electronic book with a DOI

Balsam, K.F., Martell, C.R., Jones, K. P., & Saffren, S. A. (2019). Affirmative cognitive behavior therapy. In G. Y. Iwamasa & P. A. Hays (Eds.), Culturally responsive cognitive behavior therapy: Practice and supervision (2nd ed., pp.299-314). American Psychological Association. https://dpo.org/10.1027/00000129-210

 

Entry in a Reference Book (signed entry)

Bergman, P. G. (1993). Relativity. In The new encyclopaedia britannica (Vol. 26, pp. 501-508).  Encyclopaedia Britannica.

 

Entry in a Reference Book (unsigned entry)

Relativity. (1995). In The Penguin dictionary of psychology (2nd. Ed., p. 658). Penguin Books.

Web Pages

Elements

  • Author: Usually found at the top or bottom of the web page. Look for: Author, Compiler/Compiled by, Maintainer/Maintained by. If author is not available, begin your citation with the web page title.
  • Publication Date: Usually found at the end of the document. Use the last update if available. Use the copyright date if available. If the month and day are given, include them. If a publication date is not available, use n.d. (no date).
  • Web Page Title: Give the title of the web page here. If you are citing a specific article within a larger web site, give the title of the article and the name of the larger web site.
  • URL: "Uniform Resource Locator" is the web address of your document. It is found at the top right corner of your printout or in the "Location" bar on your web browser. Take care in transcribing the URL. Copying and pasting is recommended. Whenever possible, the URL should take the reader directly to the document you are citing. If this is not possible, the URL should take the reader as close to the document as possible.

Basic Format

Author, A. A. (Date of publication). Title of Page/Document. Retrieved from URL

Note: The title of the page/document is italicized.
Note: n.d. indicates that no publication date is available.

 

Web page without an author

GVU’s 8th WWW user survey. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/users_surveys/survey-1997-10/

Web page authored by an organization

Greater New Milford (Ct) Area Healthy Community 2000, Task Force on Teen and Adolescent Issues. (n.d.). Who has time for a family meal? You do! Retrieved from http://www.familymealtime.org

 

Citing web pages in text

  • Citation includes author's name, year of publication, then page numbers if available.
  • If your source lacks an author, cite the first one or two words of the title.
  • If no date is given, place "n.d." after the author’s name.
  • note on page numbers: Web documents often don't have page numbers. When a web page lacks numbering, omit page numbers from your parenthetical references. Do not use page numbers generated on a print-out of the web document. PDF files found on the web will have page numbers however that can be used in a citation.

In-Text Citations

Basic Formats

If the author's name IS NOT included in the narrative (parenthetical):
     (Author's Last Name, Year of publication)

If the author's name IS included in the narrative:
    Author's Last name (Year)

If the author's name is included in the narrative and a direct quote is used, the page number may appear after the quote:
     (Page number)

To cite a specific part of a source use the author-date citation, plus information about the specific part, such as pages, chapters, tables, figures, etc :
     (Author's Last Name, Year of publication, Page number).

 

Work by One Author

In a recent study of reaction times, Rogers (1994) described the method...W

Work by One Author, specific page cited

This is the definition of the eyewitness (Bekerian, 1993, p. 575)

Work by Two Authors

(Walker & Allen, 2004)

 Work by Three or more authors 

"The most effective way of teaching Spanish…is not by rote" (Valdés et al., 2004)

Work by group

(American Psychological Association [APA], 2019)

 Work with No Author (Newspaper article)
("New Drug," 1993, p. C3)

References

  • Last Updated: Mar 28, 2022 9:39 AM
  • URL: https://lib.westfield.ma.edu/cite
  • Print Page

577 Western Ave, Westfield, MA 01086

https://lib.westfield.ma.edu/home

Contact Us