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APA Citation Style

General Guidelines for APA citation style of online sources
New: the DOI

CITATION EXAMPLES FOR ONLINE SOURCES Other Citation Guides
for both books and articles
Database articles
EBSCO
magazine
journal paginated by issue
journal paginated by volume
ERIC documents
Gale
6 authors
JSTOR
journal
LexisNexis
newspaper
OCLC FirstSearch
5 authors
Ovid Full Text
7 or more authors
Other sources
A journal's website
PDF article
HTML text article (without page numbers)
Online encyclopedias
Online periodicals —authored articles; a review
Websites —a personal page; a review; organization page; portion of a site
Images

Annotated Bibliography
from Lesley U.
from U. of New Brunswick
New! Updated APA Style Guide to Electronic References. Call the Reference Desk at x5074 for username and password.
APA website
Everyday Writer -Hacker
Duke U.
OWL at Purdue U.
Government documents  (U of Memphis)
Legal documents  (Cornell)

In-text citations
for online sources
for multiple authors
Duke University
Owl at Purdue
   multiple authors
The Everyday Writer
EBSCO databases (Academic Search Premier, Communication & Mass Media Complete, etc.):
    This example shows a magazine article citation:

    Rozen, L. (2003, November 10). Strange bedfellows. Nation, 277, 6-7. Retrieved December 16, 2003 from the Academic Search Premier database.

    This example shows a citation for an article from a popular journal paginated by issue:

    Gibbs, W. W. (2005). Nanobodies. Scientific American, 293 (2), 75-83. Retrieved August 28, 2005 from the Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition database.

    This example shows a citation for an article from a journal paginated by volume:

    Stanley, M. A. (2002). Imiquimod and the imidazoquinolones: Mechanism of action and therapeutic potential. Clinical & Experimental Dermatology, 27, 571-576. Retrieved November 18, 2003, from the Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition database.

    This example shows a citation for the same article with a DOI:

    Stanley, M. A. (2002). Imiquimod and the imidazoquinolones: Mechanism of action and therapeutic potential. Clinical & Experimental Dermatology, 27, 571-576. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2230.2002.01151.x.



ERIC Documents (not for a journal cited in the ERIC database)
Compare the citation below with the actual document, viewable via http://tinyurl.com/ay2fe

    Epstein, J. L., Sanders, M. G., & Clark, L. A. (1999, February). Preparing educators for school-family-community partnerships. Results of a national survey of colleges and universities (Report No. CRESPAR-R-34). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, Center for Social Organization of Schools. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED429045)

    See more examples at: APA Reference Style: ERIC Documents  (Brigham Young U)


Gale databases (available at Northwestern University and other libraries):
    This example shows a citation for an article from a journal paginated by volume with 6 authors: :

    Burri, C., Nkunku, S., Merolle, A., Smith, T., Blum, J., & Brun, R. (2000). Efficacy of new, concise schedule for melarsoprol in treatment of sleeping sickness caused by Trypanosoma brucei gambiense: A randomised trial. Lancet, 355, 1419-1425. Retrieved September 15, 2000, from the Expanded Academic Index ASAP database.



JSTOR database:
    This example shows a citation for an article from a journal paginated by volume:

    Pearson, G. A. (1920). Factors controlling the distribution of forest types. Ecology, 1, 139-159. Retrieved November 18, 2003 from the JSTOR database.



LexisNexis database:
    This example shows a newspaper article citation:

    Smith, R. (2000, June 8). A new dog in town, steel and sprouting. New York Times, p. E1. Retrieved September 14, 2000, from the LexisNexis Academic database.



OCLC FirstSearch databases (WilsonSelectPlus, Periodical Abstracts, etc.):
    This example shows a citation for an article from a magazine article citation:

    Yablon, M. (2000, December 18). Campus police. New Republic, 223, 14-15. Retrieved October 1, 2000, from the Periodical Abstracts database.

    This example shows a citation for an article from a journal paginated by volume with 5 authors:

    Solvason, H. B., Harris, B., Zeifert, P., Flores, B. H., & Hayward, C. (2002). Psychological versus biological clinical interpretation: A patient with prion disease. American Journal of Psychiatry, 159, 528-537. Retrieved November 18, 2003, from the ArticleFirst database.

    This example shows a citation for an article from a journal paginated by issue

    Nylander, L. (2001). Literature in and out of time: Temporality in theory, narrative, and authorship. Literature and Psychology, 47 (4), 1-37. Retrieved December 19, 2003, from the WilsonSelectPlus database.



Ovid Full Text articles (articles are indexed in PsycInfo and are from the PsyArticles database)
    This example shows an article citation from a journal paginated by volume with 7 or more authors:

    Hoza, B., Mrug, S., Gerdes, A. C., Hinshaw, S. P., Bukowski, W. M., Gold, J. A., et al. (2005). What aspects of peer relationships are impaired in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder? Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73, 411-423. Retrieved October 5, 2005, from the PsycARTICLES database.

    This shows the same article citation with a DOI:

    Hoza, B., Mrug, S., Gerdes, A. C., Hinshaw, S. P., Bukowski, W. M., Gold, J. A., et al. (2005). What aspects of peer relationships are impaired in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder? Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73, 411-423. doi: 10.1037/0022-006X.73.3.411



Article from a Journal's website:
    This example shows a citation for a PDF version of an article:

    Mellars, P. (2004). Neanderthals and the modern human colonization of Europe [Electronic version]. Nature, 432, 461-465.

    This example shows a citation for the same version of the article with a DOI:

    Mellars, P. (2004). Neanderthals and the modern human colonization of Europe. Nature, 432, 461-465. doi:10.1038/nature03103

    This example shows a citation for an HTML version of an article —see the note below on in-text citatons for articles without permanent page numbers:

    Irion, R. (2006). Astrophysics: A very good year for explosions. Science, 311, 30-32. Retrieved April 25, 2006, from http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/ full/311/5757/30.

    This example shows a citation for the same version of the article with a DOI:

    Irion, R. (2006). Astrophysics: A very good year for explosions. Science, 311, 30-32. doi: 10.1126/science.311.5757.30



Online Encyclopedia:

    Electronic music. (2006). In Wikipedia: The Free Online Encyclopedia. Retrieved July 14, 2006, from /http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Electronic_music



Online periodicals — Articles from online journals that do NOT have a print equivalent (Salon, Slate, Chicago Wilderness, etc.)


Websites and web pages
    Web page that is part of a larger site

    Library of Congress - Federal Research Division. (2005, November 9). Human rights. In A Country Study: Saudi Arabia. Retrieved September 25, 2006 from http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/satoc.html#sa0139

    Organization's home page

    Tennant, R. (2005). Web4Lib electronic discussion. Web4Lib: Web Systems in Libraries Mailing List. Retrieved August 18, 2005 from the WebJunction website: http://lists .webjunction.org/web4lib/


Images

    Images used in professional journals are typically the work of the authors, and so need no citation.
    Directly below is an example of a References list citation for an image found online and used in a student's research paper or presentation.
    Figure 1. B. pertussis¹

    © c. 2003 J. L. Carson
    Used with permission.

    Carson, J. L. (c. 2003). "B. pertussis." [Online image]. Retrieved October 12, 2006 from the J. Craig Venter Institute Genome News Network website: http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/09_03/ whooping_cough.php

    • Giving the address of the image without the address of the page on which it appeared is usually insufficient information.

    • A web address without a page title is rarely enough information to locate an item on a redesigned website.

    Below is an explanatory footnote used to cite the same image.

    The form is not specifically described in the 5th edition of the APA Publication Manual. This example uses the elements of a footnote of acknowlegement and also the elements of a citation for an online source.

    ¹ "B. Pertussis" [Online photograph], by J. L. Carson (c. 2003). Retrieved October 11, 2005 from http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/ gnn_images/news_content/09_03/whooping/pertusis.jpg at the Genome News Network website, GNN: Three genomes and whooping cough. Copyright 2000 - 2004 by the J. Craig Venter Institute. Available from http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/ articles/09_03/whooping_cough.php



    Frequently the figure caption includes all the necessary data:

    Figure 2. "Water lily [Nymphaeaceae] blooming in Saint Petersburg's Botanical Gardens, September 2005," by A. L. Olsen. Click image for larger version. Retrieved October 12, 2006 from the NBII (National Biological Information Infrastructure) Digital Image Library website, maintained by the Center for Biological Informatics of the U.S. Geological Survey: http://images.nbii.gov/details.php?id=55510





Include the following information when citing a website in APA style:
  1. Author's last name and any initials (if available)
  2. Date of Internet publication or last revision (if known), in parentheses
  3. Title of document
  4. Title of complete work (if relevant), in italics or underlined
  5. Other relevant information (volume number, page numbers, etc.)
  6. Retrieval date and source statement
  7. URL; do not follow url with a period

A website without an author or date:

Title of the web page. (n.d.). Retrieved Month d, yyyy, from http://website.address.net

A website with a corporate author:

Name of Organization. (yyyy, Month d). Title of web page. Retrieved Month d, yyyy, from http://website.address.org

Special consideration when using APA style to cite web pages:
When citing an entire website, and not a specific document on that site, no Reference List entry is required if the address for the site is cited in the text of your paper.

Example:
The Association for Women in Mathematics site offers information on professional organizations and conferences (http://www.awm-math.org).




New: The DOI
The APA Style Guide to Electronic References (2007) introduces the use of the digital object identifier (DOI). The DOI is a permanent alphanumeric reference assigned to the final, archived version of a journal article. When preceded by "http://dx.doi.org/" it becomes a permanent address to the article. Because of the nature of the DOI, when used in a reference and preceded by "doi:" this number now takes the place of both the "Retrieved on" date and the database name. However, the Internet page linked to the DOI may not give access to the full text of the article, whereas the full text may be available via a subscription database. Therefore, you should follow the citation convention preferred by your instructor.

DOI look-up from crossref.org.


Full-text databases reproduce articles that orginally appeared in print elsewhere.
To cite such articles, include the following:
  1. Author's last name and any initials (if available)
  2. Date of article, in parentheses
  3. Title of article (only capitalize the first letter of the first word, proper nouns, and the first word of the subtitle after a colon)
  4. Title of journal/publication in which the article originally appeared, in italics or underlined
  5. Volume, in italics
  6. Issue number (in parentheses) and page number(s) of original article (if available)
  7. Retrieval date and name of database (e.g., Academic Universe) statement
    or:
    Digital object identifier (DOI) statement
An article from a journal, paginated by issue, volume 3, issue 12, pages 9-29:

Author_last_name, F. M. (yyyy). Document title: Subtitle. Title of Journal, 3 (12), 9-29. Retrieved Month d, yyyy, from the Database Name database.

Or, using a digital object identifier number in place of the retrieval information:

Author_last_name, F. M. (yyyy). Document title: Subtitle. Title of Journal, 3 (12), 9-29. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2230.2002.01151.x



Page numbers for online articles
Use only fixed page numbers from a PDF; do not cite page numbers of an HTML printout.
If you cannot determine the number of the page on which your cited text appeared, you may designate the heading of the section and the number of the paragraph instead.

Use the abbreviation para. or the ¶ symbol (i.e. pilcrow or paragraph sign).
The keystroke to make this symbol is Option+7 in MSWord for Macintosh and Alt+0182 in MSWord for Windows.

Example for a reference to an online article titled Reading, writing, and numeracy
for which the PDF version is not available,
and which has a section heading of "Numeracy in everyday events:"
Numeracy is required to understand daily news reports such as the stock market, the weather, medical risk factors, sports scores, and statistical data related to politics, law, and society (Steen, 2005, Numeracy in everyday events, ¶2 - 7).
   Or:
Numeracy is required to understand daily news reports such as the stock market, the weather, medical risk factors, sports scores, and statistical data related to politics, law, and society (Steen, 2005, Numeracy in everyday events, paras. 2 - 7) .

Multiple Authors
If there are 6 or more authors for a source, use the first author's name followed by "et al." for the in-text citation.
However, in the References list, only use et al. if there are 7 or more authors.

   For example, in the body of the paper:
Cukrowicz et al. (2006) found a tendency toward suicidal ideation among those who experienced nightmares or other disturbing dreams.
   But then in the Reference list:

Cukrowicz, K. C., Otamendi, A., Pinto, J. V., Bernert, R. A., Krakow, B., & Joiner, T. E., Jr. The impact of insomnia and sleep disturbances on depression and suicidality. Dreaming, 16, 1-10.


Read more about in-text citations:
      Duke University, Owl at Purdue, Owl: about multiple authors, and The Everyday Writer


Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. (5th ed.). (2001). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2001.
Available at the Library Reference Desk (Rdy.Ref. BF 76.7 .P82 2001)

Hacker, Diana. A pocket manual of style. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford, 2000.
Available at the Library Reference Desk (Rdy.Ref. PE 1408.H26 2000)



All examples are intended only to supplement Hacker's guide, A Pocket Style Manual, which is available at the Book Store and in the Library.
The reference librarians and the Writing Center (x5233)can help with citing sources.