The reference list appears at the end of your paper (but before any appendix and the biographical material). 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 (with the exception of personal communications) must appear in your reference list; likewise, each entry in the reference list must be cited in your text. Make sure that the spelling of authors’ names and dates of publication are identical in both places.

A reference list entry generally has four elements: the author, date, title, and source. Each element answers a question: (1) author: Who is responsible for this work? (2) date: When was this work published? (3) title: What is this work called? (4) source: Where can I retrieve this work? Each of these elements is followed by a period, except periods are not placed after a DOI or a URL, which are usually the last element in an entry. Below are some general guidelines and examples. The examples show each part of the entry as it is discussed. A list of all of these examples in their completed form and in the correct order is at the end of this section. [Links to examples of additional types of works can be found at https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples]

The most common entries in the references are to journal articles, books, or online sources. Although the basic structure is the same for all types of entries, there are some differences. Examples of these are included in the discussion below.

Journal articles include the name(s) of the author(s), the date of publication, the title of the article, the title of the journal, the volume and issue number, page numbers, and DOI or URL for the article.

Books include the name(s) of the author(s), the date, the title of the book, and the name of the publisher. (The location of the publisher is no longer included.) The DOI or URL is also included if the book has one.

Chapters in an edited book follow a format similar to a journal article, starting with the author(s), the date the book was published, and the title of the chapter. The source information begins with the word “In” followed by the names of the editors (with the initials in front of the last name), the title of the book, the page numbers, and the name of the publisher. (The location of the publisher is no longer included.)