APA Referencing Page Format; Learn How to Reference Like a Pro
Your reference list always appears at the end of your paper on a fresh page. It is a list of in-text citations that you made in the body of your write-up. Here, we are going to look at APA referencing page format. Each source you cite in the body of your paper must appear in your reference list and vice versa.
Label the reference page “ R e f e r e n c e s”, don’t bold, underline or italicize it and be sure to use double line spacing just like the rest of your article.
Basic Rules of APA Referencing Style
- All lines that follow the first line of a reference should be given a space of half inch from the first line, it is known as hanging indentation.
- Reference list entries should be alphabetized.
- Capitalize all major words in journal titles.
- If you have more than one article by the same author, start by listing the earliest first.
- All reference entries should be double-spaced.
- Italicize the titles of longer works such as books and journals.
- Don’t italicize, underline, or put quotes around the titles of shorter works such as journal articles.
- When referring to books, chapters, articles or web pages, capitalize only the first letter of the first word, a title, and subtitle; the first word after a colon or a dash in the title, and proper nouns. Do not capitalize the first letter of the second word in a hyphenated compound word.
- Authors’ names are inverted ( last name first); give the last name and initials for all authors of a particular work up to and including seven authors. If the work has more than seven authors, list the first six authors and then use ellipses after the sixth author’s name. After the ellipses, list the last author’s name and the work.
Note; While the APA manual provides many examples of how to cite common types of sources, it does not provide rules on how to cite all sources, so if you can’t find any rule for your source, they recommend you use style that is most closely related to your source and cite the reference like that.
Examples
1 Single Author; Write last name followed by initials;
- Berndt, T. J. (2002). Friendship quality and development.
Current Directions in Psychological
Science, 11, 7-10.
2 Two Authors; List by their last names followed by initials; use ampersand instead of “and”;
- Wegener, D. T., & Petty, R. E. (1994). Mood management
across effective states: The hedonic
contingency hypothesis. Journal of Personality
& Social Psychology, 66, 1034-1048.
Read also; APA-in-text-citation/
3 Three to Seven Authors; List as above with the last author’s name preceded by ampersand;
- Kernis, M. N., Cornell, D. P., Sun, C. R., Berry, A., Harlow,
T. & Bach, J. S. (1993). There is more to…..
4 More Than Seven Authors;
- Miller, F. N., Choi, M. J., Nugell, D. L., Harland, A. A.,
Stamos, J. A., Thomas, S. T., ……Rubin, L.
H. (2009). Website usability for the blind…..
5 Organization as an Author
- American Psychological Association. (2003). …..
6 Unknown Author
- Merriam-webster’s collegiate dictionary (10th ed.).
(1993). Springfield, MA: Merriam-webster.
7 Two or more works by the same Author; List the reference by the year that comes first;
- Berndt, T. J. (1981). ……
- Berndt, T. J. (1991). …
When an author appears both as a sole author and in another citation as the first author of a group, list the one author entry first.
- Berndt, T. J. (1999). Friends’ influence on……
- Berndt, T. J., & Keefe, K. (1995). Friends’ influence
on adolescents’ adjustment to school…..
8 Two or more works by the same author in the same year; Organize them alphabetically by the title of the articles or chapters, then assign letter suffixes to the year.
- Berndt, T. J. (1981a). ….
- Berndt, T. J. (1981b). …
9 Introduction, Prefaces, Forewords, and Afterword; Cite the publishing information about a book as usual, but cite Introduction, Preface, Foreword, or Afterword as the chapter of the book.
- Petty, R. & Kolln, M. (1998). Introduction. In E. W.
Ludlow (Ed., Understanding English Grammar,
p. 1-2). Needham, MA: Allyn and Bacon.