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APA Quick Citation Guide

Citing Sources in APA Style

Reference List Guidelines

Purpose: provides a list of all the sources you read and used to inform your writing, so that others can find the same information. 

Reference List entries should include: 

  • Author(s) 

  • Publication Date (Year) 

  • Title (of the article, post, report, chapter, entry, etc.) 

  • Source (where the information was published, such as a journal, book, website, etc.) 

Formatting the Reference List: 

  • Double-spaced 

  • Hanging indent (the first line of each entry lines up on the left; if the entry is longer than one line, additional lines are indented) 

  • Alphabetical by the first author’s last name (or title, if there is no author) 

  • Titles and Subtitles: Capitalize only the first letter of the first word and any proper nouns 

  • Italicize book titles, journal titles, and volume numbers (but not issue numbers) 

  • For author names, use: 

    • Last-Name, First-Initial. 

      • Smith, J. 

    • Last-Name, First-Initial. Middle Initial. 

      • Smith, J. M. 

  • If there is no date, use “n.d.” in its place. 

Reference List Entries

Journal Articles: 

Last-Name, First-Initial. (Year). Title of article: Subtitle of article. Title of Journal, volume(issue), page range. https://doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxxxx

Magazine Articles: 

Last-Name, First-Initial. (Year, Month Day). Title of article: Subtitle of article. Magazine Title, volume(issue), page range. URL 

Newspaper Articles: 

Last-Name, First-Initial. (Year, Month Day). Title of article. Newspaper Title, volume(issue), pp. Page/page range. URL 

Books by authors: 

Last-Name, First-Initial. (Year). Title of book: Subtitle of book (Edition ed.). Publisher. https://doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxxxx

Books with editors: 

Last-Name, First-Initial., & Last-Name, First-Initial. (Eds.). (Year). Title of book: Subtitle of book. Publisher. https://doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxxxx

Book chapters: 

Last-Name, First-Initial. (Year). Title of chapter: Subtitle of chapter. In First-Initial. Last-Name, First-Initial. Last-Name, & First-Initial Last-Name (Eds.), Title of book: Subtitle of book (Edition ed., pp. Page range). Publisher. https://doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxxxx

Webpage on a website: 

Author [such as Last-Name, First-Initial. OR Agency/Organization Name]. (Year, Month Day). Title of webpage. Title of Website. URL 

Author. Title of webpage. Title of Website. Retrieved Month Day, Year from URL 

Citing AI Tools in APA Style

Use an adapted format for citing software when generating citations for for AI tools:

  • Author - use the company/author of the model (for example: use OpenAI is the author of ChatGPT)
  • Date - include the year of the version you used
  • Title - name of the model/tool (such as ChatGPT)
  • Version - include the version number in parentheses
  • Additional Information - use [bracketed text] to help the reader understand what is being cited (for example: use [Large language model] for ChatGPT)
  • Source - if the publisher has a different name than the company/author, include this before the URL
  • URL - include the link to the model/tool

Example: ChatGPT

In-Text Citation

(OpenAI, 2023)

Reference

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat