The author of a work is one or more people. If you can't find the name of the author(s), use the group that published the work as the author.

Individual author(s)

List the author's last name first, followed by a comma, a space, and the initials of their first and (if provided) middle name. Leave a space between the initials if a middle name is provided.

If there is more than one author, they should be listed in the order they appear on the work. 

Group author

List the full name of the group in your reference.

Examples

The following table shows how authors appear in a work, and how these names should be listed in a reference:

Note: Do not include professional titles (like Dr.) or academic licenses/degrees (like MD, PhD) in your reference. Include suffixes such as "Jr." and "Sr." after the initials.

Include a work's publication or update date after the author information.

Date listed

The date of publication follows the author and is placed in rounded brackets. Include the month and day if it is provided.

No date listed

If no date is provided, write "n.d." to indicate that no date was found.

Examples

The following table provides examples of how to include publication date information in a reference:

Note: If a webpage provides multiple dates, use the 'last updated' date. Do not use the 'last reviewed date' or the copyright (c) year listed at the bottom of a webpage. 

Include the work's full title and subtitle (if there is one) in your reference. Titles are formatted in sentence case and are usually italicized.

Sentence case

Titles are always written in sentence case. Sentence case is often part of writing the title in APA format, no matter how it looks on the work itself. Sentence case means that you should only capitalize:

       • The first word of the title

       • The first word of a subtitle (i.e., when a ":" is written before an additional title),

       • Any proper nouns (a specific, not generic, name for a particular person, place, or thing)

Italics

The italicization of a title is determined by the following rules:

       • If a work stands alone, like a book or film, the title is italicized.

       • If a work was published as part of a greater whole, like an academic journal article or newspaper article, the work's title is not italicized. Instead, the greater whole's title is italicized. See Part 4 of a reference for more details.

The following table identifies which types of sources require an italicized title:

The source indicates where readers can find the cited work you used. First, determine if your work is part of a greater whole or not.

Works that are part of a greater whole

• For example, an academic journal article, a chapter of an edited book. In each of these examples, the article or chapter is part of the greater whole, the journal or edited book.

Works that stand alone

• For example, a book, a film, a company's financial report. In each of these examples, the work is not part of a greater whole and therefore is said to stand alone.

The source element of a reference has 1 or 2 parts depending on the category.

• For example, the source for a print book without a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) has one part: the book publisher. However, the source for a journal article has two parts: the greater whole's information (in this case, the journal title, volume, and issue number) and the DOI.

1. If your work is a part of a greater whole, write the greater whole's name after the work's title in mixed case and italics. 

Mixed case

Mixed case means that most words should be capitalized. Do not capitalize:

      • Conjunctions that are three letters or fewer (and; but; for; nor; or; so; yet)  

      • Prepositions (at; around; by; after; along; for; from; of; on; to; with; without)

      • Articles (the; a; an)

Italics

If the work is inside a greater whole, the greater whole's name is italicized instead of the title of the work itself.

Examples
The following table provides examples of how the names of greater wholes should be written in a reference:

2. Include a publisher and/or URL as the final part of a reference. Do this for both works that are part of a greater whole and works that stand alone.

Physical works

Physical works are not online, so their reference entries will only include a publisher. Print books, Blu-Rays, and print magazine and newspaper articles are examples of sources that do not have a URL.

Electronic works

Electronic works are found online and usually have a URL or link that will help your reader to get back to the work itself.

Ebooks and journal articles are often assigned a DOI (Digital Object Identifier). A DOI starts with "https://doi.org/" and is followed by a string of numbers, letters, and symbols. A DOI functions the same as a webpage link. It connects your reader to the electronic work.

Examples

The following table provides examples of what publication and URL or DOI information to provide in a reference:

Note: DOIs and URLS should be live (that is, the link should be active) in assignments that you submit online, such as in your D2L Dropbox.