PUTTING REFERENCE LIST CITATIONS IN APA FORMAT:

JOURNAL ARTICLES, BOOKS, AND BOOK CHAPTERS

Objective
To increase familiarity with APA 6th edition formatting and style guidelines for reference list
citations of journal articles, books, editions of books, and chapters within edited books.
Description
Mastery of APA formatting and style is not required for academic success. Nonetheless, it is
undeniable that the more comfortable, competent, and adept you are at correctly formatting your
written work according to APA formatting and style guidelines, the easier you will find the academic
writing and citation process. This activity gives you the opportunity to practice your reference list
citation formatting skills, and provides step-by-step instructions for how to methodically review each
citation for accuracy. Hopefully, with time, these steps will become easier to remember, until you are
able to review and reformat citations with greater confidence and increased speed.
Resources
The best resource for APA formatting and style is the Publication Manual of the American
Psychological Association (6th ed.; 2010). Reliable online APA resources include the following sites:

The APA Style Blog - http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/

The APA library guide at Nova Southeastern Universitys Alvin Sherman Library, Research,
and Information Technology Center - http://nova.campusguides.com/c.php?
g=125219&p=819673
The APA Style Guide to Electronic References http://www.augustana.edu/Documents/Library/APA_style_guide.pdf
The Alliant Library APA Citation Guide - http://alliant.libguides.com/apastyle
Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) APA Style Workshop https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/664/01/
Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) APA Formatting and Style Guide https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/1/
Activity

1. Reformat the sample reference list below according to APA 6 th edition style guidelines. (Hint:
there is only one citation that is completely without error.)
2. After you have made your corrections, go through the step-by-step instructions to see if your
corrected list is accurate. Try not to look at the instructions until after you have completed
reformatting the sample reference list.
REFERENCES

Jessa Forsythe-Crane
Sept. 24, 2014

Kollins, S. H., Sparrow, E. P., Conners, C. K. (2010). Guide to assessment scales in attention
deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Second edition, Grays Inn Road, LND: Springer
Healthcare Ltd.
Kaufman, A. S., & Lichtenberger, E. O. (2000). Essentials of WISC-III and WPPSI-R
assessment. New York, NY: Wiley.
Kazdin, A. E. (2003). Assessment methods and strategies. In Research design in clinical
psychology (Fourth edition) 355-407. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Company.
Hinojosa, M., Hinojosa, R., Fernandez-Baca, D., Knapp, C., Thompson, L. A., & Christou, A.
(2012). Racial and ethnic variation in ADHD, comorbid illnesses, and parental strain.
Journal of Health Care For The Poor And Underserved, 23(1), 273-289.
Sabina, C., Cuevas, C.A., Schally, J. L. (2012). The cultural influences on help-seeking among a
national sample of victimized Latino women. Am J Community Psychol, 49, 347363.
doi: 10.1007/s10464-011-9462-x
S. Sue, (1996) Measurement, testing, and ethnic bias: Can solutions be found? In Sodowsky, G.
R. & J.C. Impara (Eds.), Multicultural assessment in counseling and clinical psychology
7-36. Lincoln, NE: Buros Institute of Mental Measurements.
Marx, I, Hbner, T, Herpertz, SC, Berger, C, Reuter, E, Kircher, T,Marseden, J & Konrad, K.
(2010). Cross-sectional Evaluation of Cognitive Functioning in Children, Adolescents
and Young Adults with ADHD. Journal of Neural Transmission, 117(3), 403-419.
doi:10.1007/s00702-009-0345-3

Instructions for Reformatting

Font
The sample reference list is already in Times New Roman, 12 point font, with no improper use of
bolding, and citations are already double-spaced, but when reviewing a reference list, it is always good
practice to make sure that your font type and size are consistent. While Times New Roman, 12 point font
is not technically an APA requirement, the guidelines do require a standard, easy-to-read font.
To practice changing the font, select all text by hitting CTRL-A (or CMD-A on a Mac) and
change font to Times New Roman, 12 point.
Spacing and Indents
The sample reference list is already double-spaced and left-justified, with no added line spacing,
and each citation already has a .5 inch hanging indent. These ARE APA requirements for formatting
reference list citations.
To practice changing the spacing, select all text, right-click, and open the Paragraph menu. All
spacing settings can be changed there. (You can also manipulate the tab markers on the ruler at the top of
the document to change the indents).
With font consistency, spacing, and indents already taken care of, here are the steps to follow to
accurately reformat the sample reference list:
STEP ONE:

Alphabetize the citations by last name of first author.

STEP TWO:

Review all citations very carefully.

What kind of citation is it article, book, book chapter?
How many authors?
Are the authors name formatted correctly?
Is the year of publication present and formatted correctly?
Is the title of the article and/or the book chapter and/or the book formatted correctly?
If there are editors in addition to authors, are they listed and formatted correctly?
If its a journal article, is the journal title formatted correctly?
If its a journal article, is the volume AND issue number present and formatted

correctly?
If its an edition of a book, is the edition present and formatted correctly?
Are the page numbers formatted correctly?
If its a journal article, is there a DOI? Is it formatted correctly?
If its a book, is the publisher location and publishing company present and formatted
correctly?

Here is how to do it, citation by citation. (The citations have been alphabetized as they would appear on
the corrected reference list).
FIRST CITATION:

Hinojosa, M., Hinojosa, R., Fernandez-Baca, D., Knapp, C., Thompson, L. A., & Christou, A. (2012).
Racial and ethnic variation in ADHD, comorbid illnesses, and parental strain. Journal of Health
Care For The Poor And Underserved, 23(1), 273-289.
1. What kind of citation is this?
JOURNAL ARTICLE
2. Between two and seven authors?
YES
3. Every author is cited with last name, comma, space, first initial, period? (Or last name, comma,
space, first initial, period, space, middle initial, period?) There is one space between commas
and the next authors name?
YES
4. Year of publication in parentheses after author, followed by period?
YES
5. Title of journal article not in italics and in sentence case? (Sentence case: only the first word,
proper nouns, and the first word after a colon are capitalized)
YES
6. Title of journal in italics with all words longer than three letters long capitalized, followed by a
comma?
NO decapitalize For, The, and And.
7. Volume number in italics, followed by issue number not in italics and in parenthesis with no
space following italicized volume number, followed by a comma and a space?
YES
8. Page range with no spaces between first page number, dash, and last page number, followed by a
period?
YES
9. DOI present?
NO go to http://crossref.org/guestquery and scroll down to Search on article title. Enter last
name of first author and copy/paste article title. Copy the DOI link and go back to the Word
document. If on a PC, hit ALT-CTRL-V to paste as unformatted text. If on a Mac, hit ShiftCMD-V to paste as unformatted text. Make sure the link starts one space after the period after the
page range, and make sure there is NO period at the end of the link. And make sure the link isnt
an active link (i.e., you cant click on it)

If you cant locate the DOI through crossref.org or by Googling for it, you need to put the
journals website instead of the DOI, like this Retrieved from http://www.journalofstuff.com
CORRECTED CITATION:

Hinojosa, M., Hinojosa, R., Fernandez-Baca, D., Knapp, C., Thompson, L. A., & Christou, A.
(2012). Racial and ethnic variation in ADHD, comorbid illnesses, and parental strain.
Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 23(1), 273-289.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hpu.2012.0001

NEXT CITATION:
Kaufman, A. S., & Lichtenberger, E. O. (2000). Essentials of WISC-III and WPPSI-R assessment. New
York, NY: Wiley.
1. What kind of citation is this?
AUTHORED BOOK, NO EDITION
2. Between two and seven authors?
YES
3. Every author is cited with last name, comma, space, first initial, period? (Or last name, comma,
space, first initial, period, space, middle initial, period?) There is one space between commas
and the next authors name?
YES
4. Year of publication in parentheses after author, followed by period?
YES
5. Title of book italicized and in sentence case? (Sentence case: only the first word, proper nouns,
and the first word after a colon are capitalized)
YES
6. Publisher cited with city, two-letter state abbreviation, colon, publisher name (without Books,
Ltd., Inc., Press, Publishings, etc.), and period at the end?
YES
CITATION ALREADY FORMATTED CORRECTLY:

Kaufman, A. S., & Lichtenberger, E. O. (2000). Essentials of WISC-III and WPPSI-R

assessment. New York, NY: Wiley.

NEXT CITATION:
Kazdin, A. E. (2003). Assessment methods and strategies. In Research design in clinical psychology
(Fourth edition) 355-407. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Company.
1. What kind of citation is this?
CHAPTER IN A BOOK, WITH EDITION
2. Between two and seven authors?
NO
3. One author or more than seven?
ONE
4. Author is cited with last name, comma, space, first initial, period? (Or last name, comma, space,
first initial, period, space, middle initial, period?)
YES
5. Year of publication in parentheses after author, followed by period?
YES
6. Title of chapter is not italicized and in sentence case? (Sentence case: only the first word, proper
nouns, and the first word after a colon are capitalized)
YES
7. Editors are properly listed by first initial, period, space, last name, space, parentheses, Ed. or
Eds., close parentheses, comma?
NO Google the book and look at it on Amazon, Barrnes and Noble, Google Books, or the
publishers website to see who the editor(s) are.
WAIT - you can now see that Kazdin is NOT an author of a chapter in an edited book, but rather
the author of the whole book, and not listed as an editor. When this is the case, you dont cite the
chapter you only cite the book. Authored books are cited as books; chapters in edited books are
cited with their authors, and with the book editors and the book titles. So delete the chapter title
and the word In.
8. Title of book is italicized and in sentence case?
YES

9. Edition is properly formatted in parenthesis, not italicized, following the book title with no
comma before, and a period after?
NO Put the edition number as a number with an ordinal abbreviation (e.g., 2 nd) and abbreviate
edition to ed., follow with a comma. Close parentheses, period.
10. Publisher cited with city, two-letter state abbreviation, colon, publisher name (without Books,
Ltd., Inc., Press, Publishings, etc.), and period at the end?
NO delete Company.
CORRECTED CITATION:

Kazdin, A. E. (2003). Research design in clinical psychology (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson
Education.

NEXT CITATION:
Kollins, S. H., Sparrow, E. P., Conners, C. K. (2010). Guide to assessment scales in attentiondeficit/hyperactivity disorder, Second edition, Grays Inn Road, LND: Springer Healthcare Ltd.
1. What kind of citation is this?
AUTHORED BOOK, EDITION
2. Between two and seven authors?
YES
3. Every author is cited with last name, comma, space, first initial, period? (Or last name, comma,
space, first initial, period, space, middle initial, period?) There is one space between commas
and the next authors name? There is an ampersand before the last authors last name?
NO add an ampersand (&) before the last authors last name.
4. Year of publication in parentheses after author, followed by period?
YES
5. Title of book italicized and in sentence case? (Sentence case: only the first word, proper nouns,
and the first word after a colon are capitalized)
YES
6. Edition is properly formatted in parenthesis, not italicized, following the book title with no
comma before, and a period after?

NO Put the edition number in parentheses as a number with an ordinal abbreviation (e.g., 2 nd)
and abbreviate edition to ed., follow with a comma. Close parentheses, period.
7. Publisher cited with city, two-letter state abbreviation, colon, publisher name (without Books,
Ltd., Inc., Press, Publishings, etc.), and period at the end?
NO publishing locations outside the US are cited as city, country, so replace Grays Inn Road,
LND with London, UK, colon. Delete Ltd.
CORRECTED CITATION:

Kollins, S. H., Sparrow, E. P., & Conners, C. K. (2010). Guide to assessment scales in attentiondeficit/hyperactivity disorder (2nd ed.). London, UK: Springer Healthcare.

NEXT CITATION:
Marx, I, Hbner, T, Herpertz, SC, Berger, C, Reuter, E, Kircher, T, Marseden, J & Konrad, K. (2010).
Cross-sectional evaluation of cognitive functioning in children, adolescents and young adults
with ADHD. Journal of Neural Transmission, 117(3), 403-419. doi:10.1007/s00702-009-0345-3
1. What kind of citation is this?
JOURNAL ARTICLE
2. Between two and seven authors?
NO
3. One author or more than seven?
MORE THAN SEVEN you can only have seven author names in a reference list citation. Keep
the first six. After the sixth authors initials, put a period, a comma, a space, three ellipses
separated by spaces, then the very last authors last name and first initial (e.g., Johnson, K., . . .
Baxter, M.). There is no ampersand (&) when a reference list citation has more than seven
authors. So, delete the ampersand in the citation and follow the above formatting.
4. Every author is cited with last name, comma, space, first initial, period? (Or last name, comma,
space, first initial, period, space, middle initial, period?) There is one space between commas
and the next authors name?
NO add periods after each initial. Add one space after each comma, and after each period.
Remember, after the sixth authors initial(s), put a period, a comma, a space, three ellipses
separated by spaces, then the very last authors last name and initial(s).
5. Year of publication in parentheses after author, followed by period?

YES
6. Title of journal article not in italics and in sentence case? (Sentence case: only the first word,
proper nouns, and the first word after a colon are capitalized)
NO decapitalize everything except the first word and the abbreviation for ADHD.
7. Title of journal in italics with all words longer than three letters long capitalized, followed by a
comma?
NO italicize the journal title.
8. Volume number in italics, followed by issue number not in italics and in parenthesis with no
space following italicized volume number, followed by a comma and a space?
NO delete one of the spaces before the volume number, and put the volume number in italics.
9. Page range with no spaces between first page number, dash, and last page number, followed by a
period?
YES
10. DOI present?
YES however, your reference list now has DOIs in two different formats. One is written like a
web link, and the other says doi: 10.1007.. Both are acceptable by APA, but the web link is
preferred.
If all the DOIs in the reference list are already formatted like doi: 10.1007., you can leave
them like that, and change the web link DOI of the previous citation to the same format (i.e.,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hpu.2012.0001 becomes doi:10.1353/hpu.2012.0001). If you choose
this format, there is no space between doi, colon, and the start of the number.
Conversely, you can change the DOIs to web link format (i.e., doi:10.1007/s00702-009-0345-3
becomes http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00702-009-0345-3). Remember to remove the hyperlink if
the link turns into one. Whichever format you choose, remember there is no period at the end.
CORRECTED CITATION:

Marx, I., Hbner, T., Herpertz, S. C., Berger, C., Reuter, E., Kircher, T., . . . Konrad, K. (2010).
Cross-sectional evaluation of cognitive functioning in children, adolescents and young
adults with ADHD. Journal of Neural Transmission, 117(3), 403-419.
doi:10.1007/s00702-009-0345-3
OR

Marx, I., Hbner, T., Herpertz, S. C., Berger, C., Reuter, E., Kircher, T., . . . Konrad, K. (2010).
Cross-sectional evaluation of cognitive functioning in children, adolescents and young
adults with ADHD. Journal of Neural Transmission, 117(3), 403-419.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00702-009-0345-3

NEXT CITATION:
Sabina, C., Cuevas, C.A., Schally, J. L. (2012). The cultural influences on help-seeking among a national
sample of victimized Latino women. Am J Community Psychol, 49, 347363. doi:
10.1007/s10464-011-9462-x
1. What kind of citation is this?
JOURNAL ARTICLE
2. Between two and seven authors?
YES
3. Every author is cited with last name, comma, space, first initial, period? (Or last name, comma,
space, first initial, period, space, middle initial, period?) There is one space between commas
and the next authors name?
NO add a space between the first and second initials of the second author, and add an
ampersand (&) before the last author.
4. Year of publication in parentheses after author, followed by period?
YES
5. Title of journal article not in italics and in sentence case? (Sentence case: only the first word,
proper nouns, and the first word after a colon are capitalized)
YES
6. Title of journal in italics with all words longer than three letters long capitalized, followed by a
comma?
NO you can see that this journal title is abbreviated. Using common sense, you can reasonably
guess that the title is American Journal of Community Psychology, but its best to be sure. The
NCBI website is a good place to start to find the whole title:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals
Enter the entire journal title and italicize it.

7. Volume number in italics, followed by issue number not in italics and in parenthesis with no
space following italicized volume number, followed by a comma and a space?
NO italicize the volume number. In parentheses with no space after the italicized volume
number, put the issue number if its missing, you must find it. A good way to find it is using
http://crossref.org/guestquery. Scroll down to Search on article title. Enter last name of first
author and copy/paste article title. The volume and issue number come up. If they dont, Google
for it.
8. Page range with no spaces between first page number, dash, and last page number, followed by a
period?
YES
9. DOI present?
YES however, make sure all your reference list DOIs are in the same format either the link
(http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/.....) or doi:10.1007/.. If you choose the latter format, there is no
space between doi, colon, and the start of the number. Remember to remove the hyperlink if the
link turns into one. Whichever format you choose, remember there is no period at the end.
CORRECTED CITATION:

Sabina, C., Cuevas, C. A., & Schally, J. L. (2012). The cultural influences on help-seeking
among a national sample of victimized Latino women. American Journal of Community
Psychology, 49(3-4), 347363. doi: 10.1007/s10464-011-9462-x
OR
Sabina, C., Cuevas, C. A., & Schally, J. L. (2012). The cultural influences on help-seeking
among a national sample of victimized Latino women. American Journal of Community
Psychology, 49(3-4), 347363. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10464-011-9462-x

LAST CITATION:

Sue, S. (1996) Measurement, testing, and ethnic bias: Can solutions be found? In G. R. Sodowsky & J.C.
Impara (Eds.), Multicultural assessment in counseling and clinical psychology 7-36. Lincoln, NE:
Buros Institute of Mental Measurements.
1. What kind of citation is this?
CHAPTER IN A BOOK, NO EDITION
2. Between two and seven authors?
NO
3. One author or more than seven?
ONE
4. Author is cited with last name, comma, space, first initial, period? (Or last name, comma, space,
first initial, period, space, middle initial, period?)
NO put last name, comma, space, first initial, period.
5. Year of publication in parentheses after author, followed by period?
NO add period after the parentheses enclosing the year of publication.
6. Title of chapter is not italicized and in sentence case? (Sentence case: only the first word, proper
nouns, and the first word after a colon are capitalized)
YES
7. Editors are properly listed by first initial, period, space, last name, space, parentheses, Ed. or
Eds., close parentheses, comma?
NO put the first editors initials in front of the last name and add a space between the first and
second initials of the second editor.
8. Title of book is italicized and in sentence case?
NO italicize the book title.
9. Page range of chapter is in parentheses, beginning with pp., not italicized, with no comma before
the parentheses and a period after?
NO add non-italicized parentheses, pp. before the page range, and close parentheses.
10. Publisher cited with city, two-letter state abbreviation, colon, publisher name (without Books,
Ltd., Inc., Press, Publishings, etc.), and period at the end?
YES

CORRECTED CITATION:

Sue, S. (1996). Measurement, testing, and ethnic bias: Can solutions be found? In G. R.
Sodowsky & J. C. Impara (Eds.), Multicultural assessment in counseling and clinical
psychology (pp. 7-36). Lincoln, NE: Buros Institute of Mental Measurements.

FINAL STEP: Scroll through the entire reference list. If any citation is split between two pages, make
the entire thing go on the next page.

See the next page for the corrected reference list.

REFERENCES
Hinojosa, M., Hinojosa, R., Fernandez-Baca, D., Knapp, C., Thompson, L. A., & Christou, A.
(2012). Racial and ethnic variation in ADHD, comorbid illnesses, and parental strain.
Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 23(1), 273-289.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hpu.2012.0001
Kaufman, A. S., & Lichtenberger, E. O. (2000). Essentials of WISC-III and WPPSI-R
assessment. New York, NY: Wiley.
Kazdin, A. E. (2003). Research design in clinical psychology (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson
Education.
Kollins, S. H., Sparrow, E. P., & Conners, C. K. (2010). Guide to assessment scales in attentiondeficit/hyperactivity disorder (2nd ed.). London, UK: Springer Healthcare.
Marx, I., Hbner, T., Herpertz, S. C., Berger, C., Reuter, E., Kircher, T., . . . Konrad, K. (2010).
Cross-sectional evaluation of cognitive functioning in children, adolescents and young
adults with ADHD. Journal of Neural Transmission, 117(3), 403-419.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00702-009-0345-3
Sabina, C., Cuevas, C. A., & Schally, J. L. (2012). The cultural influences on help-seeking
among a national sample of victimized Latino women. American Journal of Community
Psychology, 49(3-4), 347363. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10464-011-9462-x
Sue, S. (1996). Measurement, testing, and ethnic bias: Can solutions be found? In G. R.
Sodowsky & J. C. Impara (Eds.), Multicultural assessment in counseling and clinical
psychology (pp. 7-36). Lincoln, NE: Buros Institute of Mental Measurements.