Here's some examples of common APA style citations. These rules and examples follow the rules outlined in the 7th edition of the APA Publication Manual, which is the most recent edition.
If you need to check a specific rule for APA Style, you should consult the APA Publication Manual.
Publication Manual of the American Psychological AssociationSometimes it's helpful to see an example of all of the parts of a citation style in action. This Sample Paper, courtesy of the Purdue OWL, shows what a perfectly-formatted APA paper should look like.
APA Style uses parenthetical citations for in-text citations. In general, these in-text citations are formatted as (LastName, date). If you use the source's last name within the sentence you're citing, all you need to include in the parenthesis is the date.
For a non-print source (such as a website) you may not see an author or date listed. Instead, you'll just need to use the first item that appears in the Reference entry that corresponds to the citation. This could be an article name, the name of the website, etc. Use n.d. to indicate no date.
See below for some examples.
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Author and page: Tolkien's work on translating Old English words may have influenced his Middle-Earth imagery (Lee, 2016). According to Lee, Tolkien's work on translating Old English words may have influenced his Middle-Earth imagery (2016). Website with no author and no date: This database contains information from multiple sources, including the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art ("Online Coins of the Roman Empire," n.d.). |
Need more help? More information, including even more examples, can be found on the Purdue OWL's APA In-Text Citations page.
The basic formula for a book citation looks like this:
Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. Publisher Name.
However, if the books has an editor, or is an ebook, you'll need to add additional information to the citation. See the examples below:
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One author or editor: Cornwall, J. (2019) Bootstrapping. Prentice Hall. More than one author or editor: Chandler, M., & Littlejohn, R. (Eds.) (2008). Polishing the Chinese mirror: Essays in honor of Henry Rosemont, Jr. Global Scholarly Publications. Work in an edited collection: Fingarette, H. (2008). Getting rights right. In Chandler, M., & Littlejohn, R. (Eds.), Polishing the Chinese mirror: Essays in honor of Henry Rosemont, Jr. (pp.110-126). Global Scholarly Publications. Ebook: Kelly, E. B. (2007) Stem Cells. [ebook edition]. Greenwood. https://bunchproxy.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspxdirect=true&db=nlebk&AN=224816&site=ehost-live |
Need more help? More information, including even more examples, can be found on the Purdue OWL's APA Reference List: Books.
The basic formula for articles (whether it came from a scholarly journal, newspaper, or magazine) citations looks like this:
Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of Article. Title of Periodical, volume number(issue number), pages. https://dio.org/xx/xxx/yyyy
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Journal: Bullington, J. (2005). Thelma Johnson Streat and cultural synthesis on the west coast. American Art, 19(2), 92-107. https://doi.org/10.1086/444483 Magazine: Cranford, J. (2011, January 24). Taking It to the limit. CQ Weekly, 200-205. Newspaper: Cornwall, J. (2011, June 20). Service gives small businesses edge over big guys.Tennessean, B3.
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Need more help? More information, including even more examples, can be found on the Purdue OWL's APA Reference List: Articles in Periodicals page.
The basic formula for an APA website citation looks like this:
Author, A. A. (Year, Month Date). Title of page. Site name. URL.
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Page from a web site: Zielinski, S. (2010, January 22). Henrietta Lacks' 'Immortal' Cells. Smithsonianmag.com. www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/henrietta-lacks-immortal-cells-6421299/ |
Need more help? Curious about how you cite a tweet, email or Youtube comment? Check out the Purdue OWL's APA Reference List: Electronic Sources page.