APA Formatting

When formatting the author element of a citation you should follow these guidelines:

Insert the authors’ name, providing the surname first, followed by a comma and the author’s initials. Authors' first and middle names should be written as initials.

• Ex: Smith, A.A.

Use a comma to separate an author’s initials from other author names, even when there are only two authors. Use an ampersand (&) before the final author’s name. This will be done for any source that has up to 20 authors.

• Ex: Smith, A.A., & Jones, A. B.

A source with 21 or more authors you should include just the first 19 authors’ names, insert an ellipsis (but no ampersand), and then add the final author’s name.

• Ex: Author, A. A., Author, B. B., Author, C. C., Author, D. D., Author, E. E., Author, F. F., Author, G. G., Author, H. H., Author, I. I., Author, J. J., Author, K. K., Author, L. L., Author, M. M., Author, N. N., Author, O. O., Author, P. P., Author, Q. Q., Author, R. R., Author, S. S., . . . Author, Z. Z.

For sources that were created by a group such as an organization, Spell out the full name of the group in the position of the author element, followed by a period.

The date element of a citation is formatted in the following ways:

1. The date will have the following forms:

year only; year, month, and day; year and month; year and season; or range of dates.

2. Enclose the date of publication in parentheses, followed by a period

3. For sources that include the month, day, and/or season along with the year, put the year first, followed by a comma, and then the month and date or season.

4. Do not include a date of last review in a citation because content that has been reviewed has not necessarily been changed.

5. When a retrieval date is needed, use the following format for it: 

Retrieved September 30, 2020, from https://xxxxx

When formatting the title element of a citation or reference, use the following steps:

The Title of a source can fall into two main categories: A source that can stand alone or a source within a bigger source

When a work stands alone, the title of that work appears in the title element of the reference.

When a work is part of a greater whole, the title of the article or chapter appears in the title element of the reference and the bigger source's title appears in the source element position.

When it comes to capitalization of a title, there are two formats:

Sentence Case: most major and minor words are lowercase except proper nouns

• Use sentence case for titles of articles, books, reports, webpages, and other works in reference list entries, even if title case was used in the original work. Use it also with table column headings, entries, and notes and figure notes

Title Case: major words are capitalized, and most minor words are lowercase

• Use title case for titles of articles, books, reports, other works appearing in text, titles of tests or measures, table titles, figure titles, and periodical titles.

When formatting the source of an element follow these guidelines:

• For sources that don't stand alone, the title of the main source will be in the position of the source element, plus any applicable DOI or URL.
• The source for a work that stands alone is the publisher of the work, database or archive, social media site, or website, plus any applicable DOI or URL.
• A location is not required in the source element.
• Works associated with a specific location, include location information in the source and, depending on the work, may also include a DOI or URL.

Use the following table created by APAstyle.org as a guide for formatting the source element:

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