APA 7th Edition Reference Style

Citing and referencing is required in academic works, to support credibility, provide evidence and demonstrate scholarship.

Online resources – always consider what type of resource you have, before where its source or location. Use webpage format as a last resort.
In-text Citation

- Usually composed of ‘author’ and ‘date’.

- Can be parenthetical or in the text format.
- For a webpage and a direct quote, cite the paragraph number in the in-text citation, e.g. (Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Health, 2009,
para. 1)
- For quotations, must include page nos. [(Smith et al., 2015, p. 1054)]
- Block quotations (40 words or more) -do not need quotation marks.
o Start on a new line and indent the block 1cm (1/2 inch) from the left margin. Cite the source in parentheses after the quotation’s
final punctuation, or cite the author and year in your sentence before the quotation, concluding with the page numbers.
- When you are paraphrasing, the page number does not need to be included in the in-text citation

Reference List

- Heading – References is now centred and bold, starts on a new page.

 - Entries
- Include only items which have been cited in the text
- Double space the reference list
- Entries should be organized alphabetically and formatted with a hanging indent of ½ inch.
- Entries should be composed of: Author, Date, Title, Source
- Authors
o When authors have the same last name, consult pg. 267 of the 7th APA manual
o Do not put acronyms in the reference list
o Put specific government agency name for Government documents
o Multiple works by same authors, list chronologically with the earliest first
o For works with no author, move the title to the author position, before the date of publication.
o Only use Anonymous when the work is signed “Anonymous”.
- Titles
o Titles are in sentence style (Capitalise first letter of the title and subtitle as well as proper nouns)
o Journal titles are headline style (Capitalise first letter of all words except propositions, conjunctions and articles)
o Bracketed descriptions appear after some titles e.g. [video]
- Date – use copyright year for books; e.g., journal articles (2019, April); newspapers (2019, April 10); conferences (2019, May 7-10)
- DOI – Digital Object Identifier – always include, once present (even if you used a print version)
- DOI and URLs should be written out fully, i.e., https://xxxxx
o Make links blue and underlined or black with no underline.
o Make links clickable if paper is electronic

Examples of references Journal Article

o Three Authors
 Newspaper Article
 Blog o Edited book
 Report
 Book o Chapter in a Book
 Thesis
o Single Author  Conference Presentation
 Webpage
o Two Authors  Ebook
 Youtube video
 Government Document


Examples of formatting: - Edition - Pagination statement
statement -
Subtitle - Multiple authors
- DOI - Organization as author
- Journal issue info - Secondary citations (cited in)
- Master’s thesis - Works excluded from Reference List

Example Blog Reference In-text citation: In-text citation:

No. parenthetical text
1 Shah, A. 2013. Poverty Facts and Stats. Global Issues: Social, Political,
Economic and Environmental Issues That Affect Us All.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

Book
2 Single author Naipaul, V. S. (1960). Middle passage. Penguin Random House. (Naipaul, 1960) Naipaul (1960)

3 Two authors Snell. R. S., & Lemp, M. A. (19980. Clinical anatomy of the eye (2nd ed.). (Snell & Lemp, 1998) Snell and Lemp
Blackwell Science. (1998)

4 Three authors Bailey, C., Barrow, C., & Lashley, J. (2019). Rethinking poverty: Assets, (Bailey et al., 2019) Bailey et al.
social exclusion, resilience and human rights in Barbados. UWI Press. (2019)

5 Edited book Peltier-Davis, C. A., & Renwick, S. (Eds). (2007). Caribbean libraries in (Peltier-Davis & Peltier-Davis
the 21st century: Changes, challenges, and choices. Information Today Renwick, 2007) and Renwick
(2007)

6 Chapter in a Beckford, C. L. (2012). Issues in Caribbean Food Security: Building (Beckford, 2012) Beckford (2012)
book Capacity in Local Food Production Systems. In A. Aladjadjiyan (Ed.),
Food Production - Approaches, Challenges and Tasks (pp. 25-40). InTech.
http://cdn.intechopen. com/pdfs-wm/26514.pdf
 Conference
presentation
7 - with URL de Freitas, C. (2006, May 28-Jun 2). Empowerment of Producers: Enhancing (de Freitas, 2006) De Freitas (2006)
Access to Information for Farmers and Producers in Caribbean
Agriculture [Paper presentation]. 36th Annual Conference of
Association of University, Research and Institutional Libraries
(ACURIL),
Oranjestad, Aruba. http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00083241/ 00001/8j
Ebooks

8 Brück, M. (2009). Women in early British and Irish astronomy: Stars (Brück, 2009) Brück (2009)
and
satellites. Springer Nature. https:/doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2473-2
Government
Document
9 National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. (2016, December). Cardiac (National Heart, National Heart,
rehabilitation. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Lung and Blood Lung and Blood
National Institutes of Health. https://www.nhlbi. Institute, 2016) Institute (2016)
nih.gov/health-topics/cardiac-rehabilitation
Journal Article

10 - page nos Chikweto, A., Bhaiyat, M. I., Tiwari, K. P., de Allie, C., & Sharma, R. N. (Chikweto et al., Chikweto et al.,
(2012). Spirocercosis in owned and stray dogs in Grenada. 2012) (2012)
- doi Veterinary Parasitology, 190(3), 613-616. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.vetpar.2012.07.006
11 - no page nos. Huber, M., Knottnerus, J. A., Green, L., van der Horst, H., Jadad, A. R., (Huber et al., 2011) Huber et al.,
Kromhout, D., Leonard, B., Loureiro, M. L., van der Meer, J. M. W., (2011)
- with article Schnabel, P., Smith, R., & Smid, H. (2011). How should we define
no. health? BMJ, 343(7817), Article d4163. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.
d4163
Newspaper
article
12 - With page Drucker, P. F. (1992, December 3). Be data literate - know what to know.
nos Wall Street Journal, 16.
 Webpage

13 Gillette, B. (2000). Biopiracy: raiding our common heritage. National (Gillette, 2000) Gillette (2000)
Geographic. http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/77/gillette1
Report
14 Battershill, C. N. (1986). The marine benthos of caves, archways and (Battershill, 1986) Battershill (1986)
vertical reef walls of the Poor Knights Islands. University of
Auckland Research Repository, ResearchSpace.
https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/handle /2292/36608
Thesis
15 - Print Monize, A. A. (2011). Is Guyana's Agro-Economic Base a possible solution (Monize, 2011) Monize (2011)
for the Caribbean Food Security Dilemna? [Unpublished doctoral thesis].
The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.
16 - Online Napoli, M. (2011). Towards a Food Insecurity Multidimensional Index (FIMI) (Napoli, 2011) Napoli (2011)
repository [Unpublished Master's thesis]. Roma Tre University.
http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/ERP/uni/FIMI.pdf
Youtube
Video
17 Helen Hayes Hospital. (2019, August 28). Stroke rehabilitation [Video]. (Helen Hayes Helen Hayes
YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ Hospital, 2019) Hospital (2019)
GHSXZJt3d0

NOTE 1 Master’s theses in print format:

Use “Unpublished master’s thesis;” the rest of the reference is like that of a PhD thesis in print format

Thesis/dissertation: Use the terminology used on the thesis itself. Usually the word is “thesis” for theses from UWI and other
countries except the US, which uses “dissertation” for PhD theses

NOTE 2 Multiple authors [(3- 20) and greater than 20 authors]

- Surnames and initials for up to 20 authors should be provided in the reference list.
 - 21 or more authors – list the first 19 … and then the last author

Jin, D., Bow, A., Man, L., Shiu, K., Bar, F., Park, G., Shep, F., Srin, E., Chen, C., Knul, C., Miri, G., Jon, B., Wat, D., Men, T., Pun, Y.,
Zee, Z., Tom, N., Dai, W., Liu, S., . . . Walsh, N. (2004). Neurotoxicity assessment using zebrafish. Journal of Pharmacological
Methods, 6(3), 249-267.
-
NOTE 3 Organization American Psychological Association. (1985). (American American
as author Psychological Psychological
Association [APA], Association
1985) (APA, 1985)
If you choose to abbreviate an organization’s name, include the full name and abbreviation the first time you cite it.
After that, only include the abbreviated name. E.g., (APA, 1985)
NOTE 4 For secondary citations:
… showed in the study (Bendz et al., 1990, as cited in Olson et al., 2004).
OR
Bendz et al. (1990, as cited in Olson et al., 2004) showed …

NOTE 5 Works Excluded from a Reference List

Usually a work is not included because readers cannot recover it or because the mention is so broad that readers do not need a
reference list entry to understand the use.
 Personal communications, e.g. emails, phone calls, texts, cite in the text only, not in the reference list, because readers cannot
retrieve personal communications.
 Whole websites, whole journals, common software & apps do not require in-text citations or reference list entries because the
use is broad and the source is familiar.
 Quotations from research participants: citations and reference list entries are not necessary because the quotations are part of
your original research. They could also compromise participants’ confidentiality, which is an ethical violation.