APA Style

APA style refers to standardized rules for preparing journal manuscripts and theses described in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2009), now in its sixth edition. The guidelines that predated the first edition of the manual were published as a brief journal article 80 years ago (American Psychological Association, 2009).

Today, APA style conventions are used by APA journals and many other journals in disciplines outside psychology, including nursing, education, and business. Authors look to the manual for guidance in writing and formatting text, tables, figures, citations, and references.

Mastery of a style such as APA helps you to communicate clearly, which allows your readers to focus on content. The newest sixth edition of the manual contains extensively reorganized chapters and expanded guidelines in areas such as ethics, journal article reporting standards, statistics, electronic references, and preparation of tables and figures.

Examples of APA References and Citations

Tables 1 and 2 show selected samples of references and citations styled for APA (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th ed., 2009).

The APA manual contains detailed information about references and citations, as well as examples of common types of references. Further examples can be found on the APA style website (see “Resource” section below).

To compare the reference formats of other styles, please visit the AMA style and Vancouver style pages on the BioMedical Editor website.

Table 1.

Note. All references are fictitious. APA = American Psychological Association. DOI = digital object identifier.

Table 2.

Sample APA Style Citations

Note. APA = American Psychological Association.

Ten Tips for APA References and Citations

The Publication Manual contains hundreds of rules and examples for formatting references and text citations in APA style. Many of these rules are intended to help your readers locate information quickly and easily.

The tips below concern several APA style rules that I often see misapplied in manuscripts. You will find more detailed information in the APA manual. If you have questions about any of these tips, please contact me and I will be happy to help.

Five Tips for References

1. If you have two or more studies by the same single author, place them in chronological order in the reference list, the earliest first.
2. Place all other studies alphabetically by the first author's surname, or, if it is identical in two entries, by the second author's surname, and so on. In multiauthor studies, apply this rule regardless of the number of authors in each (e.g., a five-author entry may precede a two-author entry with the same first surname).
3. In journal articles, the issue number is usually unnecessary. Do not include it unless each issue of the journal starts at page 1.
4. For a chapter or article in an edited book, be sure to include the page range in parentheses after the book title.
5. Make things easy for your readers: double-check Internet addresses to ensure that the links work.

Five Tips for Citations

1. For studies of six or more authors, cite the surname of the first author followed by "et al." and the year, even in the first citation.
2. If you have two studies of three or more authors published in the same year with identical first authors, but the subsequent authors are different (or ordered differently), they will look the same when you shorten them (e.g., both to Smith et al., 2000).

   Here's what to do: In each citation, list the first author's surname, and as many of the other authors as needed to allow the reader to distinguish the studies, followed by "et al." (e.g., Smith, Jones, et al., 2000, and Smith, Brown, et al., 2000).

3. If you have two or more studies with identical authors and publication years (i.e., the same single author and the same year, or the same multiple authors in the same order and the same year), add lowercase letters to each year to distinguish them (e.g., Smith, 2000a, 2000b). Determine which of these studies has which letter by arranging them in the reference list in alphabetical order by title.
4. Use the word "and" in text citations outside parentheses and the symbol "&" within parentheses (see Table 2 above).
5. For studies whose first authors have the same surname but different initials, include the first author's initials in every citation. This small addition helps your readers to identify the studies.

Reference

American Psychological Association. (2009). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Resource

APA Style.org (clicking opens a new window)

You can purchase a copy of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association at this site. The site also includes information on changes in the sixth edition, a tutorial that tests your knowledge of style basics, a style blog, frequently asked questions, and additional resources.

Would you like to spend more time working on the content of your APA style document and less time on the formatting? Contact the BioMedical Editor for a no-obligation quote.