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  CCC Copyright Guidelines

Read more about Cleveland Community College's Copyright Guidelines here.

  Plagiarism and Copyright

Plagiarism is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "the action or practice of taking someone else's work, idea, etc., and passing it off as one's own". (Citation: plagiarism, n. Third edition, June 2006; online version September 2011. <http://oed.com/view/Entry/144939>; accessed 31 October 2011.)

Examples of Plagiarism:

  • Paraphrasing  without giving credits to the original source
  • Not using quotations properly
  • Creating a paper by cutting and pasting text from other publications
  • Working on an individual assignment with a partner and turning in identical answers
  • Copying an entire article
  • Downloading a paper from the Internet
  • Paying someone to write your paper or using a friend’s old paper
  • Faking citations

To avoid plagiarism:

  • Use Citations
  • Know the difference between quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing
  • Make sure to always have an in-text citation paired with a full citation in your Works Cited/Reference list

  Plagiarism Resources

  Writing Basics

  Three or fewer? 

  • If you have list of three or fewer items, you must keep them within the paragraph. Ex: "The participant’s three choices were (a) working with another participant, (b) working  with a team, and (c) working alone..” Set the elements with a series of lowercase letters in parentheses.

  Three or more? 

  • In this case, you can keep these items within a sentence or paragraph, or you can separate them out into a list and capitalize and punctuate each item as if it were a complete sentence. Separate each item in the list with a lower-case letter and a period, for example:

   a. Example 1

   b. Example 2

   c. Example 3

  Bullets or numbers?

  • Use numbers for an ordered list.
  • Use bullets for a list where the items do not need to be in a specific order.

  Numbers, Mathematics, and Statistics

  • Numbers:  Use numerals
    • for numbers 10 and higher
    • for numbers before a unit of measurement
    • for numbers representing statistical or mathematical functions, fractions, decimals, percentages, etc.
    • for times, dates, ages, scores, points, sums of money, etc.
  • Numbers:  Spell out the word
    • for numbers that begin a sentence, title, or text heading (Writers can start a sentence with a year expressed in numerals.)
    • for common fractions (i.e., two-thirds cup)
    • for universally accepted phrases (i.e., "Twelve Apostles")
  • Use spaces between numbers and mathematical operators.  (i.e., a + b = c)
  • Remember to name the statistical procedure your are using before reporting its results.
  • Percent(age) vesus %:
    • ​Use the symbol when preceded by a numeral (i.e., 50% of people)
    • Spell out the word when a number is not given (i.e., "a sizable percent" or "a significant percentage")
  • Formal abbreviations and symbols:  These include p (lowercase italic) and t (lowercase italic) for a t-test and the sample value of the t-test statistic.
  • Anchors of a scale (i.e., 1=low and 4 = high) are italicized.

  Dictation & Syntax (Word Choice & Arrangement)

  • Voice: Active voice is preferred.
  • Economy of Expression: Short words and sentences are preferred.  Also, avoid jargon, wordiness, and redundancy in writing.
  • Clarity: Focus on making it clear and understandable by avoiding sentences that are too complex.
  • Person: Use first person pronouns to refer to yourself, use third person pronouns to refer to others.
  • Scientific: Avoid stating opinion or "flowery language."  State the facts as objectively as possible.
  • Which word should I use: who, that, or which?
    • ​Who - always use who when talking about humans
    • That - use that for animals and things when the clause is necessary to make a complete sentence (i.e., restrictive clauses)
    • Which - use which for animals and things when the clause only adds to the sentence (i.e., non-restrictive clauses)

  Punctuation

  • Use two spaces at the end of a sentence.
  • Colons:  When can I use them?
    • Yes:  Use colons between a grammatically complete introductory clause (i.e., one that could stand as a sentence) and a final phrase or clause that illustrates, extends, or amplifies that preceding thought.  If the clause following the colon is a complete sentence, it begins with a capital letter.  A colon is often used between a title and a subtitle (i.e., Quiet time:  A nursing...)
    • No:  Do not use a colon after an introduction that is not an independent clause or complete sentence.
  • Semicolons:  Use semicolons
    • to separate two independent clauses that are not joined by a conjunction
    • to separate elements in a series that already contain commas
  • Quotes:  Periods and commas always fall within quotations marks.  All other punctuation varies depending on the quote.

  Abbreviation

  • Avoid abbreviations that are not already commonly used
  • In most cases, write out the complete term or phrase with the abbreviation following in parentheses to continue using that abbreviation throughout the rest of the document.
  • Once an abbreviation is used, it must continue to be used throughout.
  • Avoid beginning a sentence with an abbreviation, especially those that begin with a lower-case letter.
  • Do not use spaces within an abbreviation (i.e., U.S.).

  Strategies

You can eliminate wordiness in your writing if . . .

  • you mark sections of your writing that you struggled to produce.
    You likely included "false starts" or filler phrases in your writing when trying to put some ideas or arguments into words; this is natural. Don't worry about it as you write, but, after you're done with your draft, pass through your paper at least once, focusing only on eliminating unnecessary language. Pay particular attention to sections you struggled to get out.

  • you give yourself a breather before editing.
    Getting away from your paper will help give you the distance you'll need to see with "fresh eyes" what language is needed and what's not.

  • you learn what wordiness patterns are typical of your writing.
    Most people tend to fall into two or three patterns of wordiness when they write. Learn what your patterns are, and edit with those patterns in mind.

  Replacement Phrases

Peruse the following list and identify changes you can make to reduce wordiness in your writing. While it can be helpful to make these changes, be sure that the message is still clear in your writing before doing so.

  • Omit the filler phrases "it is," "there is," and "there are" at the beginning of sentences; these often delay the sentence's true subject and verb.

    • Wordy

      It is expensive to upgrade computer systems.

    • Concise

      Upgrading computer systems is expensive.

  • Combine two closely related short sentences by omitting part of one.

    • Wordy

      The director is concerned about problems. Typical problems may occur with lighting, sound, and props.

    • Concise

      The director is concerned about typical problems with lighting, sound, and props.

  • Omit "this" from the beginning of a sentence by joining it to the preceding sentence with a comma.

    • Wordy

      Chlorofluorocarbons have been banned from aerosols. This has lessened the ozone layer's depletion.

    • Concise

      Chlorofluorocarbons have been banned from aerosols, lessening the ozone layer's depletion.

  • Change "which" or "that" constructions to an "-ing" word.

    • Wordy

      The committee, which meets monthly, oversees accounting procedures and audits.

    • Concise

      The committee, meeting monthly, oversees accounting procedures and audits.

  • Omit "which" or "that" altogether when possible.

    • Wordy

      Because the fluid, which was brown and poisonous, was dumped into the river, the company that was negligent had to shut down.

    • Concise

      Because the brown, poisonous fluid was dumped into the river, the negligent company had to shut down.

  • Replace passive verbs with active verbs. In passive constructions, the subject of the sentence is being acted upon; in active constructions, the subject is the actor.

    • Wordy

      Rain forests are being destroyed by uncontrolled logging.

    • Concise

      Uncontrolled logging is destroying rain forests.

  • Change "is" or "was" when they occur alone to a strong verb.

    • Wordy

      A new fire curtain is necessary for the stage.

    • Concise

      The stage needs a new fire curtain.

  • Replace "is," "are," "was," "were," or "have + an -ing word" to a simple present or past tense verb.

    • Wordy

      The South African government was undergoing significant changes.

    • Concise

      The South African government underwent significant changes.

  • Replace "should," "would," or "could" with strong verbs.

    • Wordy

      The environmental council could see several solutions.

    • Concise

      The environmental council saw several solutions.

  • Substitute strong verbs for "-tion" and "-sion" words whenever possible.

    • Wordy

      I submitted an application for the job.

    • Concise

      I applied for the job.

  • Replace prepositional phrases with one-word modifiers when possible. Prepositional phrases, those little relationship words like "of," "from," "after," etc., tend to bring in a lot of "-tion" and "-sion" words too.

    • Wordy

      The President of the Student Senate was in charge of the lobbying against the merger at the Minnesota Congress.

    • Concise

      The Student Senate President oversaw lobbying the Minnesota Congress against the merger.

  • Use a colon after a statement preceding a sentence of explanation, and leave out the beginning of the next sentence

    • Wordy

      The theater has three main technical areas. These areas are costumes, scenery, and lighting.

    • Concise

      The theater has three main technical areas: costumes, scenery, and lighting.

Content copied and adapted by Peace Ossom Williamson for educational purposes from Strategies for Reducing Wordiness (http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/style/wordiness.html) by Judith Kilborn and may be copied for educational purposes only. If you copy this document, please include our copyright notice and the name of the writer; if you revise it, please add your name to the list of writers.

  What are Citations?

Citations are pointers in your writing or work that tells others where you found your information. Citations can be written in several different formats; the most popular formats at Cleveland Community College are the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the American Psychology Association (APA).

Using citations is important for a variety of reasons, including the following:

  • Avoid plagiarizing
  • Allow your reader to find your sources
  • Add credibility to your work

  MLA

MLA style for documentation is widely used in the humanities, especially in writing on language and literature. MLA style features brief parenthetical citations in the text that correspond to an alphabetical list of works cited that appears at the end of the work.

The best resource for learning the new updates to the MLA Style is through the MLA Style Center.

If you can have further questions, you can reference the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 8th Edition which is available at the circulation desk in the library.

  The Basics

MLA, like all style guides, requires papers to be formatted a certain way.

  • Typed
  • Use 1 inch margins all around
  • 12 pt. Times New Roman (recommended) or any other readable font
  • All text throughout paper should be double-spaced
  • Page header should include your last name and the page number aligned to the right

  Page Numbers and Header

Follow the steps below to add page numbers to a document:

  1. To add page number in Word, double click in the header area at the top of the document.
  2. In the header section, double click the mouse on the right side of the page.
  3. Type your last name and then press the space bar once.
  4. Click Insert from the top menu of items.
  5. Click Page Number, then click Current Position, and lastly click Plain Number.

  Heading

First Page Heading

  • MLA does not require a title page unless otherwise specified.
  • In the upper left-hand corner of the first page, include your name, your instructor's name, the course, and the date.
  • Center the title - do not underline, italicize, or put your title in quotation marks.
  • View a sample First Page here.

  Works Cited

Your Works Cited appears at the end of your paper. If you cite a source in the text of your paper, it must be listed here; if you list a work here, it must be cited in your paper.

Overall Page

  • Begin on a new page, separate from your paper.
  • Title the page Works Cited (top of page, center aligned) - do not bold, underline or add quotation marks.
  • All text should be double-spaced.
  • Entries should be alphabetized by the last name of the first author of the work (or the title if no author is available).
  • After the first line of each entry, you should indent one-half inch (hanging indention).

Individual Entries

  • Invert authors' names (last name first)
  • Capitalize all important words in titles.
  • Italicize longer works like books and journals.
  • Use quotation marks around shorter works (articles, entries, etc.).
  • View a sample MLA Paper with Works Cited page here.

In-text citations are placed after any information is taken from an outside source. Information can be quoted, paraphrased, or summarized but it must include a citation. If a citation appears in text, it must appear on the reference page at the end of the paper.

MLA follows an author-page number citation system which allows readers to easily locate the source of information in the Works Cited list.

Examples:

  • If the author's name appears in-text, include the page number in parenthesis directly afterwords.
    • ex) Tennen has argued this point (178-85).
  • Otherwise, include the author's name and page number at the end of the sentence, inside the end punctuation.
    • ex) The point has already been argued (Tannen 178-85).
      • If no author is listed, use the title.

This chart shows how to create MLA In-Text Citations.

To create an MLA Citation, begin by filling in the known information on the List of Core Elements Chart to the right. Be sure to use the punctuation mark that ends each section. Please see the sample below to understand how to pull information from a resource and put it into a citation.

MLA Sample

MLA Sample Using list of core elements
MLA's List of Core Elements
1) Author.
2) Title of source.
3) Title of container,
4) Other contributors,
5) Version,
6) Number,
7) Publisher,
8) Publication date,
9) Location.

For additional help with MLA citations, browse these sites:

  APA

APA style for documentation is widely used in the social sciences. APA style features brief parenthetical citations in the text that corresponds to an alphabetical list of references that appear at the end of the work.

On this page, you will find examples on citing some of the most commonly used sources; however, this is by no means an exhausted list. If you don't find your source type here or if you can have further questions, you can reference the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition, available for in-library use at the Library Support Desk.

  The Basics

APA, like all styles, requires papers to be formatted a certain way.

  • Typed
  • Use 1 inch margins all around
  • Fonts: Times New Roman, 12pt, Arial 11pt, Georgia 11pt, Calibri 11pt, Lucinda Sans Unicode 10pt
  • All text throughout the paper should be double-spaced

  Title Page

The Title Page should contain the paper's title, the student's name, the student's institutional affiliation, course name and number, the instructor's name, and the date centered in the upper half of the page.

View a Sample APA paper here.

  Paper Styles

There are two types of papers in APA 7th edition: professional and student.

The student paper does not contain a running head nor abstract.

  Reference Page

Your list of reference appears at the end of your paper. If you cite a source in the text of your paper, it must be listed here; if you list a reference here, it must be cited in your paper.

Overall Page

  • Begin on a new page, separate from you paper
  • Title the page Reference (top of page, center-aligned) - the word should appear bold.
  • All text should be double-spaced
  • Entries should be alphabetized by the name of the first author of the work (or the title if no author is available)
  • After the first line of each entry, you should indent one-half inch (hanging indention)

Individual Entries

  • Invert authors' names (last name first)
  • Give the last name and initial for all authors up to seven; if there are more than seven, list the first six, add ellipses, and then list the last author's name
  • Maintain a periodical's title's punctuation and capitalization
  • For books, chapters, articles, and web pages, capitalize the first of the tile and subtitles only
  • Italicize longer works like books and journals
  • Do not italicize or put quotation marks around shorter works
  • Note that sources in online academic publications like scholarly journals now require DOIs or stable URLs if they are available.
  • View a sample Reference Page here.

  How to Cite

APA Style requires that you cite an author within the body of your paper in addition to having a full citation on the references page. You can directly quote an author or paraphrase an author.

Paraphrasing vs. Quoting

It is highly preferred that you use your own words to describe someone else's work, findings, etc. Although paraphrasing is preferred, you can directly quote from an author as long as you include the author's name and the date of publication.

  • Paraphrasing: Cite author's last name and publication year.
  • Quoting: Cite author's last name, publication year, and the page number(s)*.
    *On a website? Then cite the paragraph number after para.
    • Examples:
      • Paraphrasing: Flight is an ability many birds have (Smith, 2011).
      • Author’s Name is Part of a Sentence: According to Smith (2011), many birds have the ability to fly.
      • Quoting: "Many birds can fly" (Smith, 2011, p. 265).
      • Institutional Author: "For an institutional author, spell out its entire name" (Center for Institutional Authors, 2016, para. 2).

Use the word 'and' between the authors' last names when citing within the text, and use the ampersand (i.e., &) when citing within the parentheses.

  • Paraphrasing: Cite authors' last names and publication year.
  • Quoting: Cite authors' last names, publication year, and the page number(s).
    • Examples:
      • Paraphrasing: The research indicated that weather temperature is positively correlated with crime incidence (Davis & Brown, 1995).
      • Authors’ Names are Part of a Sentence: David and Brown (1995) suggest that weather temperature is positively correlated with crime incidence.
      • Quoting: Davis and Brown (1995) stated, "higher temperatures are correlated with an increase in criminal activity" (p. 180).

For a work with three or more authors, include the name of only the first author plus "et al." in every citation, including the first citation, unless doing so would create ambiguity. 

  • Paraphrasing: Cite first author's last name and publication year.
  • Quoting: Cite first author's last name, et al. and publication year in parenthesis
    • Examples:
      • Lee et al. (2015) suggest that librarians often have difficulty creating examples of fake quotes to use in Libguides.
      • Librarians often have difficulty creating examples of fake quotes to using in Libguides (Lee et al., 2015).

  How do I cite it when...?

1. A work Has No Author

If there is no author (be sure it's not an institutional author, like Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), cite the first few words of the reference list entry (usually the title) and the year. Use double quotation marks around the title or abbreviated title. For example: ("All 33 Chile Miners," 2010). Note: Use the full title if it is short.

2. Authors Have The Same Last Name

If two or more of your sources are written by authors with the same surname, include the first author's initials with the surname in every in-text reference.

Example: Among studies, we review M. A. Light and Light (2008) and I. Light (2006) ... 

3. No Page Numbers Are Available for a Quotation

If a resource contains no page numbers, as can be the case with electronic sources, then you cannot include a page number in the parentheses. However, provide readers with another way of locating the quoted passage. Any of the following approaches is acceptable; use the approach that will best help readers find the quotation:

a. Provide a heading or section name.

Example: For people with osteoarthritis, "painful joints should be moved through a full range of motion every day to maintain flexibility and to slow deterioration of cartilage" (Gecht-Silver & Duncombe, 2015, Osteoarthritis section.)

b. Provide an abbreviated heading or section name in quotation marks to indicate the abbreviation if the full heading or section name is too long or unwieldy to cite in full.

Example: To prevent kidney failure, patients should "get active," "quit smoking," and "take medications as directed" (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017, "What Can You Do" section).

c. Provide a paragraph number (count the paragraphs manually if they are not numbered).

Example: People planning for retirement need more than just money-they also "need to stockpile their emotional reserves" to ensure adequate support from family and friends (Chamberlin, 2014, para.1).

d. Provide a heading or section number in combination with a paragraph number.

Example: Music and language are intertwined in the brain such that "people who are better at rhythmic memory skills tend to excel at language skills as well" (DeAngelis, 2018, Musical Forays section, para. 4).

  How to Quote

 

A quote is generally more than three words borrowed from another source. The basic rules for quoting vary depending on the size of the quote. See accompanying tabs for more info.
Please note:
  1. When you need to leave out part of a quotation to make it fit grammatically or because it contains irrelevant/unnecessary information, insert ellipses like this . . . to indicate the truncation.
  2. If you must add or slightly change words within a quotation for reasons of grammar or clarity, indicate the change with square brackets. 
  • Exception: It is acceptable to change double quotation marks to single ones when you have a quotation within a quotation; it is also fine to change the first word of a quotation to upper case when needed.

 

 

Fit quotations within your sentences, enclosed in quotation marks, making sure the sentences are grammatically correct. When citing, the parentheses begin after the quotation marks but before the punctuation.
  • Example:
    • Because they are an avenue to communicating a specific point, "quotations are effective in research papers when used selectively" (Gibaldi, 2003, p.109).

 

 

For these longer quotes, be sure to use the following steps:

  1. Omit the quotation marks.
  2. Start a block quotation on a new line.
  3. Indent the entire quotation a half inch from the left margin (but not from the right margin).
  4. Double space the quotation.
  5. Place punctuation mark immediately after the quotation.
  • Examples:
    • Flores et al. (2018) described how they addressed potential researcher bias when working with an intersectional community of people of color:
    • Everyone on the research team belonged to a stigmatized group but also held privileged identities. Throughout the research process, we attended to the ways in which our privileged and oppressed identities may have influenced the research process, findings, and presentation of results. (p. 311)

 

 

1. How do I quote when there are no page numbers?

If the page numbers are not provided, use paragraph numbers in your citation with abbreviation para.

  • Example: Research has clearly shown that "dogs drool often" (Jones, 2009, para. 2).

2. How do I indicate I have omitted part of the text?

  • Use three spaced ellipsis points like this . . . within a sentence when you omit material from the original work.
  • Use four points like this . . . . when you have omitted material between two sentences.

 

  Journal Article with DOI

DeNicco, J., & Laincz, C. A. (2018). Jobless recovery: A time series look at the United States. Atlantic Economic Journal, 46(1), 3-25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-018-9569-7

Author(s) of Article. (year of publication). Complete title of article. Name of Journal, volume(issue), page range of article if available. https//doi.org/10.xxxxxxxx

If you find your article in a library database, you can click on the "Cite" button next to your article and choose "APA" (your database may list "APA 6th"; some databases do not yet have citation information for the new APA 7th style). For this example, you would get the following citation:

DeNicco, J., & Laincz, C. A. (2018). Jobless recovery: A time series look at the united states. Atlantic Economic Journal, 46(1), 3-25. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11293-018-9569-7

There are a number of errors in this database-supplied citation (highlighted in yellow). Here is how it should look:

DeNicco, J., & Laincz, C. A. (2018). Jobless recovery: A time series look at the United States. Atlantic Economic Journal, 46(1), 3-25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-018-9569-7

Note that in APA 7th, you are to include all authors up to 20.

If you use the "Cite" feature, compare your citation carefully to the example shown and change as necessary. Look at the information provided with the article itself to verify anything that looks incorrect.

You will also need to:

  • Check the author names. In APA style, database-supplied citations will often confuse first names with last names, will  include the wrong part of compound names, or will add unneeded components (such as PhD). Look at the author information that appears with the article itself to help determine the correct way to cite an author's name.
  • Check title capitalization. Database-supplied citations will often give article titles in all capital letters, or will have other capitalization errors. In APA style, article titles should have only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms capitalized.
  • Make sure page numbers are complete. In some databases, only the first page number (or no page number) appears in citation information. If a PDF (page image) version of the article is available, use that to verify page range.
  • Check DOI format. There is only one acceptable way to write DOI numbers in APA 7th style; standardize your DOI number to match the format shown here (see the "Helpful Tips" tab). Database-supplied citations will often include extra unneeded parts at the beginning of the DOI number.
  • Check font, spacing, and punctuation. Citations may not paste with the font that matches the rest of your paper (APA accepts any standard easily readable font as long as you are consistent). Spacing between words and/or line spacing may not be correct. Punctuation (commas, periods) may be missing or may not be correct.

Author(s):

  • Standard form (use initials instead of first and middle names):
    • Rita Maxwell is Maxwell, R.
    • Graham B. Souder is Souder, G. B.
    • John Keith Sanford is Sanford, J. K.
    • Dara Haier-Thomas is Haier-Thomas, D.
    • Jo-Beth McNeil is McNeil, J.-B.
    • Seymour Bevins III is Bevins, S., III
    • Travis W. Tamblin Jr. is Tamblin, T. W., Jr.
    • Susanna Erstmiller, Ph.D. is Erstmiller, S.
    • Dr. Bakari is Bakari
    • Sophocles is Sophocles
    • Malcolm X is Malcolm X
  • Two authors (use "&" instead of writing out the word "and"):
    • Maxwell, R., & Souder, G. B.
  • Three to twenty authors (list all authors; use "&" before the last):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., & Tamblin, T. W., Jr. 
  • More than twenty authors (list the first nineteen and last author using an ellipsis [. . .] before the last with no "&"):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., Bevins, S., III, Tamblin, T. W., Jr., Peters, A. S., Widmark, E., Ross, G., Wu, J.-P., Albright, R. T., Garcia Ramirez, S. L., Ganyana, B. D., Heins, F., Rosach, K., Alborelli, L. H., Kohlkut, D. D., James, X., . . . Inabi, H. G.

Publication Date for Journal Articles:

  • For articles that appear in a journal, use only the year of publication, even if more specific date information is available.
  • If you are not sure if your article comes from a journal, magazine, or newspaper, look at the database information supplied with the article, or do a web search using the publication title in quotes to look for clues on the publication's homepage.

Article Title:

  • Do not put in quotes. Capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms. If you are not sure which words in your title should be capitalized, look at the text of your article for clues:
    • Facts, attitudes, and health reasoning about HIV and AIDS: Explaining the education effect on condom use among adults in sub-Saharan Africa.
    • Foot health education for people with rheumatoid arthritis—Some patient perspectives. 

Journal Name:

  • Italicize the name of your journal: African Journal of Business Ethics.
  • Use the complete name of your journal, including initial articles: The Journal of Finance.
  • Capitalize first words, major words, and all words of at least four letters: Social Work With Groups.
  • If the official name of your journal includes an ampersand [&], use the ampersand: Gender & History.

Volume/Issue Information:

  • Include the volume number for all journal articles, written in Arabic numerals: 27; 459.
  • If your journal also has an issue number, include it, in Arabic numerals inside parentheses: (4).
  • Note that the volume number is italicized, but the parenthetical issue number is not: 27(4).

Page Numbers for Journal Articles:

  • Do not use p. or pp. in front of page numbers for journal articles.
  • Use full digits for the entire page-number range (2-10; 86-89; 208-247; 1009-1033).
  • If a PDF (page image) version of the article is available, use that to verify correct page-number range.

Database Information:

  • If you found your article through a library database, do not include any database information (such as the name of the database or the URL assigned to the article in the database) unless your instructor directs you otherwise.

DOI Number:

  • In APA style, the DOI number should always be included if it is available. There is only one acceptable format for the DOI number: https://doi.org/10.xxxxxxxx
  • If the format for the DOI listed with your article is different, standardize it to match the acceptable format.
  • Make sure you are not including anything extra at the beginning of your DOI, especially if you are copying and pasting a citation from a database.
  • Do not put a period at the end of your DOI.
  • It is acceptable in your References list for your DOIs to look either like hyperlinks (blue and underlined) or like regular text. Check with your instructor if you are unsure of which style to use.

  Journal Article without DOI (Print or Library Resources)

Carver, S. D., Van Sickle, J., Holcomb, J. P., Quinn, C. M., Jackson, D. K., Resnick, A., Duffy, S. F., Sridhar, N., & Marquard, A. (2017). Operation STEM: Increasing success and improving retention among mathematically underprepared students in STEM. Journal of STEM Education, 18(3), 20-29.

Author(s) of Article. (year of publication). Complete title of article. Name of Journal, volume(issue), page range of article if available.

If you find your article in a library database, you can click on the "Cite" button next to your article and choose "APA" (your database may list "APA 6th"; some databases do not yet have citation information for the new APA 7th style). For this example, you would get the following citation:

Carver, S. D., Van Sickle, J., Holcomb, J. P., Jackson, D. K., Resnick, A., Duffy, S. F., . . . Quinn, C. M. (2017). Operation STEM: Increasing success and improving retention among mathematically underprepared students in STEM. Journal of STEM Education : Innovations and Research, 18(3), 20-29. Retrieved from https://libpro.pittcc.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.libpro.pittcc.edu/docview/1949081608?accountid=13209

There are a number of errors in this database-supplied citation (highlighted in yellow). Here is how it should look:

Carver, S. D., Van Sickle, J., Holcomb, J. P., Quinn, C. M., Jackson, D. K., Resnick, A., Duffy, S. F., Sridhar, N., & Marquard, A. (2017). Operation STEM: Increasing success and improving retention among mathematically underprepared students in STEM. Journal of STEM Education, 18(3), 20-29.

Note that in APA 7th, you are to include all authors up to 20, and should not supply any database-related information unless your instructor requires it.

If you use the "Cite" feature, compare your citation carefully to the example shown and change as necessary. Look at the information provided with the article itself to verify anything that looks incorrect.

You will also need to:

  • Check the author names. In APA style, database-supplied citations will often confuse first names with last names, will  include the wrong part of compound names, or will add unneeded components (such as PhD). Look at the author information that appears with the article itself to help determine the correct way to cite an author's name.
  • Check title capitalization. Database-supplied citations will often give article titles in all capital letters, or will have other capitalization errors. In APA style, article titles should have only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms capitalized.
  • Make sure page numbers are complete. In some databases, only the first page number (or no page number) appears in citation information. If a PDF (page image) version of the article is available, use that to verify page range.
  • Check font, spacing, and punctuation. Citations may not paste with the font that matches the rest of your paper (APA accepts any standard easily readable font as long as you are consistent). Spacing between words and/or line spacing may not be correct. Punctuation (commas, periods) may be missing or may not be correct.

Author(s):

  • Standard form (use initials instead of first and middle names):
    • Rita Maxwell is Maxwell, R.
    • Graham B. Souder is Souder, G. B.
    • John Keith Sanford is Sanford, J. K.
    • Dara Haier-Thomas is Haier-Thomas, D.
    • Jo-Beth McNeil is McNeil, J.-B.
    • Seymour Bevins III is Bevins, S., III
    • Travis W. Tamblin Jr. is Tamblin, T. W., Jr.
    • Susanna Erstmiller, Ph.D. is Erstmiller, S.
    • Dr. Bakari is Bakari
    • Sophocles is Sophocles
    • Malcolm X is Malcolm X
  • Two authors (use "&" instead of writing out the word "and"):
    • Maxwell, R., & Souder, G. B.
  • Three to twenty authors (list all authors; use "&" before the last):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., & Tamblin, T. W., Jr. 
  • More than twenty authors (list the first nineteen and last author using an ellipsis [. . .] before the last with no "&"):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., Bevins, S., III, Tamblin, T. W., Jr., Peters, A. S., Widmark, E., Ross, G., Wu, J.-P., Albright, R. T., Garcia Ramirez, S. L., Ganyana, B. D., Heins, F., Rosach, K., Alborelli, L. H., Kohlkut, D. D., James, X., . . . Inabi, H. G.

Publication Date for Journal Articles:

  • For articles that appear in a journal, use only the year of publication, even if more specific date information is available.
  • If you are not sure if your article comes from a journal, magazine, or newspaper, look at the database information supplied with the article, or do a web search using the publication title in quotes to look for clues on the publication's homepage.

Article Title:

  • Do not put in quotes. Capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms. If you are not sure which words in your title should be capitalized, look at the text of your article for clues:
    • Facts, attitudes, and health reasoning about HIV and AIDS: Explaining the education effect on condom use among adults in sub-Saharan Africa.
    • Foot health education for people with rheumatoid arthritis—Some patient perspectives. 

Journal Name:

  • Italicize the name of your journal: African Journal of Business Ethics.
  • Use the complete name of your journal, including initial articles: The Journal of Finance.
  • Capitalize first words, major words, and all words of at least four letters: Social Work With Groups.
  • If the official name of your journal includes an ampersand [&], use the ampersand: Gender & History.

Volume/Issue Information:

  • Include the volume number for all journal articles, written in Arabic numerals: 27; 459.
  • If your journal also has an issue number, include it, in Arabic numerals inside parentheses: (4).
  • Note that the volume number is italicized, but the parenthetical issue number is not: 27(4).

Page Numbers for Journal Articles:

  • Do not use p. or pp. in front of page numbers for journal articles.
  • Use full digits for the entire page-number range (2-10; 86-89; 208-247; 1009-1033).
  • If a PDF (page image) version of the article is available, use that to verify correct page-number range.

Database Information:

  • If you found your article through a library database, do not include any database information (such as the name of the database or the URL assigned to the article in the database) unless your instructor directs you otherwise.

  Journal Article without DOI (Online, Not Library Database)

Baudi. (2019). The role of parents’ interests and attitudes in motivating them to homeschool their children. Journal of Social Studies Education Research, 10(1), 156-177. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3c6f/
af745daa542b4a9ad0506d1bd2d8bb9ccf6a.pdf?_ga=2.223833883.1280066228.1590511618-671395924
.1590511618

Author(s) of Article. (year of publication). Complete title of article. Name of Journal, volume(issue), page range of article if available. Direct URL for article

Author(s):

  • Standard form (use initials instead of first and middle names):
    • Rita Maxwell is Maxwell, R.
    • Graham B. Souder is Souder, G. B.
    • John Keith Sanford is Sanford, J. K.
    • Dara Haier-Thomas is Haier-Thomas, D.
    • Jo-Beth McNeil is McNeil, J.-B.
    • Seymour Bevins III is Bevins, S., III
    • Travis W. Tamblin Jr. is Tamblin, T. W., Jr.
    • Susanna Erstmiller, Ph.D. is Erstmiller, S.
    • Dr. Bakari is Bakari
    • Sophocles is Sophocles
    • Malcolm X is Malcolm X
  • Two authors (use "&" instead of writing out the word "and"):
    • Maxwell, R., & Souder, G. B.
  • Three to twenty authors (list all authors; use "&" before the last):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., & Tamblin, T. W., Jr. 
  • More than twenty authors (list the first nineteen and last author using an ellipsis [. . .] before the last with no "&"):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., Bevins, S., III, Tamblin, T. W., Jr., Peters, A. S., Widmark, E., Ross, G., Wu, J.-P., Albright, R. T., Garcia Ramirez, S. L., Ganyana, B. D., Heins, F., Rosach, K., Alborelli, L. H., Kohlkut, D. D., James, X., . . . Inabi, H. G.

Publication Date for Journal Articles:

  • For articles that appear in a journal, use only the year of publication, even if more specific date information is available.
  • If you are not sure if your article comes from a journal, magazine, or newspaper, look at the database information supplied with the article, or do a web search using the publication title in quotes to look for clues on the publication's homepage.

Article Title:

  • Do not put in quotes. Capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms. If you are not sure which words in your title should be capitalized, look at the text of your article for clues:
    • Facts, attitudes, and health reasoning about HIV and AIDS: Explaining the education effect on condom use among adults in sub-Saharan Africa.
    • Foot health education for people with rheumatoid arthritis—Some patient perspectives. 

Journal Name:

  • Italicize the name of your journal: African Journal of Business Ethics.
  • Use the complete name of your journal, including initial articles: The Journal of Finance.
  • Capitalize first words, major words, and all words of at least four letters: Social Work With Groups.
  • If the official name of your journal includes an ampersand [&], use the ampersand: Gender & History.

Volume/Issue Information:

  • Include the volume number for all journal articles, written in Arabic numerals: 27; 459.
  • If your journal also has an issue number, include it, in Arabic numerals inside parentheses: (4).
  • Note that the volume number is italicized, but the parenthetical issue number is not: 27(4).

Page Numbers for Journal Articles:

  • Do not use p. or pp. in front of page numbers for journal articles.
  • Use full digits for the entire page-number range (2-10; 86-89; 208-247; 1009-1033).
  • If a PDF (page image) version of the article is available, use that to verify correct page-number range.

URL:

  • Carefully copy the exact URL that will lead directly to your article.
  • Look to see if there is a "permalink" you can use (sometimes found under a "link" symbol to the side or at the top of the article). If no permalink is supplied, use the URL that appears in your browser address bar.
  • Do not put a period at the end of your URL.
  • It is acceptable in your References list for your URLs to look either like hyperlinks (blue and underlined) or like regular text. Check with your instructor if you are unsure of which style to use.

  Website Article

Williams, V. (2020, March 20). What’s the difference between quarantine and isolation? Mayo Clinic. https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/whats-the-difference-between-quarantine-and-isolation/

Author(s) of Article. (date of publication). Complete title of article. Website name unless same as author. Direct URL for article

Author(s):

  • Standard form (use initials instead of first and middle names):
    • Rita Maxwell is Maxwell, R.
    • Graham B. Souder is Souder, G. B.
    • John Keith Sanford is Sanford, J. K.
    • Dara Haier-Thomas is Haier-Thomas, D.
    • Jo-Beth McNeil is McNeil, J.-B.
    • Seymour Bevins III is Bevins, S., III
    • Travis W. Tamblin Jr. is Tamblin, T. W., Jr.
    • Susanna Erstmiller, Ph.D. is Erstmiller, S.
    • Dr. Bakari is Bakari
    • Sophocles is Sophocles
    • Malcolm X is Malcolm X
  • Two authors (use "&" instead of writing out the word "and"):
    • Maxwell, R., & Souder, G. B.
  • Three to twenty authors (list all authors; use "&" before the last):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., & Tamblin, T. W., Jr. 
  • More than twenty authors (list the first nineteen and last author using an ellipsis [. . .] before the last with no "&"):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., Bevins, S., III, Tamblin, T. W., Jr., Peters, A. S., Widmark, E., Ross, G., Wu, J.-P., Albright, R. T., Garcia Ramirez, S. L., Ganyana, B. D., Heins, F., Rosach, K., Alborelli, L. H., Kohlkut, D. D., James, X., . . . Inabi, H. G.

No Author:

  • If no author is listed for an article that would typically have an individual author (such as one from a news site), start with the article's title (in italics), and put the date information in parentheses after the title:

    • Coronavirus: Call for widespread testing of all key health workers. (2020, March 21). BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-51989730

Corporate Author:

  • If no individual author is listed and your website is sponsored by an organization, give author credit to the organization itself as it can be considered responsible for general site content: 

    • World Health Organization. (2019, September 13). Hypertension. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hypertension

(Note that the organization does not appear again as the site name since it is already listed as author.)

Government Agency as Author:

  • If no individual author is listed and your website is sponsored by a government agency, list only the entity most directly responsible for the content as author (unless parent agencies are needed to avoid any confusion with another identically named agency in your References list, which would rarely be the case). For example, an article from the National Institute of Mental Health (which is a subdivision of the National Institutes of Health, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) is cited as follows: 

    • National Institute of Mental Health. (2019, April). Suicide. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide.shtml

(Note that the parent agencies are given credit as site publishers in this case, with the largest agency listed first.)

Publication Date:

  • For web articles that do not come from an online journal, include as much publication date information (in parentheses) as is available: (2020, May 5) or (2018, December) or (2014).
  • Do not abbreviate the name of months.
  • Use the "last updated" date if that is the only date information available and it pertains to your article (not the site as a whole).
  • Do not use a "last reviewed" date if that is all you can find (see No Publication Date below).
  • Note that an article's publication date is not the same as the website's copyright date, which usually consists of a year or range of years, and is typically found at the bottom of the webpage beside a copyright "©" symbol.

No Publication Date:

  • If you cannot find a publication date for your article (or can only find a "reviewed" date, which you should not use), put "n.d." in parentheses where the date would normally go:

    • American Diabetes Association. (n.d.). Get to know carbs. https://www.diabetes.org/nutrition/understanding-carbs/get-to-know-carbs

"Retrieved" Date:

  • Supply a date for when you accessed (retrieved) your web article only for those pages that are designed to change over time (i.e., those that have a URL that will not always bring up the page as you found it):
    • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). About flu. Retrieved May 26, 2020, from https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/index.html

(Note that a retrieval date is not necessary for most articles, unless your instructor requires it.)

URL:

  • Carefully copy the exact URL that will lead directly to your article.
  • Look to see if there is a "permalink" you can use (sometimes found under a "link" symbol to the side or at the top of the article). If no permalink is supplied, use the URL that appears in your browser address bar.
  • Do not put a period at the end of your URL.
  • It is acceptable in your References list for your URLs to look either like hyperlinks (blue and underlined) or like regular text. Check with your instructor if you are unsure of which style to use.

  Magazine Article (Print or Library Database)

Ocklenburg, S. (2020, March/April). The inner life of vegetarians. Psychology Today, 53(2), 15.

Author(s) of Article. (date of publication). Complete title of article. Name of Magazine, volume(issue) if available, page(s) of article if available.

If you find your article in a library database, you can click on the "Cite" button next to your article and choose "APA" (your database may list "APA 6th"; some databases do not yet have citation information for the new APA 7th style). For this example, you would get the following citation:

Ocklenburg, S., PhD. (2020, Mar). The inner life of vegetarians. Psychology Today, 53, 15. Retrieved from https://libpro.pittcc.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.libpro.pittcc.edu/docview/2365265026?accountid=13209

There are a number of errors in this database-supplied citation (highlighted in yellow). Here is how it should look:

Ocklenburg, S. (2020, March/April). The inner life of vegetarians. Psychology Today, 53(2), 15.

Note that in APA 7th, you should not supply any database-related information unless your instructor requires it.

If you use the "Cite" feature, compare your citation carefully to the example shown and change as necessary. Look at the information provided with the article itself to verify anything that looks incorrect.

You will also need to:

  • Check the author names. In APA style, database-supplied citations will often confuse first names with last names, will  include the wrong part of compound names, or will add unneeded components (such as PhD). Look at the author information that appears with the article itself to help determine the correct way to cite an author's name.
  • Check title capitalization. Database-supplied citations will often give article titles in all capital letters, or will have other capitalization errors. In APA style, article titles should have only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms capitalized.
  • Make sure page numbers are complete. In some databases, only the first page number (or no page number) appears in citation information. If a PDF (page image) version of the article is available, use that to verify page range.
  • Check font, spacing, and punctuation. Citations may not paste with the font that matches the rest of your paper (APA accepts any standard easily readable font as long as you are consistent). Spacing between words and/or line spacing may not be correct. Punctuation (commas, periods) may be missing or may not be correct.

Author(s):

  • Standard form (use initials instead of first and middle names):
    • Rita Maxwell is Maxwell, R.
    • Graham B. Souder is Souder, G. B.
    • John Keith Sanford is Sanford, J. K.
    • Dara Haier-Thomas is Haier-Thomas, D.
    • Jo-Beth McNeil is McNeil, J.-B.
    • Seymour Bevins III is Bevins, S., III
    • Travis W. Tamblin Jr. is Tamblin, T. W., Jr.
    • Susanna Erstmiller, Ph.D. is Erstmiller, S.
    • Dr. Bakari is Bakari
    • Sophocles is Sophocles
    • Malcolm X is Malcolm X
  • Two authors (use "&" instead of writing out the word "and"):
    • Maxwell, R., & Souder, G. B.
  • Three to twenty authors (list all authors; use "&" before the last):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., & Tamblin, T. W., Jr. 
  • More than twenty authors (list the first nineteen and last author using an ellipsis [. . .] before the last with no "&"):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., Bevins, S., III, Tamblin, T. W., Jr., Peters, A. S., Widmark, E., Ross, G., Wu, J.-P., Albright, R. T., Garcia Ramirez, S. L., Ganyana, B. D., Heins, F., Rosach, K., Alborelli, L. H., Kohlkut, D. D., James, X., . . . Inabi, H. G.

No Author:

  • If no author is listed for your article, start with the article's title, and put the date information in parentheses after the title:

    • Know your no. (2018, December/2019, January). Girls' Life, 25(3), 60-61, 74. 

Publication Date for Magazine Articles:

  • For articles that come from a magazine, include as much publication date information (in parentheses) as is available: (2020, May 5) or (2018, December) or (2016, March/April)  or (2014).
  • Do not abbreviate the name of months.
  • If you are not sure if your article comes from a journal, magazine, or newspaper, look at the database information supplied with the article, or do a web search using the publication title in quotes to look for clues on the publication's homepage.

Article Title:

  • Do not put in quotes. Capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms. If you are not sure which words in your title should be capitalized, look at the text of your article for clues:
    • Facts, attitudes, and health reasoning about HIV and AIDS: Explaining the education effect on condom use among adults in sub-Saharan Africa.
    • Foot health education for people with rheumatoid arthritis—Some patient perspectives.

Magazine Name:

  • Italicize the name of your magazine: Men's Health.
  • Use the complete name of your magazine, including initial articles: The New Yorker.
  • Capitalize first words, major words, and all words of at least four letters: Real Living With Multiple Sclerosis.
  • If the official name of your magazine includes an ampersand [&], use the ampersand: Better Homes & Gardens.

Volume/Issue Information:

  • Include the volume number, if listed, written in Arabic numerals: 27; 459.
  • Include the issue number, if listed, in parentheses with no space beside the volume number, in Arabic numerals: (4).
  • Note that the volume number is italicized, but the parenthetical issue number is not: 27(4).
  • If you cannot find volume/issue information for your article, move on to page numbers if available, or put a  period after the magazine name.

Page Numbers for Magazine Articles:

  • Do not use p. or pp. in front of page numbers for magazine articles.
  • Use full digits for the entire page-number range (2-10; 86-89; 208-247; 1009-1033).
  • If your article continues on a non-consecutive page (or pages), list all pages, separated by commas: 8-12, 14, 29.
  • If a PDF (page image) version of the article is available, use that to verify correct page-number range and/or any non-consecutive pages. 
  • If you cannot find page numbers for your article, put a period after volume/issue information (or magazine name if volume/issue is also not available).

Database Information:

  • If you found your article through a library database, do not include any database information (such as the name of the database or the URL assigned to the article in the database) unless your instructor directs you otherwise.

  Magazine Article (Online Magazine Site)

Friedman, Z. (2020, May 20). Are your unemployment benefits taxable? Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/05/20/do-you-have-to-pay-taxes-on-unemployment/#1411d617243d

Author(s) of Article. (date of publication). Complete title of article. Name of Magazine. Direct URL for article

Author(s):

  • Standard form (use initials instead of first and middle names):
    • Rita Maxwell is Maxwell, R.
    • Graham B. Souder is Souder, G. B.
    • John Keith Sanford is Sanford, J. K.
    • Dara Haier-Thomas is Haier-Thomas, D.
    • Jo-Beth McNeil is McNeil, J.-B.
    • Seymour Bevins III is Bevins, S., III
    • Travis W. Tamblin Jr. is Tamblin, T. W., Jr.
    • Susanna Erstmiller, Ph.D. is Erstmiller, S.
    • Dr. Bakari is Bakari
    • Sophocles is Sophocles
    • Malcolm X is Malcolm X
  • Two authors (use "&" instead of writing out the word "and"):
    • Maxwell, R., & Souder, G. B.
  • Three to twenty authors (list all authors; use "&" before the last):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., & Tamblin, T. W., Jr. 
  • More than twenty authors (list the first nineteen and last author using an ellipsis [. . .] before the last with no "&"):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., Bevins, S., III, Tamblin, T. W., Jr., Peters, A. S., Widmark, E., Ross, G., Wu, J.-P., Albright, R. T., Garcia Ramirez, S. L., Ganyana, B. D., Heins, F., Rosach, K., Alborelli, L. H., Kohlkut, D. D., James, X., . . . Inabi, H. G.

No Author:

  • If no author is listed for your article, start with the article's title, and put the date information in parentheses after the title:

    • Know your no. (2018, December/2019, January). Girls' Life, 25(3), 60-61, 74. 

Publication Date for Magazine Articles:

  • For articles that come from a magazine, include as much publication date information (in parentheses) as is available: (2020, May 5) or (2018, December) or (2016, March/April)  or (2014).
  • Do not abbreviate the name of months.
  • If you are not sure if your article comes from a journal, magazine, or newspaper, look at the database information supplied with the article, or do a web search using the publication title in quotes to look for clues on the publication's homepage.

Article Title:

  • Do not put in quotes. Capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms. If you are not sure which words in your title should be capitalized, look at the text of your article for clues:
    • Facts, attitudes, and health reasoning about HIV and AIDS: Explaining the education effect on condom use among adults in sub-Saharan Africa.
    • Foot health education for people with rheumatoid arthritis—Some patient perspectives.

Magazine Name:

  • Italicize the name of your magazine: Men's Health.
  • Use the complete name of your magazine, including initial articles: The New Yorker.
  • Capitalize first words, major words, and all words of at least four letters: Real Living With Multiple Sclerosis.
  • If the official name of your magazine includes an ampersand [&], use the ampersand: Better Homes & Gardens.

URL:

  • Carefully copy the exact URL that will lead directly to your article.
  • Look to see if there is a "permalink" you can use (sometimes found under a "link" symbol to the side or at the top of the article). If no permalink is supplied, use the URL that appears in your browser address bar.
  • Do not put a period at the end of your URL.
  • It is acceptable in your References list for your URLs to look either like hyperlinks (blue and underlined) or like regular text. Check with your instructor if you are unsure of which style to use.

  Newspaper Article (Print or Library Database)

Mahoney, M. A. (2020, April 15). Tips for limiting coronavirus transmission at home. Tallahassee Democrat, C4.

Author(s) of Article. (date of publication). Complete title of article. Name of Newspaper, volume(issue) if available, page(s) of article if available.

If you find your article in a library database, you can click on the "Cite" button next to your article and choose "APA" (your database may list "APA 6th"; some databases do not yet have citation information for the new APA 7th style). For this example, you would get the following citation:

                     Tips for limiting coronavirus transmission at home. (2020, Apr 15). Tallahassee Democrat         Retrieved from https://libpro.pittcc.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.libpro.pittcc.edu/docview/2389798042?accountid=13209

There are a number of errors in this database-supplied citation (highlighted in yellow). Here is how it should look:

Mahoney, M. A. (2020, April 15). Tips for limiting coronavirus transmission at home. Tallahassee Democrat, C4.

Note that in APA 7th, you should not supply any database-related information unless your instructor requires it.

If you use the "Cite" feature, compare your citation carefully to the example shown and change as necessary. Look at the information provided with the article itself to verify anything that looks incorrect.

You will also need to:

  • Check the author names. In APA style, database-supplied citations will often confuse first names with last names, will  include the wrong part of compound names, or will add unneeded components (such as PhD). Look at the author information that appears with the article itself to help determine the correct way to cite an author's name.
  • Check title capitalization. Database-supplied citations will often give article titles in all capital letters, or will have other capitalization errors. In APA style, article titles should have only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms capitalized.
  • Check font, spacing, and punctuation. Citations may not paste with the font that matches the rest of your paper (APA accepts any standard easily readable font as long as you are consistent). Spacing between words and/or line spacing may not be correct. Punctuation (commas, periods) may be missing or may not be correct.

Author(s):

  • Standard form (use initials instead of first and middle names):
    • Rita Maxwell is Maxwell, R.
    • Graham B. Souder is Souder, G. B.
    • John Keith Sanford is Sanford, J. K.
    • Dara Haier-Thomas is Haier-Thomas, D.
    • Jo-Beth McNeil is McNeil, J.-B.
    • Seymour Bevins III is Bevins, S., III
    • Travis W. Tamblin Jr. is Tamblin, T. W., Jr.
    • Susanna Erstmiller, Ph.D. is Erstmiller, S.
    • Dr. Bakari is Bakari
    • Sophocles is Sophocles
    • Malcolm X is Malcolm X
  • Two authors (use "&" instead of writing out the word "and"):
    • Maxwell, R., & Souder, G. B.
  • Three to twenty authors (list all authors; use "&" before the last):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., & Tamblin, T. W., Jr. 
  • More than twenty authors (list the first nineteen and last author using an ellipsis [. . .] before the last with no "&"):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., Bevins, S., III, Tamblin, T. W., Jr., Peters, A. S., Widmark, E., Ross, G., Wu, J.-P., Albright, R. T., Garcia Ramirez, S. L., Ganyana, B. D., Heins, F., Rosach, K., Alborelli, L. H., Kohlkut, D. D., James, X., . . . Inabi, H. G.

No Author:

  • If no author is listed for your article, start with the article's title, and put the date information in parentheses after the title:

    • Voter education, not age, will make a difference. (2018, June 7-13). Washington Informer, 53(34), 27.

Publication Date for Newspaper Articles:

  • For articles that come from a newspaper, include full publication date information (in parentheses): (2018, January 4). 
  • Do not abbreviate the name of months.
  • If you are not sure if your article comes from a journal, magazine, or newspaper, look at the database information supplied with the article, or do a web search using the publication title in quotes to look for clues on the publication's homepage.

Article Title:

  • Do not put in quotes. Capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms. If you are not sure which words in your title should be capitalized, look at the text of your article for clues:
    • Facts, attitudes, and health reasoning about HIV and AIDS: Explaining the education effect on condom use among adults in sub-Saharan Africa.
    • Foot health education for people with rheumatoid arthritis—Some patient perspectives.

Newspaper Name:

  • Italicize the name of your newspaper: Rocky Mount Telegram.
  • Use the complete name of your newspaper, including initial articles: The New York Times.
  • Capitalize first words, major words, and all words of at least four letters: Palm Beach Daily News.
  • If the official title of your newspaper includes an ampersand [&], use the ampersand: The News & Observer.

Volume/Issue Information:

  • Include the volume number, if listed, written in Arabic numerals: 27; 459.
  • Include the issue number, if listed, in parentheses with no space beside the volume number, in Arabic numerals: (4).
  • Note that the volume number is italicized, but the parenthetical issue number is not: 27(4).
  • If you cannot find volume/issue information for your article, move on to page numbers if available, or put a  period after the newspaper name.

Page Numbers for Newspaper Articles:

  • Do not use p. or pp. in front of page numbers for newspaper articles.
  • Include any section letters that appear with the page number(s): A7; 8D.
  • If your article continues on a non-consecutive page (or pages), list all pages, separated by commas: A3-A4, A13.
  • If a PDF (page image) version of the article is available, use that to verify correct page-number range and/or any non-consecutive pages. 
  • If you cannot find page numbers for your article, put a period after volume/issue information (or newspaper name if volume/issue is also not available).

Database Information:

  • If you found your article through a library database, do not include any database information (such as the name of the database or the URL assigned to the article in the database) unless your instructor directs you otherwise.

  Newspaper Article (Online Newspaper Site)

Roose, K. (2020, April 2). The coronavirus crisis is showing us how to live online. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/technology/coronavirus-how-to-live-online.html

Author(s) of Article. (date of publication). Complete title of article. Name of Newspaper. Direct URL for article

Author(s):

  • Standard form (use initials instead of first and middle names):
    • Rita Maxwell is Maxwell, R.
    • Graham B. Souder is Souder, G. B.
    • John Keith Sanford is Sanford, J. K.
    • Dara Haier-Thomas is Haier-Thomas, D.
    • Jo-Beth McNeil is McNeil, J.-B.
    • Seymour Bevins III is Bevins, S., III
    • Travis W. Tamblin Jr. is Tamblin, T. W., Jr.
    • Susanna Erstmiller, Ph.D. is Erstmiller, S.
    • Dr. Bakari is Bakari
    • Sophocles is Sophocles
    • Malcolm X is Malcolm X
  • Two authors (use "&" instead of writing out the word "and"):
    • Maxwell, R., & Souder, G. B.
  • Three to twenty authors (list all authors; use "&" before the last):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., & Tamblin, T. W., Jr. 
  • More than twenty authors (list the first nineteen and last author using an ellipsis [. . .] before the last with no "&"):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., Bevins, S., III, Tamblin, T. W., Jr., Peters, A. S., Widmark, E., Ross, G., Wu, J.-P., Albright, R. T., Garcia Ramirez, S. L., Ganyana, B. D., Heins, F., Rosach, K., Alborelli, L. H., Kohlkut, D. D., James, X., . . . Inabi, H. G.

No Author:

  • If no author is listed for your article, start with the article's title, and put the date information in parentheses after the title:

    • Vidant closing Wellness Center. (2020, June 15). The Daily Reflector. https://www.reflector.com/news/local/vidant-closing-wellness-center/article_206af9cb-7979-53d2-ba5f-a398a110671c.html

Publication Date for Newspaper Articles:

  • For articles that come from a newspaper, include full publication date information (in parentheses): (2018, January 4). 
  • Do not abbreviate the name of months.
  • If you are not sure if your article comes from a journal, magazine, or newspaper, look at the database information supplied with the article, or do a web search using the publication title in quotes to look for clues on the publication's homepage.

Article Title:

  • Do not put in quotes. Capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms. If you are not sure which words in your title should be capitalized, look at the text of your article for clues:
    • Facts, attitudes, and health reasoning about HIV and AIDS: Explaining the education effect on condom use among adults in sub-Saharan Africa.
    • Foot health education for people with rheumatoid arthritis—Some patient perspectives.

Newspaper Name:

  • Italicize the name of your newspaper: Rocky Mount Telegram.
  • Use the complete name of your newspaper, including initial articles: The New York Times.
  • Capitalize first words, major words, and all words of at least four letters: Palm Beach Daily News.
  • If the official title of your newspaper includes an ampersand [&], use the ampersand: The News & Observer.

URL:

  • Carefully copy the exact URL that will lead directly to your article.
  • Look to see if there is a "permalink" you can use (sometimes found under a "link" symbol to the side or at the top of the article). If no permalink is supplied, use the URL that appears in your browser address bar.
  • Do not put a period at the end of your URL.
  • It is acceptable in your References list for your URLs to look either like hyperlinks (blue and underlined) or like regular text. Check with your instructor if you are unsure of which style to use.

  Books with Author(s) (Print or Library Database)

Dillon, M. (2014). Introduction to sociological theory: Theorists, concepts, and their applicability to the twenty-first century (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons; Blackwell Publishing.

Author(s) of Book. (year of publication). Complete title of book (edition if not 1st). Publisher(s).

If you find your book in a library database, you can click on the "Cite" button next to your book details and choose "APA" (your database may list "APA 6th"; some databases do not yet have citation information for the new APA 7th style). For this example, you would get the following citation:

Dillon, M. (2019). Introduction to sociological theory : Theorists, concepts, and their applicability to the twenty-first century. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.libpro.pittcc.edu

There are errors in this database-supplied citation (highlighted in yellow). Here is how it should look:

Dillon, M. (2014). Introduction to sociological theory: Theorists, concepts, and their applicability to the twenty-first century (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons; Blackwell Publishing.

Note that in APA 7th, you should not supply any database-related information unless your instructor requires it.

If you use the "Cite" feature, compare your citation carefully to the example shown and change as necessary. Look at the information provided with the book itself to verify anything that looks incorrect.

You will also need to:

  • Check the author names. In APA style, database-supplied citations will often confuse first names with last names, will  include the wrong part of compound names, or will add unneeded components (such as PhD). Look at the author information that appears with the book itself to help determine the correct way to cite an author's name.
  • Check title capitalization. Database-supplied citations will often give book titles in all capital letters, or will have other capitalization errors. In APA style, book titles should have only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms capitalized.
  • Check font, spacing, and punctuation. Citations may not paste with the font that matches the rest of your paper (APA accepts any standard easily readable font as long as you are consistent). Spacing between words and/or line spacing may not be correct. Punctuation (commas, periods) may be missing or may not be correct.
  • Check for missing information. In most databases, books will appear as an ebook or PDF version of a print book. Check this version of the book itself for any missing publication details such as edition or publisher, and to verify title and author information.

Author(s):

  • Standard form (use initials instead of first and middle names):
    • Rita Maxwell is Maxwell, R.
    • Graham B. Souder is Souder, G. B.
    • John Keith Sanford is Sanford, J. K.
    • Dara Haier-Thomas is Haier-Thomas, D.
    • Jo-Beth McNeil is McNeil, J.-B.
    • Seymour Bevins III is Bevins, S., III
    • Travis W. Tamblin Jr. is Tamblin, T. W., Jr.
    • Susanna Erstmiller, Ph.D. is Erstmiller, S.
    • Dr. Bakari is Bakari
    • Sophocles is Sophocles
    • Malcolm X is Malcolm X
  • Two authors (use "&" instead of writing out the word "and"):
    • Maxwell, R., & Souder, G. B.
  • Three to twenty authors (list all authors; use "&" before the last):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., & Tamblin, T. W., Jr. 
  • More than twenty authors (list the first nineteen and last author using an ellipsis [. . .] before the last with no "&"):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., Bevins, S., III, Tamblin, T. W., Jr., Peters, A. S., Widmark, E., Ross, G., Wu, J.-P., Albright, R. T., Garcia Ramirez, S. L., Ganyana, B. D., Heins, F., Rosach, K., Alborelli, L. H., Kohlkut, D. D., James, X., . . . Inabi, H. G.

Corporate Author:

  • If no individual author is listed in your book and the book has been produced by an organization, give author credit to the organization as it can be considered responsible for the book's content: 

    • American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association: The official guide to APA style (7th ed.).

(Note that the organization does not appear again as the publisher since it is already listed as author.)

Publication Date:

  • Use the latest year of publication; this is usually found a page or two after the title page in your book, on the copyright page.
  • If there is no date of publication listed, use "n.d." instead of a year, in parentheses after the author(s): (n.d.).

Title of Book:

  • Use the complete title as found on the title page, including subtitle if any.
  • Use italics for your book title.
  • Capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms:
    • Functional cerebral SPECT and PET imaging.
    • In the garden of beasts: Love, terror, and an American family in Hitler's Berlin.
  • If the official title of your book contains an ampersand ("&"), use the ampersand:
    • The end of bureaucracy & the rise of the intelligent organization.

Series Information:

  • If your book has an individual title, and is also part of a series, there is no need to include series information.

Edition Information:

  • If your book is an edition later than the first, include that information in parentheses after the book title.
  • Use standard abbreviations for edition information.
  • Do not put edition information in italics:
    • Thinking critically (11th ed.).
    • Management (Rev. ed.).

Publisher:

  • Use the complete publisher's name as it appears on the copyright page of your book, but do not Include words that denote legal business structures such as "Incorporated (Inc.)," "Limited (Ltd.)," "Limited Liability Company (LLC)," etc.: Lonely Planet Global Limited is Lonely Planet Global; Nova Science Publishers, Inc. is Nova Science Publishers.
  • Abbreviations and symbols may be used only if they are part of the publisher's name as it appears in your book: Taylor & Francis Group; World Scientific Publishing Co.
  • If the publisher's name appears to be an imprint or division of a larger publishing company, use only the name of the imprint or division (e.g., your publisher appears as Bloomsbury on the title page, and on the copyright page you see "Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc." In this case, your publisher is Bloomsbury Academic.)
  • If two (or more) separate publishers appear on the copyright page, list all, separated by a semicolon: John Wiley & Sons; Blackwell Publishing.
  •  If the (corporate) author and the publisher are the same, list the name in the author slot only:

    • American Medical Association. (2017). Principles of CPT coding (9th ed.).

Database Information:

  • If you found your book through a library database, do not include any database information (such as the name of the database or the URL assigned to the book in the database) unless your instructor directs you otherwise.

  Books with Editor(s) Only (Print or Library Database)

Hanitzsch, T., Hanusch, F., Ramaprasad, J., & de Beer, A. S. (Eds.). (2019). Worlds of  journalism: Journalistic cultures around the globe. Columbia University Press.

Editor(s) of Book (Ed. or Eds.). (year of publication). Complete title of book (edition if not 1st). Publisher.

If you find your book in a library database, you can click on the "Cite" button next to your book details and choose "APA" (your database may list "APA 6th"; some databases do not yet have citation information for the new APA 7th style). For this example, you would get the following citation:

Thomas Hanitzsch, Folker Hanusch, Jyotika Ramaprasad, & Arnold S. de Beer. (2019). Worlds of Journalism : Journalistic Cultures Around the Globe. Columbia University Press.

There are a number of errors in this database-supplied citation (highlighted in yellow). Here is how it should look:

Hanitzsch, T., Hanusch, F., Ramaprasad, J., & de Beer, A. S. (Eds.). (2019). Worlds of journalism: Journalistic cultures around the globe. Columbia University Press.

Note that in APA 7th, you should not supply any database-related information unless your instructor requires it.

If you use the "Cite" feature, compare your citation carefully to the example shown and change as necessary. Look at the information provided with the book itself to verify anything that looks incorrect.

You will also need to:

  • Check the editor names. In APA style, database-supplied citations will often confuse first names with last names, will  include the wrong part of compound names, or will add unneeded components (such as PhD). Look at the author information that appears with the book itself to help determine the correct way to cite an editor's name.
  • Check title capitalization. Database-supplied citations will often give book titles in all capital letters, or will have other capitalization errors. In APA style, book titles should have only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms capitalized.
  • Check font, spacing, and punctuation. Citations may not paste with the font that matches the rest of your paper (APA accepts any standard easily readable font as long as you are consistent). Spacing between words and/or line spacing may not be correct. Punctuation (commas, periods) may be missing or may not be correct.
  • Check for missing information. In most databases, books will appear as an ebook or PDF version of a print book. Check this version of the book itself for any missing publication details such as edition or publisher, and to verify title and editor information.

Editor(s):

  • Standard form (use initials instead of first and middle names; put "Ed." in parentheses after the name):
    • Rita Maxwell is Maxwell, R. (Ed.).
    • Graham B. Souder is Souder, G. B., (Ed.).
    • John Keith Sanford is Sanford, J. K. (Ed.).
    • Dara Haier-Thomas is Haier-Thomas, D. (Ed.).
    • Jo-Beth McNeil is McNeil, J.-B. (Ed.).
    • Seymour Bevins III is Bevins, S., III (Ed.).
    • Travis W. Tamblin Jr. is Tamblin, T. W., Jr. (Ed.).
    • Susanna Erstmiller, Ph.D. is Erstmiller, S. (Ed.).
    • Dr. Bakari is Bakari (Ed.).
    • Sophocles is Sophocles (Ed.).
    • Malcolm X is Malcolm X (Ed.).
  • Two editors (use "&" instead of writing out the word "and"; put "Eds." in parentheses after the names):
    • Maxwell, R., & Souder, G. B. (Eds.).
  • Three to twenty editors (list all editors; use "&" before the last; put "Eds." in parentheses after the names):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., & Tamblin, T. W., Jr. (Eds.).
  • More than twenty editors (list the first nineteen and last editor using an ellipsis [. . .] before the last with no "&"; put "Eds." in parentheses after the names):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., Bevins, S., III, Tamblin, T. W., Jr., Peters, A. S., Widmark, E., Ross, G., Wu, J.-P., Albright, R. T., Garcia Ramirez, S. L., Ganyana, B. D., Heins, F., Rosach, K., Alborelli, L. H., Kohlkut, D. D., James, X., . . . Inabi, H. G. (Eds.).

Publication Date:

  • Use the latest year of publication; this is usually found a page or two after the title page in your book, on the copyright page.
  • If there is no date of publication listed, use "n.d." instead of a year, in parentheses after the editor(s): (n.d.).

Title of Book:

  • Use the complete title as found on the title page, including subtitle if any.
  • Use italics for your book title.
  • Capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms:
    • Functional cerebral SPECT and PET imaging.
    • In the garden of beasts: Love, terror, and an American family in Hitler's Berlin.
  • If the official title of your book contains an ampersand ("&"), use the ampersand:
    • The end of bureaucracy & the rise of the intelligent organization.

Series Information:

  • If your book has an individual title, and is also part of a series, there is no need to include series information.

Edition Information:

  • If your book is an edition later than the first, include that information in parentheses after the book title.
  • Use standard abbreviations for edition information.
  • Do not put edition information in italics:
    • Thinking critically (11th ed.).
    • Management (Rev. ed.).

Publisher:

  • Use the complete publisher's name as it appears on the copyright page of your book, but do not Include words that denote legal business structures such as "Incorporated (Inc.)," "Limited (Ltd.)," "Limited Liability Company (LLC)," etc.: Lonely Planet Global Limited is Lonely Planet Global; Nova Science Publishers, Inc. is Nova Science Publishers.
  • Abbreviations and symbols may be used only if they are part of the publisher's name as it appears in your book: Taylor & Francis Group; World Scientific Publishing Co.
  • If the publisher's name appears to be an imprint or division of a larger publishing company, use only the name of the imprint or division (e.g., your publisher appears as Bloomsbury on the title page, and on the copyright page you see "Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc." In this case, your publisher is Bloomsbury Academic.)
  • If two (or more) separate publishers appear on the copyright page, list all, separated by a semicolon: John Wiley & Sons; Blackwell Publishing.

Database Information:

  • If you found your book through a library database, do not include any database information (such as the name of the database or the URL assigned to the book in the database) unless your instructor directs you otherwise.

  Single Chapter or Article from Edited Book

Ostberg, J. (2012). Masculinity and fashion. In C. C. Otnes & L. Tuncay Zayer (Eds.), Gender, culture, and consumer behavior (pp. 255-283). Routledge.

Author(s) of Chapter/Article. (year of publication). Complete title of chapter/article. In Editor(s) of Book (Ed. or Eds.), Complete title of book (edition if not 1st, pp. page range of chapter/article). Publisher.

When to Use This Format:

  • If you are citing a single chapter/article from an edited book that contains individual chapters or articles written by multiple other writers, use this format.
  • If your single chapter or article is from a book in which the author(s) wrote the content of the entire book, do not cite your chapter/article individually in your References list (and do not use this format). Cite the entire book according to the appropriate example for the type of book you have.

Writer(s) of Single Chapter/Article:

  • Standard form (use initials instead of first and middle names):
    • Rita Maxwell is Maxwell, R.
    • Graham B. Souder is Souder, G. B.
    • John Keith Sanford is Sanford, J. K.
    • Dara Haier-Thomas is Haier-Thomas, D.
    • Jo-Beth McNeil is McNeil, J.-B.
    • Seymour Bevins III is Bevins, S., III
    • Travis W. Tamblin Jr. is Tamblin, T. W., Jr.
    • Susanna Erstmiller, Ph.D. is Erstmiller, S.
    • Dr. Bakari is Bakari
    • Sophocles is Sophocles
    • Malcolm X is Malcolm X
  • Two authors (use "&" instead of writing out the word "and"):
    • Maxwell, R., & Souder, G. B.
  • Three to twenty authors (list all authors; use "&" before the last):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., & Tamblin, T. W., Jr. 
  • More than twenty authors (list the first nineteen and last author using an ellipsis [. . .] before the last with no "&"):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., Bevins, S., III, Tamblin, T. W., Jr., Peters, A. S., Widmark, E., Ross, G., Wu, J.-P., Albright, R. T., Garcia Ramirez, S. L., Ganyana, B. D., Heins, F., Rosach, K., Alborelli, L. H., Kohlkut, D. D., James, X., . . . Inabi, H. G.

Publication Date:

  • Use the latest year of publication; this is usually found a page or two after the title page in your book, on the copyright page.
  • If there is no date of publication listed, use "n.d." instead of a year (in parentheses after the writer[s] of your single chapter/article): (n.d.).

Title of Single Chapter/Article:

  • Use the complete title, including subtitle if any.
  • Do not use italics for your chapter/article title.
  • Capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms:
    • The myth of the Latin woman: I just met a girl named Maria.
    • Is college worth the money? Answers from six new graduates.

Editor(s) Statement:

  • Look for the name(s) of the editor(s) on or near the title page at the beginning of the entire book.
  • In this format, you will use the standard form with initials for the editor(s), but will not reverse the order to have last name first.
  • Put "Ed." or "Eds." in parentheses after the name or names.
  • Statement for one editor:
    • In R. Maxwell (Ed.)
  • Statement for two editors (use "&" instead of writing out the word "and"):
    • In R. Maxwell & G. B. Souder (Eds.)
  • Statement for three to twenty editors (list all editors; use "&" before the last):
    • In R. Maxwell, G. B. Souder, J. K. Sanford, D. Haier-Thomas, J.-B. McNeil, & T. W. Tamblin Jr. (Eds.)
  • Statement for more than twenty editors (list the first nineteen and last editor using an ellipsis [. . .] before the last with no "&"):
    • In R. Maxwell, G. B. Souder, J. K. Sanford, D. Haier-Thomas, J.-B. McNeil, S. Bevins III, T. W. Tamblin Jr., A. S. Peters, E. Widmark, G. Ross, J.-P. Wu, R. T. Albright, S. L. Garcia Ramirez, B. D. Ganyana, F. Heins, K. Rosach, L. H. Alborelli, D. D. Kohlkut, X. James, . . . H. G. Inabi (Eds.)

Title of Book:

  • Use the complete title as found on the title page, including subtitle if any.
  • Use italics for your book title.
  • Capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms:
    • Functional cerebral SPECT and PET imaging.
    • In the garden of beasts: Love, terror, and an American family in Hitler's Berlin.
  • If the official title of your book contains an ampersand ("&"), use the ampersand:
    • The end of bureaucracy & the rise of the intelligent organization.

Series Information:

  • If your book has an individual title, and is also part of a series, there is no need to include series information.

Edition Information:

  • If your book is an edition later than the first, include that information in parentheses after the book title. Do not put edition information in italics:
    • Thinking critically (11th ed.).
    • Management (Rev. ed.).
  • For this format, edition information goes before the single chapter/article page information in parentheses:
    • Everyone's an author with readings (2nd ed., pp. 1029-1032).

Publisher:

  • Use the complete publisher's name as it appears on the copyright page of your book, but do not Include words that denote legal business structures such as "Incorporated (Inc.)," "Limited (Ltd.)," "Limited Liability Company (LLC)," etc.: Lonely Planet Global Limited is Lonely Planet Global; Nova Science Publishers, Inc. is Nova Science Publishers.
  • Abbreviations and symbols may be used only if they are part of the publisher's name as it appears in your book: Taylor & Francis Group; World Scientific Publishing Co.
  • If the publisher's name appears to be an imprint or division of a larger publishing company, use only the name of the imprint or division (e.g., your publisher appears as Bloomsbury on the title page, and on the copyright page you see "Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc." In this case, your publisher is Bloomsbury Academic.)
  • If two (or more) separate publishers appear on the copyright page, list all, separated by a semicolon: John Wiley & Sons; Blackwell Publishing.

Original Publication Information:

  • If your single chapter/article has been reprinted from another source, include original publication information in parentheses at the end of your citation as shown: 

    • Coates, T.-N. (2019). The case for reparations. In G. Colombo, R. Cullen, & B. Lisle (Eds.), Rereading America: Cultural contexts for critical thinking and writing (11th ed., pp. 604-631). Bedford/St. Martin's. (Reprinted from "The case for reparations," 2014, June, The Atlantic)

In certain cases, especially in the case of textbooks, your book may have authors listed instead of editors and may still include a section of readings by multiple other writers. This is the case with the current English text, Everyone's an Author. Cite an individual work from this type of book as follows:

Pinker, S. Mind over mass media. (2017). In A. Lunsford, M. Brody, L. Ede, B. J. Moss, C. C. Papper, & K. Walters, Everyone's an author with readings (2nd ed., pp. 1029-1032). W. W. Norton & Company. (Reprinted from "Mind over mass media [Editorial]," 2010, June 11, The New York Times, A31)

(Note that original publication information should be included if your article is a reprint from another source.)

  Book with DOI

Mearns, R., & Norton, A. (Eds.). (2010). Social dimensions of climate change: Equity and vulnerability in a warming world. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank. https://doi.org/10.1596/978-0-8213-7887-8

Author(s) or Editor(s) of Book (if editor[s], Ed. or Eds.). (year of publication). Complete title of book (edition if not 1st). Publisher. https://doi.org/10.xxxxxxxx

If you find your book in a library database, you can click on the "Cite" button next to your book details and choose "APA" (your database may list "APA 6th"; some databases do not yet have citation information for the new APA 7th style). For this example, you would get the following citation:

World, B. (2009). Social dimensions of climate change : Equity and vulnerability in a warming world. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.libpro.pittcc.edu

There are several errors in this database-supplied citation (highlighted in yellow). Here is how it should look:

Mearns, R., & Norton, A. (Eds.). (2010). Social dimensions of climate change: Equity and vulnerability in a warming world. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank. https://doi.org/10.1596/978-0-8213-7887-8

Note that in APA 7th, you should not supply any database-related information unless your instructor requires it.

If you use the "Cite" feature, compare your citation carefully to the example shown and change as necessary. Look at the information provided with the book itself to verify anything that looks incorrect.

You will also need to:

  • Check the author names. In APA style, database-supplied citations will often confuse first names with last names, will  include the wrong part of compound names, or will add unneeded components (such as PhD). Look at the author information that appears with the book itself to help determine the correct way to cite an author's name.
  • Check title capitalization. Database-supplied citations will often give book titles in all capital letters, or will have other capitalization errors. In APA style, book titles should have only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms capitalized.
  • Check DOI format. There is only one acceptable way to write DOI numbers in APA 7th style; standardize your DOI number to match the format shown here (see the "Helpful Tips" tab). Database-supplied citations will often include extra unneeded parts at the beginning of the DOI number.
  • Check font, spacing, and punctuation. Citations may not paste with the font that matches the rest of your paper (APA accepts any standard easily readable font as long as you are consistent). Spacing between words and/or line spacing may not be correct. Punctuation (commas, periods) may be missing or may not be correct.
  • Check for missing information. In most databases, books will appear as an ebook or PDF version of a print book. Check this version of the book itself for any missing publication details such as edition or publisher, and to verify title and author information.

Author(s):

  • Standard form (use initials instead of first and middle names):
    • Rita Maxwell is Maxwell, R.
    • Graham B. Souder is Souder, G. B.
    • John Keith Sanford is Sanford, J. K.
    • Dara Haier-Thomas is Haier-Thomas, D.
    • Jo-Beth McNeil is McNeil, J.-B.
    • Seymour Bevins III is Bevins, S., III
    • Travis W. Tamblin Jr. is Tamblin, T. W., Jr.
    • Susanna Erstmiller, Ph.D. is Erstmiller, S.
    • Dr. Bakari is Bakari
    • Sophocles is Sophocles
    • Malcolm X is Malcolm X
  • Two authors (use "&" instead of writing out the word "and"):
    • Maxwell, R., & Souder, G. B.
  • Three to twenty authors (list all authors; use "&" before the last):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., & Tamblin, T. W., Jr. 
  • More than twenty authors (list the first nineteen and last author using an ellipsis [. . .] before the last with no "&"):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., Bevins, S., III, Tamblin, T. W., Jr., Peters, A. S., Widmark, E., Ross, G., Wu, J.-P., Albright, R. T., Garcia Ramirez, S. L., Ganyana, B. D., Heins, F., Rosach, K., Alborelli, L. H., Kohlkut, D. D., James, X., . . . Inabi, H. G.

(Put Ed. or Eds. in parentheses at the end of your name list if your book has editors instead of authors.)

Corporate Author:

  • If no individual author is listed in your book and the book has been produced by an organization, give author credit to the organization as it can be considered responsible for the book's content: 

    • American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association: The official guide to APA style (7th ed.).

(Note that the organization does not appear again as the publisher since it is already listed as author.)

Publication Date:

  • Use the latest year of publication; this is usually found a page or two after the title page in your book, on the copyright page.
  • If there is no date of publication listed, use "n.d." instead of a year, in parentheses after the author(s): (n.d.).

Title of Book:

  • Use the complete title as found on the title page, including subtitle if any.
  • Use italics for your book title.
  • Capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms:
    • Functional cerebral SPECT and PET imaging.
    • In the garden of beasts: Love, terror, and an American family in Hitler's Berlin.
  • If the official title of your book contains an ampersand ("&"), use the ampersand:
    • The end of bureaucracy & the rise of the intelligent organization.

Series Information:

  • If your book has an individual title, and is also part of a series, there is no need to include series information.

Edition Information:

  • If your book is an edition later than the first, include that information in parentheses after the book title.
  • Use standard abbreviations for edition information.
  • Do not put edition information in italics:
    • Thinking critically (11th ed.).
    • Management (Rev. ed.).

Publisher:

  • Use the complete publisher's name as it appears on the copyright page of your book, but do not Include words that denote legal business structures such as "Incorporated (Inc.)," "Limited (Ltd.)," "Limited Liability Company (LLC)," etc.: Lonely Planet Global Limited is Lonely Planet Global; Nova Science Publishers, Inc. is Nova Science Publishers.
  • Abbreviations and symbols may be used only if they are part of the publisher's name as it appears in your book: Taylor & Francis Group; World Scientific Publishing Co.
  • If the publisher's name appears to be an imprint or division of a larger publishing company, use only the name of the imprint or division (e.g., your publisher appears as Bloomsbury on the title page, and on the copyright page you see "Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc." In this case, your publisher is Bloomsbury Academic.)
  • If two (or more) separate publishers appear on the copyright page, list all, separated by a semicolon: John Wiley & Sons; Blackwell Publishing.
  •  If the (corporate) author and the publisher are the same, list the name in the author slot only:

    • American Medical Association. (2017). Principles of CPT coding (9th ed.).

Database Information:

  • If you found your book through a library database, do not include any database information (such as the name of the database or the URL assigned to the book in the database) unless your instructor directs you otherwise.

DOI Number:

  • In APA style, the DOI number should always be included if it is available. There is only one acceptable format for the DOI number: https://doi.org/10.xxxxxxxx
  • If the format for the DOI listed with your article is different, standardize it to match the acceptable format.
  • Make sure you are not including anything extra at the beginning of your DOI, especially if you are copying and pasting a citation from a database.
  • Do not put a period at the end of your DOI.
  • It is acceptable in your References list for your DOIs to look either like hyperlinks (blue and underlined) or like regular text. Check with your instructor if you are unsure of which style to use.

  eBook without DOI (Online, Not Library Database)

Aellah, G., Chantler, T., & Geissler, P. W. (2016). Global health research in an unequal world: Ethics case studies from Africa. CAB International. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK458764/pdf

Author(s) or Editor(s) of Ebook (if editor[s], Ed. or Eds.). (year of publication). Complete title of ebook (edition if not 1st). Publisher. Direct URL for ebook

When to Use This Format:

  • Use this format for those ebooks you find online (not through a library database) that appear to be available in an online version only.
  • Use this format If you are citing an ebook that is available in multiple versions (ebook, print, etc.) but includes some content that is found only in your ebook version.
  • If you are citing a book that is widely available in multiple versions with content that is exactly the same, it does not need a URL. In this case, use the appropriate format example for the book you have.

Author(s):

  • Standard form (use initials instead of first and middle names):
    • Rita Maxwell is Maxwell, R.
    • Graham B. Souder is Souder, G. B.
    • John Keith Sanford is Sanford, J. K.
    • Dara Haier-Thomas is Haier-Thomas, D.
    • Jo-Beth McNeil is McNeil, J.-B.
    • Seymour Bevins III is Bevins, S., III
    • Travis W. Tamblin Jr. is Tamblin, T. W., Jr.
    • Susanna Erstmiller, Ph.D. is Erstmiller, S.
    • Dr. Bakari is Bakari
    • Sophocles is Sophocles
    • Malcolm X is Malcolm X
  • Two authors (use "&" instead of writing out the word "and"):
    • Maxwell, R., & Souder, G. B.
  • Three to twenty authors (list all authors; use "&" before the last):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., & Tamblin, T. W., Jr. 
  • More than twenty authors (list the first nineteen and last author using an ellipsis [. . .] before the last with no "&"):
    • Maxwell, R., Souder, G. B., Sanford, J. K., Haier-Thomas, D., McNeil, J.-B., Bevins, S., III, Tamblin, T. W., Jr., Peters, A. S., Widmark, E., Ross, G., Wu, J.-P., Albright, R. T., Garcia Ramirez, S. L., Ganyana, B. D., Heins, F., Rosach, K., Alborelli, L. H., Kohlkut, D. D., James, X., . . . Inabi, H. G.

(Put Ed. or Eds. in parentheses at the end of your name list if your book has editors instead of authors.)

Corporate Author:

  • If no individual author is listed in your book and the book has been produced by an organization, give author credit to the organization as it can be considered responsible for the book's content: 

    • American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association: The official guide to APA style (7th ed.).

(Note that the organization does not appear again as the publisher since it is already listed as author.)

Publication Date:

  • Use the latest year of publication; this is usually found a page or two after the title page in your book, on the copyright page.
  • If there is no date of publication listed, use "n.d." instead of a year, in parentheses after the author(s): (n.d.).

Title of Book:

  • Use the complete title as found on the title page, including subtitle if any.
  • Use italics for your book title.
  • Capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon or long dash, proper nouns, and acronyms:
    • Functional cerebral SPECT and PET imaging.
    • In the garden of beasts: Love, terror, and an American family in Hitler's Berlin.
  • If the official title of your book contains an ampersand ("&"), use the ampersand:
    • The end of bureaucracy & the rise of the intelligent organization.

Series Information:

  • If your book has an individual title, and is also part of a series, there is no need to include series information.

Edition Information:

  • If your book is an edition later than the first, include that information in parentheses after the book title.
  • Use standard abbreviations for edition information.
  • Do not put edition information in italics:
    • Thinking critically (11th ed.).
    • Management (Rev. ed.).

Publisher:

  • Use the complete publisher's name as it appears on the copyright page of your book, but do not Include words that denote legal business structures such as "Incorporated (Inc.)," "Limited (Ltd.)," "Limited Liability Company (LLC)," etc.: Lonely Planet Global Limited is Lonely Planet Global; Nova Science Publishers, Inc. is Nova Science Publishers.
  • Abbreviations and symbols may be used only if they are part of the publisher's name as it appears in your book: Taylor & Francis Group; World Scientific Publishing Co.
  • If the publisher's name appears to be an imprint or division of a larger publishing company, use only the name of the imprint or division (e.g., your publisher appears as Bloomsbury on the title page, and on the copyright page you see "Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc." In this case, your publisher is Bloomsbury Academic.)
  • If two (or more) separate publishers appear on the copyright page, list all, separated by a semicolon: John Wiley & Sons; Blackwell Publishing.
  •  If the (corporate) author and the publisher are the same, list the name in the author slot only:

    • American Medical Association. (2017). Principles of CPT coding (9th ed.).

URL:

  • Carefully copy the exact URL that will lead directly to your article.
  • Look to see if there is a "permalink" you can use (sometimes found under a "link" symbol to the side or at the top of the article). If no permalink is supplied, use the URL that appears in your browser address bar.
  • Do not put a period at the end of your URL.
  • It is acceptable in your References list for your URLs to look either like hyperlinks (blue and underlined) or like regular text. Check with your instructor if you are unsure of which style to use.

For additional help with APA citations, browse these cites: