Your reference list should appear at the end of your paper. It provides the information necessary for a reader to locate and retrieve any source you cite in the body of the paper. Each source you cite in the paper must appear in your reference list; likewise, each entry in the reference list must be cited in your text.
Your references should begin on a new page separate from the text of the essay; label this page "References" (without the quotation marks) centered at the top of the page in bold. All text should be double-spaced just like the rest of your essay.
Basic Rules
- All lines after the first line of each entry in your reference list should be indented one-half inch from the left margin. This is called hanging indentation.
- Authors' names are inverted (last name first).
- Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last name of the first author of each work, or by the title of the work if no authors are given.
- For multiple articles by the same author, or authors listed in the same order, list the entries in chronological order, from earliest to most recent.
- Present the journal title in full.
- Maintain the punctuation and capitalization that is used by the journal in its title.
- For example: ReCALL not RECALL or Knowledge Management Research & Practice not Knowledge Management Research and Practice or portal: Libraries and the Academy, not Portal: Libraries and the Academy.
- Capitalize all major words in journal titles. When referring to the titles of books, chapters, articles, or webpages, capitalize only the first letter of the first word of a title and subtitle, the first word after a colon or a dash in the title, and proper nouns.
- Note that the distinction here is based on the type of source being cited. Academic journal titles have all major words capitalized, while other sources' titles do not.
- Italicize titles of longer works such as books and journals.
- Do not italicize, underline, or put quotes around the titles of shorter works such as journal articles or essays in edited collections.
This section was developed from information provided on the Purdue OWL APA Guide.
