Style notes

Author notes - In-text references

General

• The author(s) name(s) should be written as: Surname (year, page number) or (Surname, year, page number) for a direct quote.

• Cite the names of the authors in the order they appear.

• Do not include suffixes, e.g. Dr or Jr.

Special types of names

• For foreign names, capitalise and spell the name just as it appears in the article you're citing. If the surname starts with a lower case letter, use that form in-text and keep the author's original capitalisation even in the reference list entry.

Same last name

• For first authors with the same surname, include the first author’s initials in all in-text citations to differentiate even if the publication year is different, e.g. (E. M. Smith & Jones, 2018), (P. Smith, 2020).

Same author and date

• For works published in the same year with multiple authors, where the first names of the authors are the same, write out as many names as needed to differentiate the references before using et.al.  Do not use et.al for one remaining author.  (See section 8.18 for more information)

No author

• If a work has no identifiable author, cite in-text the title and the year. Use double quotes around the title of an article or chapter e.g. (“Study finds, ” 2007) or if it is a book place the title in italics, e.g. (Science for Dummies, 2008).

Anonymous authors

• For works where the author is designated “Anonymous,” use it in the in-text citation e.g. (Anonymous, 1998).

More than one work cited

• When citing 2 or more works by the same author in the one instance, arrange the in-text citation by year of publication and only write the author’s name once e.g. (Smith, 2002, 2004).

• When citing 2 or more works by different authors in the one instance, arrange the in-text citation in the order as given in the reference list with a semicolon (;) in between e.g. (Adams, 2004; Smith, 2004).

Organisation as author / Corporate authors

• For group authors, abbreviations are acceptable in text, but the full name of the group author must be written in the reference list (no abbreviations).

Other variations

• To format the subsequent citations by the same author or group of authors, consult Table 1.

Table 1

Basic In-Text Citation Styles

Note. Adapted from Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed., p. 266), by American Psychological Association, 2020.

Author notes - Reference list

General

• If an article has up to and including 20 authors, include all authors in the reference list. When the authors number 21 or more, include the first 19 authors’ names, then 3 ellipisis points (…) then add the last author’s name.

• If the reference list includes different authors with the same surname and first initial, the authors’ full names may be given in brackets.
      • Janet, P. [Paul]. (1983) ………… in-text (Paul Janet, 1983)
      • Janet, P. [Pierre] (1895)………... in-text (Pierre Janet, 1895)

Same author and date

• For works by the same author and year, arrange them alphabetically by surname and then by title. Add the suffixes a, b, c, etc. to the publication year and refer to these in the in-text citation., e.g. Elkind (2007b) or (Elkind, 2007a), etc.

Same author with multiple entries

Arrange them in date with order earliest first .  No date (n.d.) precedes those with a date, and in-press are listed last.

Jones, A. (n.d.)

Jones, A. (2015)

Jones, A. (2020)

Jones, A. in press)

No author

• Where there is no author, the title moves to the author position and is followed by the date and other publications details.

Anonymous

• If author is designated Anonymous -  that is used in the author position in the reference list.

Editors

• An editor is treated like a regular author, but with (Ed.) or (Eds.) after the name(s). For 2 or more editors, only include (Eds.) once, after the last editor’s name.

Organisation as author / Corporate author

• The full name of the group author must be written in the reference list (no abbreviations).

Source: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed. pp. 266–268, 285–288).

Presentation slides

• Normal APA style referencing rules apply.
• If you are reproducing an image / figure or table, provide a caption / copyright statement at the bottom of the slide in which the figure or table appears (in smaller font) - see Images for more information.

For more information on how format your presentation:

Lexis, L. & Julien, B. (2017). Communicating scientific discoveries to peers. In How to do science: A guide to researching human physiology (pp. 125–134). La Trobe eBureau. https://library.latrobe.edu.au/ebureau/ebook.html#howtodoscience

Nicol, A. A. M. & Pexman, P. M. (2010). Visuals for presentations. In Display your findings: A practical guide for creating figures, posters and presentations (pp. 177–184). American Psychological Assocation.

Posters

• Normal APA style referencing rules apply however, should be followed "as much as possible" for images / figures and tables (Nicol & Pexman, 2010, p. 172) - see Images for more information.

For more information on how to format your poster:

American Psychological Association. (2023). APA 2023 presenter hub: Poster instructions. https://convention.apa.org/presenters/posters

Lexis, L. & Julien, B. (2017). Communicating scientific discoveries to peers. In How to do science: A guide to researching human physiology (pp.119–124). La Trobe eBureau. https://library.latrobe.edu.au/ebureau/ebook.html#howtodoscience

Nicol, A. A. M. & Pexman, P. M. (2010). Posters. In Displaying your findings: A practical guide for creating figures, posters and presentations (pp. 163–176). American Psychological Association.

Publishing details

• Leave out unnecessary details from the publisher’s name, such as Co., Pty., Inc., LLC or the word Publishers. Keep the words Books and Press if they are part of the publisher’s name.

• Separate multiple publisher names using semicolons, e.g. Cambridge University Press; Springer Publishing Company.

• If the author is also the publisher, omit the publisher from the reference.

• Always place a full stop after the publisher, followed by the DOI or URL (as applicable).

• The publication date is always enclosed in parentheses with the exception of archival sources where the exact date is not known; cite these sources as [ca. date] to indicate circa, using square brackets. If no date can be found write (n.d.). meaning ‘no date’. Always place a full stop after the date.

• When a resource has two dates (e.g. an electronic version of a republished book) - use both dates in the in-text reference, e.g. Russell (1948/2009). In the reference list entry, use the date of the version you have viewed and add when the original work was published at the end, e.g.

 Russell, B. (2009). Human knowledge: Its scope and limits. Taylor & Francis. (Original work published 1948).

Place of Publication

• Publisher locations are not included in APA 7 style references for books and book chapters.

• For works associated with a specific location (e.g. conference sessions and presentations) provide the city, state, province, or territory, and country, e.g. Sydney, NSW, Australia.

• For official U.S. state abbreviations: http://pe.usps.com/text/pub28/28apb.htm

Source: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed. pp. 293–301).

Direct quotations

• Provide author, year and specific page.

• If the quote is fewer than 40 words incorporate into text and enclose in quotation marks.

• Daley and Robinton (2012) stated, “These features influence the utility of each of these cell types for disease modelling and therapeutics, and offer predictions for the evolution of the art of reprogramming somatic cells” (p.295).

• If the quote is over 40 words, display as a free standing block. Do not use quotation marks and indent the entire quote starting on a new line.

In this Review, we describe the derivation of iPS cells, outline the functional assessments of pluripotency, and then recount how global assessments of gene expression, gene copy number variation, DNA methylation and chromatin modification provide a more nuanced comparison of iPS cells and ES cells. We detail how these features influence the utility of each of these cell types for disease modelling and therapeutics, and offer predictions for the evolution of the art of reprogramming somatic cells. (Daley & Robinton, 2012, p. 295)

• For additional paragraphs of a direct quote, further indent the first line of the second paragraph.

We detail how these features influence the utility of each of these cell types for disease modelling and therapeutics, and offer predictions for the evolution of the art of reprogramming somatic cells.
          The years since Takahashi and Yamanaka's breakthrough have seen a flood of papers touting advances in reprogramming technology, including alternative methods for reprogramming and the successful derivation of iPS cells from various cell types. Although the field has advanced at a breathtaking pace, investigators have recently taken a step back to more critically evaluate iPS cells relative to ES cells and have endeavoured to fully understand how these cell populations differ from one another in the hope of closing the gap between the two populations. (Daley & Robinton, 2012, p. 295)

• See APA Style Quotations for more information.

Source: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed. pp. 270–277); APA Style Quotations.

Paraphrasing

• Use past tense when citing someone else's work.

• For in-text referencing use author and date.

• Even though it is not required to provide page or paragraph numbers when paraphrasing, you may include them if it would help your reader locate the relevant passage in a long or complex text, e.g.

Authors tend to publish their research via conference papers first, before reworking the paper for journal publication (Wainer & Valle, 2013, p. 7).

Wainer and Valle (2013, p. 7) argued that it is usual that authors publish in a conference first, then extend their article, and seek appropriate journal publication.

• See APA Style Paraphrasing for more information.

Source: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed. pp. 269–270); APA Style Paraphrasing.

Books, theses or reports

• Use sentence case capitalisation - only the first word of the title (and subtitle) should be capitalised. Proper nouns should also be capitalised. The title should be written in italics.

• Any additional information goes in parentheses after the title, e.g. edition, report or volume number. This information is not written in italics.

• If a volume is part of a larger, separately titled series, treat the series and volume titles as a two-part title.

• Always place a full stop at the end of the title (after any information in parentheses).

Journal or newspaper titles

• Use title case capitalisation for journal and newspaper titles, i.e. use the full title of the journal and capitalise all major words. If it uses a combination of cases and symbols e.g. ReCALL or Travel & Leisure keep the form used by the journal. The title should be written in italics.

• Always place a full stop at the end of the title.

Journal article, newspaper article or chapter titles

• Use sentence case capitalisation - only the first word of the title (and subtitle) should be capitalised. Proper nouns should also be capitalised. Do not italicise the title or place quotation marks around it.

• Always place a full stop at the end of the title.

More information on when to capitalise

American Psychological Association (2020). Proper nouns. APA style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/proper-nouns

American Psychological Association (2020). Diseases, disorders, therapies, and more. APA style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/diseases-disorders-therapies

American Psychological Association (2020). Title case capitalization. APA style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/title-case

American Psychological Association (2020). Sentence case capitalization. APA style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/sentence-case

Source: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed. pp. 291–293).

For further help

Contact us - via chat or phone, or send your feedback to libreftool@latrobe.edu.au

American Psychological Association (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

American Psychological Association (2020). Style and grammar guidelines. APA style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/

This guide is based on the seventh edition of the Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (2020), which replaces the sixth edition of the Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (2009).  

Some of the changes include:

• In-text citations with more than three authors are shortened to et al.
  • Three or more authors: Fraser et al. (2014) or (Fraser et al., 2014)

• Publisher locations are not included for books and book chapters.

  • Benesch, S. (2001). Critical English for academic purposes: Theory, politics, and practice. Lawrence Erlbaum.

• Up to 20 authors are now included in a reference.
  • For up to 20 authors: include all authors' names.
  • For 21 or more authors: include the names of the first 19 authors, followed by three ellipses (...), then add the final author's name.

• Retrieved from is no longer needed unless a retrieval date is required.

  • Australian Council for Educational Research. (2010). Doing more for learning: Enhancing engagement and outcomes. https://www.acer.org/files/AUSSE_Australasian-Student-Engagement-Report-ASER-2009.pdf

• Both URLs and DOIs are presented as hyperlinks.

  • Seaton, K. A. (2018). Don't cheat yourself: Scenarios to clarify collusion confusion. La Trobe eBureau. https://doi.org/10.26826/1009

• Changes to ebooks 
  • See Books (including eBooks)

• More referencing examples available. For example,
  • Audiovisual - artwork, clipart, images, musical scores and more.
  • Social media - including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn and more.