Solano Community College Library: APA 7th Edition: APA Core Elements

APA Core Elements

Citations generally contain four elements: the author, date, title, and source.

Author: Who is responsible for this work?
Date: When was this work published?
Title: What is this work called?
Source: Where can I retrieve this work?

Reference Elements

The author is the person(s) or group(s) responsible for a work. An author may be

an individual,
multiple people,
a group (institution, government agency, organization, etc.), or
a combination of people and groups.

Format of Author Names

Follow these guidelines to format individual, multiple, and group authors.

Individual Author

Invert all individual authors’ names, providing the surname first, followed by a comma and the author’s initials.

Author, A. A.

Multiple Authors

Use a comma to separate an author’s initials from additional author names, even when there are only two authors. Use an ampersand (&) before the final author’s name.

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C.

21+ Authors

When there are 21 or more authors, include the first 19 authors’ names, insert an ellipsis (but no ampersand), and then add the final author’s name.

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., Author, C. C., Author, D. D., Author, E. E., Author, F. F., Author, G. G., Author, H. H., Author, I. I., Author, J. J., Author, K. K., Author, L. L., Author, M. M., Author, N. N., Author, O. O., Author, P. P., Author, Q. Q., Author, R. R., Author, S. S., . . . Author, Z. Z.

Group Author

Spell out the full name of a group author in the reference list entry, followed by a period.

National Library of Medicine.

No Author

If there is no author listed, provide the Title of the source.

The date refers to the date of publication of the work. The date will take one of the following forms:

year only;
year, month, and day (i.e., an exact date);
year and month;
year and season; or
no date

Year

Enclose the date of publication in parentheses, followed by a period.

Example: (2020).

Year, Month, and Day

For references that includes the month, day, and/or season along with the year, put the year first, followed by a comma, and then the month and date or season.

Examples: (2023, March 6). (2020, July). (2009, Winter).

No Date

Provide the author, write “n.d.” for “no date,” and then provide the title and source.

Example: Author. (n.d.). Title. Source.

Retrieval Date

Include a retrieval date only if the work is unarchived and designed to change over time. Most references do not include retrieval dates.

Example: Retrieved March 17, 2023, from https://xxxxx

The title refers to the title of the work being cited. There are two types of titles.

works that stand alone. for example, whole books, reports, videos, films, music albums, webpages, podcasts
works that are part of a greater whole (e.g., periodical articles, edited book chapters, television and podcast episodes, and songs).

When a work stands alone (e.g., a book), the title of that work appears in the title element of the reference. When a work is part of a greater whole (e.g., a journal article or edited book chapter), the title of the article or chapter appears in the title element of the reference and the title of the greater whole (the journal or edited book) appears in the source element.

When the title of the work cannot be determined, treat the work as having no title.

Format of the Title

For works that stand alone (e.g., books, reports, podcasts), italicize the title, and capitalize it using sentence case. Sentence case is a capitalization style in which only the first word of the title, sub title (if applicable) and proper nouns are capitalized, with the rest of the words in lowercase.

Breaking into college: The underground playbook for college admissions

For works that are part of a greater whole (e.g., journal articles, edited book chapters), capitalize the title using sentence case. Do not italicize the title or use quotation marks around it.

Goal-directed activities and life-span development.

Bracketed descriptions

To help identify works outside the peer-reviewed academic literature (i.e., works other than articles, books, reports, etc.), provide a description of the work in square brackets after the title and before the period. Capitalize the first letter of the description, but do not italicize the description.

Examples of works that include bracketed descriptions are audiobooks, gray literature, audiovisual works (e.g., films, YouTube videos, photographs), software (e.g. PowerPoint presentations) and mobile apps, data sets, manuscripts in preparation, and dissertations and theses. Bracketed descriptions are also used in social media references to indicate attached links or images.

Funny cat video: How to train a cat [Video file]. YouTube.

The source indicates where readers can retrieve the cited work. Similar with titles, sources fall into two broad categories: works that are part of a greater whole and works that stand alone.

The source for a work that is part of a greater whole (e.g., journal article, edited book chapter) is that greater whole (i.e., the journal or edited book), plus any applicable DOI or URL.
The source for a work that stands alone (e.g., whole book, report, dissertation, thesis, film, TV series, podcast, data set, informally published work, social media, webpage) is the publisher of the work, database or archive, social media site, or website, plus any applicable DOI or URL.
A location is not required in the source element for most works (e.g., do not include the publisher location for books).
Works associated with a specific location (e.g., artwork in a museum, conference presentations) include location information in the source and, depending on the work, may also include a DOI or URL.

Format of the source

The format of the source varies depending on the reference type. These are most common cases.

Reference type	Components of the source element	Example
Journal article	Periodical title, volume, issue, page range, and DOI or URL	Clinics in Geriatric Medicine, 37(4), 611–623. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cger.2021.05.007
Authored book or whole edited book	Publisher name and DOI or URL	Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25513-8
Edited book chapter	Information about the whole book (including editor name, book title, edition and/or volume number, page range, and publisher name) and DOI or URL	In M. B. Oliver, A. A. Raney, & J. Bryant (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (4th ed., pp. 115–129). Routledge.
Webpage on a website	Website name and URL	Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements-acidophilus/art-20361967

Database Information in References

Database information is seldom provided in reference list entries. The reference provides readers with the citation details they will need to perform a search themselves if they want to read the work, not the database or path used to locate the work. The exception is if the database publishes original, proprietary content.

Gladman, D.D. & Wallace, D. J. (2022). Clinical manifestations and diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus in adults. UpToDate. Retrieved March 20, 2023, from https://www-uptodate-com/contents/clinical-manifestations-and-diagnosis-of-systemic-lupus-erythematosus-in-adult

For more information

American Psychological Association. (2022). Elements of reference list entries. APA Style. hhttps://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-

guidelines/references/elements-list-entry

APA 7th Edition