APA referencing elements

This page describes what to do when there are multiple or missing parts (elements) of an APA reference list or in-text citation:

• Reference within a source (secondary source)
• 2+ authors
• No author / group author
• Identical author and publisher
• Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
• No year of publication
• City of publication
• 2+ cities of publication
• No city of publication
• Publisher
• No page numbers
• No season, volume, or issue number
• Retrieval dates
• Punctuation
• APA Style Guides

The general format of in-text citations and reference lists are covered on those pages.

New to referencing? See the introduction to referencing.

Many academic books and journal articles quote earlier books or articles on the same topic. If you cannot access the original source (it is out of print, or unavailable through the library), you can cite the secondary source instead. See secondary sources for the correct method to cite this.

When a source that has two authors is cited in-text, both authors are included every time the source is used.

If the authors' names are part of a sentence, the word "and" is used:

If the authors' names are in brackets or the reference list, the symbol "&" is used instead:

If there are three or more authors, some of their names are replaced by "et al." (an abbreviation of the Latin et alia, meaning “and others”).

Note: APA uses serial commas. This means with a list of three or more items, commas are used between each item, including before the "and" or "or" signalling the last item.

In the reference list, include the surnames and initials of up to and including 20 authors. For works with more than 21 authors, use an ellipsis (…) between the 19th and final author. There should be no more than 20 names:

The earlier (6th) edition of APA formats this differently. See 6th vs. 7th for details.

Authors	In-text citations	Reference list
1-2	All authors	All authors
3-20	First author and "et al."	All authors
20+	First author and "et al."	First 19 authors, then an ellipsis (…) then the last author.

For example, Cunningham, Nikolai, and Bazley (2004) would be referenced as follows.

All in-text citations:

In the reference list:

If two different sources would become identical because the list of authors has been shortened with "et al." (i.e., they have the same year and the same first author), enough authors are added to the in-text citation to differentiate them:

Both these citations shorten to (Jenson et al., 2010) so enough authors are added to in-text references distinguish them:

Note that "et al." is plural and means "and others" so it cannot stand for just one name. As such, when you have added sufficient authors to distinguish a source from another source published in the same year with some of the same authors, and only the final author is different, then give all the authors in the citation:

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, both in the in-text citation and in the reference list:

Sometimes the group author is also the publisher. See identical publisher and author below for details.

If there is no group author, the title should be moved to the author position. This method is often used for newspaper / magazine articles and encyclopædia entries with no identified author.

The first few words of the title are used in the in-text citation. If it is a book or web page title, put it in italics. If it is an article or chapter title, or an entry title in an encyclopædia, put it between quotation marks:

The full title is used in the reference list:

EndNote fields: If you are using Endnote, insert a comma at the end of group/corporate authors in the Endnote library to ensure it is displayed correctly.

For information on and help with Endnote see:

• Endnote
• Endnote@Massey

When citing a group author, the publisher and author's names are often identical. In these cases, simply omit the publisher details to avoid repetition.

The earlier (6th) edition of APA formats this differently. See 6th vs. 7th for details.

The Digital Object Identifier is a unique number allocated to an online publication. It is often used to identify online journal articles 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://. Do not end the URL with a full stop as this may affect the functionality of the link:

The DOI will usually 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 that have one, even if you used the print version. If a print work does not have a DOI, however, then do not include a URL in the reference.

The earlier (6th) edition of APA formats this differently. See 6th vs. 7th for details.

Years of publication can be found in many places.

• For books and other print publications, use the copyright date if possible.
• Massey Library's catalogue lists a year of publication for each book in its collection.
• Web pages sometimes display a “last updated” date; the year can be used for the year of publication.

If no year is available, use "n.d."; (meaning “no date”), both in the in-text citation:

and in the reference list:

The 7th edition of the APA publication manual does not require the place of publication to be given.

The earlier (6th) edition of APA formats this differently. See 6th vs. 7th for details.

Write the publisher name(s) as shown on the work. Do not include legal terms (e.g., Inc. or Ltd.).

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

Some sources, particularly web pages, do not have page numbers indicated. Most of the time, it is enough just to cite the author and the year of publication.

If you have to cite a particular part of an unpaginated source, use "para" to indicate which paragraph is being cited. Paragraphs can be manually counted if not numbered.

If you are citing a longer source with chapters or sections, use the section title before the paragraph number:

If referring to text formatted for a particular e-reader (e.g. Kindle) do not give the location number specific to the e-reader.

If a journal does not use seasons, volume or issue numbers, simply omit the detail from the reference.

The earlier (6th) edition of APA formats this differently. See 6th vs. 7th for details.

If the source is likely to change (e.g., dictionary and encyclopaedia entries, social media posts, maps generated online, a website likely to be updated) then it is recommended you include a retrieval date. This tells the reader that the source they retrieve may be different from the version you used. If needed, the retrieval date goes before the URL:

The earlier (6th) edition of APA formats this differently. See 6th vs. 7th for details.

APA uses serial commas, sometimes called an Oxford comma. This means there is a comma between the penultimate and last item in a list. This applies to authors in a reference list and text in your document:

Semi-colons can be used to separate list items when the items contain a comma or if lists are lettered:

Spacing after a full stop

For APA Style, put one space after a full stop (or after other punctuation marks used to end a sentence). This also applies to spacing in the reference list:

The APA Style Guide website also has a number of pages and downloadable guides related to what is discussed on this page:

• Elements of reference list entries
• Missing reference information
• Citing works with the same author and date
• Secondary sources
• DOIs and URLs
• Database information in references
• References in a meta-analysis

References and further reading

Disclaimer

These pages are provided as a guide to proper referencing. Your course, department, school, or institute may prescribe specific conventions, and their recommendations supersede these instructions. If you have questions not covered here, check in the style guide listed above, ask your course coordinator, or ask at Academic Q+A.

Page authorised by Director - Centre for Learner Success
Last updated on 26 August, 2024