Referencing: About End-Text References

The Author is the authority behind the creation of a work. This can be an individual person, a group of people, an organisation, a website or other entities of authority. The key thing to remember about an author is: who is responsible for the creation of the work?

Include all direct authors of the work at the start of the end-text reference listed (each individual author separated by a comma). Keep them in the order that they appear in the work. 

If you have fewer than 20 authors list them with an ampersand (&) before the final author's name. 

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

If you have more than 20 authors only include the first 19 and the last author. Separate the 19th author and the last author with ellipses (. . .).

Leung, W., Shaffer, C. D., Reed, L., Smith, S. T., Barshop, W., Dirkes, W., Dothager, M., Lee, P., Wong, J., Xiong, D., Yuan, H., Bedard, J. E. J., Machone, J. F., Patterson, S. D., Price, A. L., Turner, B. A., Robic, S., Luippold, E. K., McCartha, S. R., . . . Elgin, S. C. R.

A full stop goes at the end of the author element (unless one is there already).

To create each individual author's APA 7th style entry identify who they are:

 

Individual person or people 

The most common type of author is a person or group of people named as creating the work. If the work that you have used has a list of names follow these rules to format the author element of your end-text reference:

• Format the author's name as family name, comma, first initials. Each initial is separated by a space. 

James M. Smith ⇒ Smith, J. M.

If the person has a variation based on culture, language, or preference then maintain that in your author structure. 

Multiple family names

Andrew Harper-Jones ⇒ Harper-Jones, A.

Capitalisation and family indication terms

Maria de la Cruz ⇒ de la Cruz, M.

Symbols or accents in names

If your system cannot handle symbols this can be excluded.

Ricardo Fernández ⇒ Fernández, R. 

Hyphens and connectors

If an author's first name is hyphenated, include both initials and the hyphen if both names are capitalised.

Young-Ha Kim ⇒ Kim, Y.-H.

Lee-ann Raboso ⇒ Raboso, L.

Titles and ranks

Do not include titles and ranks, unless they are part of the author's name.

John Smith, Jr ⇒ Smith, J., Jr.

John Smith, M.D., Ph.D. ⇒ Smith, J.

Pseudonyms or Aliases

If the author uses an alias, pseudonym, or has a single word name present their name as they present it.

Lady Gaga ⇒ Lady Gaga.

 

Group authors, websites, and government departments

If there are no listed individual authors, a named group, company, or website can be credited as a single group author. If there is no named person(s) the authority of the work may fall on the group who owns the work you have used. For a group author you should provide its full name even if it is abbreviated elsewhere. You do not need to provide the abbreviation. 

If you don't know the full name of the author check their websites about page or the copyright page of the work to see how they have presented their name. 

Be aware that if using group authors they must have produced the work. If the work you are using is clearly not created by the group author but rather published (e.g. news articles) then consider the source as [missing an author]. 

Organisations

If you are using a work created by an organisation or from an organisation's website then they can be credited as the author: 

Australian Bureau of Statistics

Identify the closest level of authority to the work.

Government departments and layered organisations

If you have a work from a department within a government agency identify the most specific agency as the author. Include the parent agency in the source element as "publisher."

National Cancer Institute

The full reference would include the parent bodies as the "publisher," ordered starting from the largest level, and separated by commas:

National Cancer Institute. (Date). Title of the work. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www . . .

Websites

If you are using a page from a website (excluding news articles) the content on websites can be credited to the name of the website: 

Cancer Council

Do not use the URL if they have a name that they go by.

Do not include jurisdiction (e.g. Commonwealth of Australia) unless it is needed to distinguish between two organisations that would otherwise have the same name.

 

Specialised roles

Some reference types, such as films or edited books, routinely credit major contributors who would not be described as the "author" of the work. For these contributors, include their role in parentheses after their name in the end-text reference. (Do not include the role in the in-text citation.) If the role is editor, it should be abbreviated as (Ed.), or (Eds.) for multiple editors.

Scott, R. (Director).

Cunningham, S., & Turner, G. (Eds.).

Saunders, A. (Host).

Patterson, J. (with Marklund, L.).

 

No author

If you can not find the author of a work, including a group or organisation that is responsible for the work, use the title in place of the author. The title spot can be left blank. (Formatting for in-text citation is available here.)

Do not cite the author as "Anonymous" unless the work was published under that pseudonym. Instead exclude the author and move the title into the author field:

Italian government declares state of emergency in flood-ravaged Venice. (2019, November 15). The Age. https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/italian-government-set-to-declare-state-of-emergency-in-venice-20191115-p53ast.html

 

Usernames

If the real name of someone who usually publishes under a username is known, give the real name first but include the username in brackets:

Dorsey, J. [@jack].

Only the family name will be included in in-text citations: (Dorsey, 2020).

If only the username is known, do not put it in brackets. The username will be treated as the author's name for in-text and end-text citations, e.g. (mt2mt2, 2015).

mt2mt2.

Give the date the item was published. For most works this is just the year. 

For some items that are published more frequently, such as webpages and newspaper articles, a more specific date is required (if available) to help the reader find the specific work you are citing.

 

Formatting this element

The date goes within parentheses:

(2020)​.

(2012, May 18).

(2019, Spring).

If the exact year/date is unknown but an approximation exists use "ca." to indicate this:

(ca. 1863)

No date

Note that the copyright date at the footer of a webpage is usually not the date the content was published.

If you can not find the publication date for an item, use the abbreviation for "no date":

(n.d.).

Same author/year

If a source has both the same primary author and year you may need to add an additional letter after the year. This is to differentiate references in-text. The order of the letters is determined by the order of the entries in the final reference list. Keep track of these citations to make sure they have the right letter attached.

(2020a)

If the source has additional date information include the letter after the year.

(2023b, January 19)

(2015c, Spring)

If you have no date you need to include a - before the letter.

(n.d.-d)

Unpublished works

If a source hasn't be published but will be published (accepted for publication) use the term "in press" for the date: 

(in press).

If the source isn't published, informally published, or a work in progress use the year that it was produced.

 

Titles keep the original spelling, but capitalisation and italics are standardised to fit the APA style. Titles will vary between italicised or not italicised depending if it is a stand alone or whole work.

---

Stand-alone or whole works

If the work that you are referencing is a standalone or whole work (e.g. a book, webpage, or report) the title is formatted in sentence case italics. 

Project management: The managerial process.

 

Part of a greater work:

These are sources which have been created by different groups of authors and compiled into a greater publication (e.g. edited books with chapter authors or journals with journal articles). As these contain a secondary title (e.g. the edited book title or journal title) the title of the part used is presented in sentence case no italics.

Italian government declares state of emergency in flood-ravaged Venice.

 

Works with no title

If the work has no title, describe the work using square brackets.

[Map showing local Perth election results in 2018].

Do not use italics for your description, even if the title would usually be in italics (i.e. a whole work).

If this is a work with an unusual format (e.g. photograph, lecture recording, or map), you can include the type as part of the description.

 

Works in another language

Before you use a work in another language as a reference, check with your lecturer or supervisor that this is acceptable. They might prefer that you find an English-language source so that they can check the reference for themselves.

If you are citing a work in a language other than the language of your own writing, and you read that work in its original language, you should include a translation of the title. 

The translated title does not need to be literal: it should inform the reader of what the work is about.

The translation is in square brackets, after the original title. It is not italiscised.

Schweriner Café-Besucher tragen Schwimmnudel-Hüte [Visitors to Schwerin cafe wear pool noodle hats for social distancing].

Nihongo no goi tokusei [Lexical characteristics of Japanese language].

To make it easier to locate the original source, all other details should be in the original language. If the language does not use the Roman alphabet, (i.e. Hindi, Mandarin, Arabic etc.), you should transliterate those details in to the Roman alphabet if possible.

 

Republished or translated works

If a work has been republished in a different year, include information about the original publication date at the end of the reference. If other creators had a significant role in creating the new edition, include information about the editor, translator, or (as below) narrator in parentheses after the title; if the type of work needs explanation, include the type in square brackets.

These elements are not in italics, even if the title is. There should be no full stop between the title and extra information in the title element, or after the original publication date.

Examples of this can be:

• An eBook published in a different year to the original
• A new edition of a classic book
• A book translated into another language

Note: This does not apply to reprints of the same work by the same publisher soon after publication.

Heller, J. (2008). Catch-22 (T. White, Narr.) [Audiobook]. Hachette Audio UK. (Original work published 1961)

Both dates will appear in the in-text reference for these works: (Heller, 1961/2008).

If a work has any details to differentiate it other than the title such as an edition, report, or volume number, include it in parentheses after the title. Do not put a full stop between the title and this descriptive information. This element is not in italics, even if the title is.

• Use the abbreviation "ed." for edition, and "Vol." for volume.
• Edition is written with numbers, not in superscript: Use "6th ed.", not "Sixth ed." or "6^th ed." Revised edition is abbreviated to "Rev. ed."

Effective security management (6th ed.).

Reports and catalogue entries

For reports, give the report number as it appears on the work:

Land management and farming in Australia, 2014-15 (Cat. No. 4627.0).

Foundation to year 10 curriculum: Language for interaction (ACELA1428).

Occupational health and safety management systems—Requirements with guidance for use (ISO Standard No. 45001:2018).

If there is both a volume and an edition, the edition comes first.

Clinical nutrition (2nd ed., Vol. 3).

If the format is something unusual or unclear for an academic context (something other than books, journal articles, and reports), you can include a description of the format after the title.

The description is not in italics, even if the title is. 

Guide to the wildflowers of Perth [Brochure].

Born this way [Song].

Journeys towards expertise in technology-supported teaching [Doctoral dissertation, Edith Cowan University].

The text in the brackets is your own description. Keep it brief and concise.

The source of a work is where we can find and retrieve the work you used. 

• For stand-alone works this is the publisher, overarching website, host, or database. 
• For a part of a greater whole (e.g. book chapter) this is the publication of the whole item (i.e. the book which the chapter is part of).

The source element can include: 

• Series/greater work title
• Identifying details (e.g. volume, edition, issues, page numbers)
• Publisher/website
• DOI/URL

Note: An item might have both a publisher/website and a URL or DOI.

If the publisher is the same group or individual as the author, do not duplicate the information in your reference. You should still include a DOI or URL if appropriate.

Bureau of Meteorology. (2019). Monthly weather review: Australia: September 2019. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/mwr/aus/mwr-aus-201909.pdf

The Bureau of Meteorology is both the author and the publisher of this report, so the reference does not have a publisher listed in the source.

 

DOI/URL notes

A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is assigned to published works as a unique, permanent link to the work. 

A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is commonly referred to the web address of a webpage.

When including a DOI or URL:

• Do not place a full stop after a DOI or URL.
• If there is a DOI, always include it. You do not need to include a URL if there is a DOI.
• If using a URL, use a permanent link if there is one.
• If possible, link directly to the work you used (e.g. to the PDF file of a report).
• URLs and DOIs should be live (the reader should be able to click the link), but whether they look like hyperlinks (blue and underlined) or like the rest of your text is a style decision that you can make. Check your assignment guidelines or ask your lecturer if they have a preference.
• DOI should be displayed in the format: https://doi.org/10.xxxx
• Do not include the URL to any source that is not accessible to a public reader (e.g. a database link for a journal article).

Examples

For websites include the URL:

Australian Institute of Criminology. https://aic.gov.au/publications/special/005

For journal articles or books with DOIs include the DOI: 

https://doi.org/10.1534/g3.114.015966 

For media hosted on a content distribution platform include the platform name and URL:

YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/charlie#p/u/4/qjIsdbBsE8g

If there is no public URL do not include one: 

Oxford University Press.

 

URL shorteners

APA style now allows link shorteners where a link is overly complex or long.

• This advice is aimed largely at student papers: it is usually not appropriate for publication or theses.
• Some URL shorteners only work for a few days, so make sure the link will work for as long as you need it to, including marking and potential appeal periods.
• Check with your lecturer that shortened links are acceptable for your assignment.
• There is no requirement to shorten a URL. Even if a link is very long, you can include it in your reference list.

A URL shortener will take a long URL and make it look more like this:

http://tiny.cc/sp4gpz

Some websites have their own short links that you can use, specific to their site.

No author

If a work seems to have no author, check to see if an organisation or group might be responsible for it. If there is not a clear group author either, you should use the title in place of the author.

Use the title, or the first few words of the title if it is long, in your in-text citations as well.

 

No date

The date in a citation refers to the date the content was published. If you can't locate this information, use the abbreviation for "no date" in place of the year: n.d.

Use this abbreviation in your in-text citations as well.

 

No title

If there is no title, use a description of the work in square brackets.

If the work would usually have a type (e.g. Photograph, Data set, Recording of a play) in brackets after the title, you can include that in the title description.

 

No source

If a work you used is not available to the intended audience of your assignment or project, consider whether it is appropriate to use it as evidence.

If you decide to use it, you should cite the work as personal communication. This sort of citation does not have a reference list entry, because a reader would not be able to locate the work you used. It uses only in-text citations, with a slightly different format to normal in-text citations.

If you are using your own research data, see Section 8.36 in the APA manual.

 

In general, cite: 

• what is available on the work you are citing, and
• what would make it easy for another person to find that work.

You should have some information for each of the four elements (author, date, title, source), but if a detail does not exist, leave it off.

Missing reference information on the APA Style website.