LibGuides: APA 6th Referencing: Reference List

Reference List Guidelines

The list of references is created on a separate page.
The heading is centred at the top of the page and is titled "References".
Each entry is in alphabetical order according to the last name of the author or editor. If there is no author, list according to the first main word of the title.
Arrange reference entries with the same first author or the same authors in the same order, chronologically by year of publication, with the earliest year first.
If two or more works have identical authors and the same publication date, arrange the references alphabetically by title and put a lower case letter a,b,c and so forth immediately after the year of publication, in both the reference list entry and in text citation.
Each entry begins flush with the left hand margin. Use a hanging indent for subsequent lines.
The reference list is double-spaced.
- Note: This is an APA Style requirement - check with your lecturer on how they would like your References spaced.

End-Text References

Every in-text citation should have a corresponding citation in the end-text reference list. Every work in the end-text reference list should have a corresponding in-text citation. Personal communications are an exception to this rule.

The end-text reference list provides full citation details of a work based on the following four elements required for refererencing:

Who: who produced the work (i.e. details of the author)
When: when was the work produced (i.e. year of publication or copyright date)
What: what is the work we are referring to (i.e. title of the work)
Where: where did this work come from (i.e. publisher or online source)

This means that all end-text reference list citations have the following format as their underlying structure:

Author, A. A. (year). Title. Source.

Place of Publication

Follow the name of the city with the name of the country. For books published in the United States, follow the name of the city with the state (using the official two-letter US Postal Service abbreviation). End with the name of the publisher. For example:

New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
London, England: Wildwood House.
Melbourne, Australia: Puffin.

Note: the above format is the most common, but there are some rare exceptions:

If the publisher is also the author of the book, use 'Author' as the publisher's name, instead of repeating the same name:
- Washington, DC: Author.
If the publisher is a university press whose name includes the state, don't use the abbreviation for the state in the place of publication:
- Oakland: University of California Press.