APA reference list , Ko tā APA rārangi tohutoro

Put the author’s surname, followed by a comma and the author's initial or initials.

If there are 2 authors, put the first author’s surname, followed by a comma and their initial or initials. Then use an ampersand (&) before the second author’s surname, followed by a comma and the second author's initial or initials.

For 3 to 20 authors, separate each author from the others with a comma. There is an ampersand (&) before the final author.

APA uses serial commas. For a list of 3 or more items, use commas between each item – including the 'and' or 'or' before the last item in the list.

For works with more than 21 authors, use an ellipsis (…) between the 19th and final author. There should be no more than 20 names.

If no author is named, the source may be written by a group or organisation. This is often true for collaborative or official works from government departments, corporations or other organisations.

In this case, use the group in the author position.

If there's no group author, the title should be moved to the author position. This method is often used for newspaper and magazine articles and encyclopaedia entries with no identified author. Use the full title.

Identical group author and publisher

Sometimes the group author is also the publisher. When you cite a group author, the publisher and author's names are often identical. In these cases, omit the publisher's details to avoid repetition.

Some organisations have bilingual names.

The APA Style manual does not provide specific guidelines for bilingual names. However, the general rule for names is to write them as they appear in the original source.

Write names in the order they appear in the original source.

Separate names with a hyphen.

In some cases, you may need to reference 2 different sources with the same author and the same year.

Order the entries alphabetically, according to the first word of the title, aside from A, An, or The. Then add a lowercase letter, a, b and so on, after the year to distinguish them.

Dates of publication are found in many places.

• For books and other print publications, use the copyright date if possible.
• For web pages, use the most specific date possible – usually the 'last updated' date. If there is no ‘last updated’ date, use the copyright date for the website as the date of publication.

Massey University Library

If there is no year, use n.d., meaning 'no date'.

Author – same author and year of publication

If a journal doesn't use seasons, volume or issue numbers, omit the detail from the reference.

If the source is likely to change, include a retrieval date. For example:

• dictionary and encyclopaedia entries
• social media posts
• maps generated online
• a website likely to be updated.

The retrieval date lets the reader know the source they retrieve may vary from the version you used. If needed, the retrieval date goes before the URL.

Most titles, for example, book titles, only have upper-case letters for the first word of the title, the first word of any subtitle and any proper nouns – the names of places, people or organisations.

Use upper-case letters for all the words in the name of a journal, newspaper or magazine.

Put edition information, report numbers and volume numbers in brackets after the title without an intervening full stop. Don't italicise the information in brackets. If both edition and volume details are available, place both in the same brackets, separated with a comma and the edition details first.

Omit the edition information if it's the first edition.

Sometimes, you may need square brackets after a title to identify what kind of source it is. Examples include computer software, grey literature such as press releases and audio-visual material.

Referencing other material in APA

Write the publisher's name or names as shown on the work. Don't include legal terms, for example, Inc. or Ltd.

If there are multiple publishers, then separate the publishers with a semi-colon and list the publishers in the order they appear in the source.

The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a unique number allocated to an online publication. A DOI is often used to identify online journal articles, books and other online documents.

If an online document has a DOI, use it instead of the URL address. Start the DOI link with https:// or http://. Don't end the URL with a full stop, as this may affect the functionality of the link.

Usually, the DOI will appear as part of the source's copyright information or online citation. You can also look up a DOI at http://www.crossref.org/guestquery/

Include a DOI for all works with one, even if you used the print version. If a print work doesn't have a DOI, don't include a URL in the reference. However, include a URL if you accessed the source online.

City of publication

The 7th edition of the APA publication manual doesn't require the place of publication to be given.

The earlier APA 6th edition formats this differently.

APA 6th edition versus 7th edition

The 7th edition of the APA publication manual doesn't require the place of publication to be given.

The earlier APA 6th edition formats this differently.

APA Style Blog: 6th edition archive

Only include database details if it publishes original, proprietary works such as UpToDate or the Cochrane Database of Systemic Reviews. Reference these databases as you would a journal title, title case and in italics after the article title.

Referencing: Identifying source types

APA Style: Database information in references

See 'source of work' for a more detailed discussion of the different types of publication information, including solutions to common problems.

Source of work