Citing Sources

Citing Sources

Use APA guidelines when citing sources within an article or in an annotated bibliography. Citing sources is an important practice to ensure verifiability and denote that you are not the original author. It will also be helpful for peer reviewers to look up the original research and lend credibility to your article.

Books

Author’s last name, first initial. (Publication date). Book title. Additional information. City of publication: Publishing company.

Example:

Alred, Gerald J., Charles T. Brusaw, and Walter E. Oliu. Handbook of Technical Writing, Ninth Edition. Ninth Edition, Revised Edition ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008. Print.

Encyclopedia and Dictionary

Author’s last name, first initial. (Date). Title of Article. Title of Encyclopedia (Volume, pages). City of publication: Publishing company.

Magazine and Newspaper Articles

Author’s last name, first initial. (Publication date). Article title. Periodical title, volume number (issue number if available), inclusive pages.

  • Do not enclose the title in quotation marks.
  • Put a period after the title.
  • If a periodical includes a volume number, italicize the volume number and give page range (in regular type) without “pp.”
  • If the periodical does not use volume numbers, as in newspapers, use p. or pp. for page numbers.
  • Unlike other periodicals, p. or pp. precedes page numbers for a newspaper reference.

Online periodical

Author’s name. (Date of publication). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number, Retrieved month day, year, from full URL

Online document

Author’s name. (Date of publication). Title of work. Retrieved month day, year, from full URL

  • When citing Internet sources, refer to the specific website document.
  • If a document is undated, use “n.d.” (for no date) immediately after the document title.
  • Break a lengthy URL that goes to another line after a slash or before a period.
  • Continually check your references to online documents.
  • There is no period following a URL.

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