APA Referencing guide

Academic conventions and copyright law require that you acknowledge when you use the ideas of others. In most cases, this means stating which book or journal article is the source of an idea or quotation.

This guide draws from the:

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual

       of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.).

       Washington, DC: Author.

University policy mandates the use of the APA Style defined by this referencing guide.

List of References

At the end of your essay, place a list of the references you have cited in the text. Arrange this in alphabetical order of authors' surnames, and then chronologically (earliest publication date first) for each author where more than one work by that author is cited. The author's surname is placed first, followed by initials or first name, and then the year of publication is given. If the list contains more than one item published by the same author(s) in the same year, add lower case letters immediately after the year to distinguish them (e.g. 1983a). These are ordered alphabetically by title disregarding any initial articles (a, an or the).

• The reference list includes only the sources you have used in any submission. APA Style requires reference lists, not bibliographies.
• The reference list begins a new page with the centred heading - References
• Double-space all reference entries.
• Reference list entries should be indented half an inch (five to seven spaces) on the second and subsequent lines of the reference list for every entry - a hanging indent is the preferred style. (i.e. entries should begin flush left, and the second and subsequent lines should be indented).
• Arrange entries in alphabetical order by the surname of the first author as the letters appear (e.g. M, Mac, MacD, Mc).
• If there is no author, the title moves to the author position (filed under the first significant word of the title). If the title in this instance begins with numerals, spell them out.
• States and territories are abbreviated in the location section of the publication information. For U.S. states, use the official two-letter postal service abbreviation (e.g. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill). Spell out country names.

Reference list examples

• Books (print and online)
• Journal and newspaper articles
• Web documents and sites
• Other electronic media
• Audiovisual and other media
• Legislation and legal authorities
• Unpublished works
• Proceedings and technical reports
  

APA Style date formats for Reference Lists

Include retrieval dates where electronic source material is likely to change over time; format: Retrieved month day, year, from ...

Retrieved and adapted from http://www.usq.edu.au/library/referencing/apa-referencing-guide