APA - Referencing Guide

• The short references within the text are given wholly or partly in round brackets.

• Use only the surname of the author followed by a comma and the year of publication. Include page, chapter or section numbers if you need to be specific. The abbreviation for page is p. and the abbreviation for pages is pp.

• No distinction is made between books, journal articles, internet documents or other formats except for electronic documents that do not provide page numbers. In this instance, use the paragraph number, if available, with the abbreviation para.

• An in-text citation can be presented in different ways:

• Parenthetical citation – all the referencing information appears within the brackets (parentheses). A parenthetical citation can appear within or at the end of a sentence, e.g. (Foo & Kelso, 2001).
• Narrative citation – the author(s) names are part of the sentence, appearing outside the brackets. The author’s name can be included in the sentence in any place it makes sense, e.g. Foo and Kelso (2001).

• Note: When referring to multiple authors within the text, precede the final author's name with the word and. When citing materials within parentheses, precede the final author's name with an ampersand (&):

... as Kurtines and Szapocnik (2003) demonstrated.

... as has been demonstrated (Kurtines & Szapocnik, 2003).

Some Examples

1.  A citation for a book appearing in the text as:

There are many approaches to psychological testing (Kline, 2000, pp. 26-27).

would appear in the reference list in the following form:

Kline, P. (2000). The handbook of psychological testing (2nd ed.). Routledge.

2.  A citation for a journal article appearing in the text as either:

It is clear that goal directed meaning connects perception and specification (Foo & Kelso, 2001, p. 222).

OR

Foo and Kelso (2001) showed that goal directed meaning connects perception and specification.

would appear in the reference list in the following form:

Foo, P., & Kelso, J. A. (2001). Goal directed meaning connects perception and specification. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(2), 222 - 223.

3.  An electronic document would be cited in the text in the same way as a print document.

For example, a citation for an internet document appearing in the text as:

There are many useful materials available (see Munro, 1999, para. 12)

would appear in the reference list in the following form:

Munro, C. (1999). Facing grief. Synergy, 3(3). http://about.murdoch.edu.au/synergy/0303/grief.html

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See the All Examples page for examples of in-text and reference list entries for specific resources such as articles, books, and web pages.

• Citing in the Text
• Citation Methods
• Citation Examples
• Citing Electronic Documents
• Citing Images
• Citing Personal Communications
• Citing Secondary Sources