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APA Style Guide - Recommended for Psychology Students: References List

Resources for using APA style, 6th ed., in research papers. Created in cooperation with Psychology Faculty.

Citation Assistance

If you don't want to create citations from scratch, we suggest using a free citation assistance program. Some library research databases (like Academic Search, JSTOR, etc.) will also provide a tool to format citations for you.

If you use a program for citation assistance, ALWAYS check the citation provided against the official citation manual for the style you are using (MLA, APA, Turabian, etc.).  If you have questions, contact the Center for Academic Excellence or check out the additional resources provided on this page.

While there are many citation programs available (EasyBib, BibMe, KnightCite, etc.), we often recommend using Zotero.

Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool that can help you to collect, organize, cite, and share your research resources, either within your Firefox browser or as a standalone program.  With the click of a button you can instantly store citation information for the online information you find as you browse the web or the library's databases.  You can also annotate your sources as well as organize them into separate folders. 

For more information about how to use Zotero, check out this How to Use Zotero guide or the Quick Start Guide created by the folks at Zotero.

Creating a list of references

There are a few rules to keep in mind when you are creating your list of references:

  1. Be sure to actually use the word "References" at the beginning of the list -- do not use other descriptors, such as "Works Cited" or "Bibliography."
  2. While the first line of a specific reference is not indented, all other lines for that specific reference are indented.

Sample references -- periodicals

As more and more scholarly articles are available electronically, the APA has distinct rules for listing references to print and electronic resources.  Here are some examples of references for both formats, using APA style:

Print Journal Article

Smith, J. N., Jones, A. B., & Young, I. M. (2009). Measuring fast food preferences

      among college students. Food Studies, 25, 564-569.

Electronic Journal Article

Frick, T., Chadha, R., Watson, C., Wang, Y., & Green, P. (2009). College student

     perceptions of teaching and learning quality. Educational Technology Research and

     Development, 57, 705-720. doi:10.1007/s11423-007-9079-9

What is the DOI at the end of this last reference?  New to the 6th edition of the APA Style Manual is an emphasis on the DOI, or Digital Object Identifier, for electronic resources.  Unlike a URL address, the DOI for each article is unchanging, and is most commonly found in articles retrieved from periodical databases such as EBSCOhost or ProQuest.

Can't find a DOI?  Generally, the APA Style Manual advises that you list the URL for the publisher of the periodical.  However, in most cases you will have probably retrieved the article from one of the library's databases, such as Academic Search Premier (via EBSCOhost) or ProQuest.  In those cases, it is better to reference the database rather than the publisher's URL, as your professor will be able to verify your citation more easily by accessing the same database.  Here's an example of a citation for an article retrieved from a library database:

Whiteside, U., Cronce, J., Pedersen, E., & Larimer, M. (2010). Brief motivational

     feedback for college students and adolescents: A harm reduction approach.

     Journal of Clinical Psychology, 66(2), 150-63.  Retrieved from Academic Search

     Premier database.

In the above example, you MIGHT include the permalink URL at the end:  http://go.asbury.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=47697191&site=ehost-live&scope=site

  OR the Accession Number:   (Accession No. 47697191)

Sample references -- books

As more and more scholarly resources are available electronically, the APA has distinct rules for listing references to print and electronic resources.  Here are some examples of references for both formats, using APA style:

Print Book:

Tabb, M. A. (2007). Own your faith: The adventure of following Christ in college. Colorado

     Springs, CO: THINK Books.

Electronic Book:

Piotrowski, N. A. (2005). Psychology basics [Electronic version]. Retrieved from Netlibrary

     database.

Note that some electronic books will also have a DOI number, which you list after the title.  If no DOI can be found, include the URL of the website, as per the example above.  For electronic books you do not list the name and location of the publisher.

Chapter in a Book:

Krueger, R. A. (2000). Focus group. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of psychology

     (Vol. 3, pp. 382-383). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Sample references -- newspapers

Print newspaper article:

Spears, V. H. (2009, September 19). $10,470 for 2 season tickets. Lexington Herald-

     Leader, pp. A1, A10.

Online newspaper article:

Vascellaro, J. E. (2009, September 18). U.S. to file concerns over Google book pact.

     The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com

Sample references -- web pages

Here's an example of a reference to a webpage:

Are students losing their religion on campus? (2005, December 6). Retrieved

     from http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1375842&page=1

When citing this reference in your text, use the first few words from the title, such as ("Are Students Losing," 2005).

Also, if you are citing different sections of the same website, it is helpful to have different entries in the reference list for each section, so that your professor can easily verify the source of your citation.