2.3 APA Reference Lists

As noted above, all sources cited in the body of your paper must be listed more completely on a References page, which follows the main text of the paper. Of course, you may not be working on a research paper. If working on a project to be presented in another media format, a slide presentation or Web page, for example, you would present a special References section listing the same details discussed here. The format of the References page in a formal APA‐style paper— including spacing, indentation, and so on—is covered in Section 3.2.4. In this section, we treat the format of the reference‐list entries themselves, including the key details required for particular kinds of sources and common formatting guidelines applying to all listings.

Overview of this section's instruction

• Using the templates in the section for citation
• Basic formatting rules for reference list entries
• Listing retrieval information for online sources
• Formatting differences between reference list entries and in-text notes

Guidelines for listing particular media formats and genres on your References page

• 2.3.1 Listing books and other non-periodical print publications
• 2.3.2 Listing articles from printed journals, magazines, and newspapers
• 2.3.3 Listing periodical articles from databases and periodical websites
• 2.3.4 Listing Web pages, blogs, reader postings, and ebooks
• 2.3.5 Listing audio, video, and multimedia sources
• 2.3.6 Listing reference articles, government documents, and other special genres