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Psychology

Citing Journal Articles

The standard format for a journal article reference is:

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number(issue number), pages. https://doi.org/xxxx

Rules for capitalization:

  • Article titles are treated like sentences: capitalize only the first word of the title, the first word of a subheading, and proper nouns.
  • Journal titles are treated like book titles: capitalize all important words (words like "of" are not capitalized).

For in-text citations for articles, the standard format is:

(Author, Year)

Rules for what to include:

  • If you use the author's name in the text, you can leave it out of the in-text citation.
    • For example: As Smith (2003) points out ...
  • If you use a direct quote, include the page number in the in-text citation.
    • For example: Smith notes, "Direct quote here" (2003, p. 25).
  • Page numbers are optional for paraphrases, but they are helpful to the reader.
    • For example: Smith (2003) describes the experiment's purpose as ... (pp. 35-36).
  • You don't have to reiterate who you're citing in every sentence.
    • Cite the source the first time you use it.
    • Continue writing without further citation in the same paragraph as long as it's clear you're using the same source.
    • If your paraphrase continues into a new paragraph, reintroduce the citation.

1 author:

Driessnack, M. (2009). Growing up at the intersection of the genomic era and the information age. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 24(3), 189-193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedn.2007.09.008


2 to 20 authors:

Richards, D., Caldwell, P. H., & Go, H. (2015). Impact of social media on the health of children and young people. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, 51(12), 1152-1157. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpc.13023


21 or more authors:

List the first 19 authors, then an ellipsis, then the final author.

1 author:

(Driessnack, 2009)


2 authors:

(Marshall & Brockman, 2016)


3 or more authors:

(Richards et al., 2015)

What's a DOI?

It's the Digital Object Identifier, a unique alphanumeric code designed to make it easy to locate an article online.

Journal article citations should include a DOI if there is one. If you don't have a DOI for your article:

  1. Use the Metadata Search on the Crossref site to see if you can find it.
  2. If there's a working web site URL for the article, use that to replace the missing DOI.
  3. If you got it from a database, and can't find a DOI or URL, you can generally just omit the link entirely. In most cases, you won't need the name of the database where you found it.

Formatting Your Paper

APA 7 no longer requires a fancy running head!

All you need is a page number in the upper right hand corner of every page, starting on the title page.

APA 7 has simplified the heading structure, too.

Librarian

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