APA Formatting Activity - Reference List Citations 1

Jessa Forsythe-Crane

Sept. 24, 2014

PUTTING REFERENCE LIST CITATIONS IN APA FORMAT:

JOURNAL ARTICLES, BOOKS, AND BOOK CHAPTERS

Objective

To increase familiarity with APA 6th edition formatting and style guidelines for reference list

citations of journal articles, books, editions of books, and chapters within edited books.

Description

Mastery of APA formatting and style is not required for academic success. Nonetheless, it is

undeniable that the more comfortable, competent, and adept you are at correctly formatting your

written work according to APA formatting and style guidelines , the easier you will find the academic

writing and citation process. This activity gives you the opportunity to practice your reference list

citation formatting skills, and provides step-by-step instructions for how to methodically review each

citation for accuracy. Hopefully, with time, these steps will become easier to remember, until you

are able to review and reformat citations with greater confidence and increased speed.

Resources

The best resource for APA formatting and style is the Publication Manual of the American

Psychological Association (6th ed.; 2010). Reliable online APA resources include the following sites:

The APA Style Blog - http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/

The APA library guide at Nova Southeastern University’s Alvin Sherman Library, Research,

and Information Technology Center -

http://nova.campusguides.com/c.php?g=125219&p=819673

The APA Style Guide to Electronic References -

http://www.augustana.edu/Documents/Library/APA_style_guide.pdf

The Alliant Library APA Citation Guide - http://alliant.libguides.com/apastyle

Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) APA Style Workshop -

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/664/01/

Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) APA Formatting and Style Guide -


Activity

1. Reformat the sample reference list below according to APA 6th edition style guidelines.

(Hint: there is only one citation that is completely without error.)

2. After you have made your corrections, go through the step-by-step instructions to see if your

corrected list is accurate. Try not to look at the instructions until after you have completed

reformatting the sample reference list.

http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/

http://nova.campusguides.com/c.php?g=125219&p=819673

http://www.augustana.edu/Documents/Library/APA_style_guide.pdf

http://alliant.libguides.com/apastyle



REFERENCES

Kollins, S. H., Sparrow, E. P., Conners, C. K. (2010). Guide to assessment scales in attention

deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Second edition, Gray’s Inn Road, LND: Springer

Healthcare Ltd.

Kaufman, A. S., & Lichtenberger, E. O. (2000). Essentials of WISC-III and WPPSI-R

assessment. New York, NY: Wiley.

Kazdin, A. E. (2003). Assessment methods and strategies. In Research design in clinical

psychology (Fourth edition) 355-407. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Company.

Hinojosa, M., Hinojosa, R., Fernandez-Baca, D., Knapp, C., Thompson, L. A., & Christou, A.

(2012). Racial and ethnic variation in ADHD, comorbid illnesses, and parental strain.

Journal of Health Care For The Poor And Underserved, 23(1), 273-289.

Sabina, C., Cuevas, C.A., Schally, J. L. (2012). The cultural influences on help-seeking among a

national sample of victimized Latino women. Am J Community Psychol, 49, 347–363.

doi: 10.1007/s10464-011-9462-x

S. Sue, (1996) Measurement, testing, and ethnic bias: Can solutions be found? In Sodowsky, G.

R. & J.C. Impara (Eds.), Multicultural assessment in counseling and clinical psychology

7-36. Lincoln, NE: Buros Institute of Mental Measurements.

Marx, I, Hübner, T, Herpertz, SC, Berger, C, Reuter, E, Kircher, T,Marseden, J & Konrad, K.

(2010). Cross-sectional Evaluation of Cognitive Functioning in Children, Adolescents

and Young Adults with ADHD. Journal of Neural Transmission, 117(3), 403-419.

doi:10.1007/s00702-009-0345-3

Instructions for Reformatting

Font

The sample reference list is already in Times New Roman, 12 point font, with no improper use of

bolding, and citations are already double-spaced, but when reviewing a reference list, it is always good

practice to make sure that your font type and size are consistent. While Times New Roman, 12 point font

is not technically an APA requirement, the guidelines do require a standard, easy-to-read font.

To practice changing the font, select all text by hitting CTRL-A (or CMD-A on a Mac) and

change font to Times New Roman, 12 point.

Spacing and Indents

The sample reference list is already double-spaced and left-justified, with no added line spacing,

and each citation already has a .5” inch hanging indent. These ARE APA requirements for formatting

reference list citations.

To practice changing the spacing, select all text, right-click, and open the Paragraph menu. All

spacing settings can be changed there. (You can also manipulate the tab markers on the ruler at the top of

the document to change the indents).

With font consistency, spacing, and indents already taken care of, here are the steps to follow to

accurately reformat the sample reference list:

STEP ONE: Alphabetize the citations by last name of first author.

STEP TWO: Review all citations very carefully.

What kind of citation is it – article, book, book chapter?

How many authors?

Are the authors’ name formatted correctly?

Is the year of publication present and formatted correctly?

Is the title of the article and/or the book chapter and/or the book formatted correctly?

If there are editors in addition to authors, are they listed and formatted correctly?

If it’s a journal article, is the journal title formatted correctly?

If it’s a journal article, is the volume AND issue number present and formatted

correctly?

If it’s an edition of a book, is the edition present and formatted correctly?

Are the page numbers formatted correctly?

If it’s a journal article, is there a DOI? Is it formatted correctly?

If it’s a book, is the publisher location and publishing company present and formatted

correctly?

Here is how to do it, citation by citation. (The citations have been alphabetized as they would appear on

the corrected reference list).

FIRST CITATION:

Hinojosa, M., Hinojosa, R., Fernandez-Baca, D., Knapp, C., Thompson, L. A., & Christou, A. (2012).

Racial and ethnic variation in ADHD, comorbid illnesses, and parental strain. Journal of Health

Care For The Poor And Underserved, 23(1), 273-289.

1. What kind of citation is this?

JOURNAL ARTICLE

2. Between two and seven authors?

YES

3. Every author is cited with last name, comma, space, first initial, period? (Or last name, comma,

space, first initial, period, space, middle initial, period?) There is one space between commas

and the next author’s name?

YES

4. Year of publication in parentheses after author, followed by period?

YES

5. Title of journal article not in italics and in sentence case? (Sentence case: only the first word,

proper nouns, and the first word after a colon are capitalized)

YES

6. Title of journal in italics with all words longer than three letters long capitalized, followed by a

comma?

NO – decapitalize “For,” “The,” and “And.”

7. Volume number in italics, followed by issue number not in italics and in parenthesis with no

space following italicized volume number, followed by a comma and a space?

YES

8. Page range with no spaces between first page number, dash, and last page number, followed by a

period?

YES

9. DOI present?

NO – go to http://crossref.org/guestquery and scroll down to “Search on article title.” Enter last

name of first author and copy/paste article title. Copy the DOI link and go back to the Word

document. If on a PC, hit ALT-CTRL-V to paste as unformatted text. If on a Mac, hit Shift-

CMD-V to paste as unformatted text. Make sure the link starts one space after the period after the

page range, and make sure there is NO period at the end of the link. And make sure the link isn’t

an active link (i.e., you can’t click on it)

If you can’t locate the DOI through crossref.org or by Googling for it, you need to put the

journal’s website instead of the DOI, like this – Retrieved from http://www.journalofstuff.com

CORRECTED CITATION:



Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 23(1), 273-289.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hpu.2012.0001

NEXT CITATION:

Kaufman, A. S., & Lichtenberger, E. O. (2000). Essentials of WISC-III and WPPSI-R assessment. New

York, NY: Wiley.


AUTHORED BOOK, NO EDITION


YES

http://crossref.org/guestquery




YES


YES

5. Title of book italicized and in sentence case? (Sentence case: only the first word, proper nouns,

and the first word after a colon are capitalized)

YES

6. Publisher cited with city, two-letter state abbreviation, colon, publisher name (without “Books,”

“Ltd.,” “Inc.,” “Press,” “Publishings,” etc.), and period at the end?

YES

CITATION ALREADY FORMATTED CORRECTLY:



NEXT CITATION:

Kazdin, A. E. (2003). Assessment methods and strategies. In Research design in clinical psychology

(Fourth edition) 355-407. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Company.


CHAPTER IN A BOOK, WITH EDITION


NO

3. One author or more than seven?

ONE

4. Author is cited with last name, comma, space, first initial, period? (Or last name, comma, space,

first initial, period, space, middle initial, period?)

YES


YES

6. Title of chapter is not italicized and in sentence case? (Sentence case: only the first word, proper

nouns, and the first word after a colon are capitalized)

YES

7. Editors are properly listed by first initial, period, space, last name, space, parentheses, Ed. or

Eds., close parentheses, comma?

NO – Google the book and look at it on Amazon, Barrnes and Noble, Google Books, or the

publisher’s website to see who the editor(s) are.

WAIT - you can now see that Kazdin is NOT an author of a chapter in an edited book, but rather

the author of the whole book, and not listed as an editor. When this is the case, you don’t cite the

chapter – you only cite the book. Authored books are cited as books; chapters in edited books are

cited with their authors, and with the book editors and the book titles. So – delete the chapter title

and the word In.

8. Title of book is italicized and in sentence case?

YES

9. Edition is properly formatted in parenthesis, not italicized, following the book title with no

comma before, and a period after?

NO – Put the edition number as a number with an ordinal abbreviation (e.g., 2nd) and abbreviate

“edition” to “ed.”, follow with a comma. Close parentheses, period.



NO – delete “Company.”

CORRECTED CITATION:

Kazdin, A. E. (2003). Research design in clinical psychology (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson

Education.

NEXT CITATION:

Kollins, S. H., Sparrow, E. P., Conners, C. K. (2010). Guide to assessment scales in attention-

deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Second edition, Gray’s Inn Road, LND: Springer Healthcare Ltd.


AUTHORED BOOK, EDITION


YES



and the next author’s name? There is an ampersand before the last author’s last name?

NO – add an ampersand (&) before the last author’s last name.


YES

5. Title of book italicized and in sentence case? (Sentence case: only the first word, proper nouns,

and the first word after a colon are capitalized)

YES

6. Edition is properly formatted in parenthesis, not italicized, following the book title with no

comma before, and a period after?

NO – Put the edition number in parentheses as a number with an ordinal abbreviation (e.g., 2nd)

and abbreviate “edition” to “ed.”, follow with a comma. Close parentheses, period.



NO – publishing locations outside the US are cited as city, country, so replace “Gray’s Inn Road,

LND” with “London, UK,” colon. Delete “Ltd.”

CORRECTED CITATION:

Kollins, S. H., Sparrow, E. P., & Conners, C. K. (2010). Guide to assessment scales in attention-

deficit/hyperactivity disorder (2nd ed.). London, UK: Springer Healthcare.

NEXT CITATION:

Marx, I, Hübner, T, Herpertz, SC, Berger, C, Reuter, E, Kircher, T, Marseden, J & Konrad, K. (2010).

Cross-sectional evaluation of cognitive functioning in children, adolescents and young adults with

ADHD. Journal of Neural Transmission, 117(3), 403-419. doi:10.1007/s00702-009-0345-3


JOURNAL ARTICLE


NO


MORE THAN SEVEN – you can only have seven author names in a reference list citation. Keep

the first six. After the sixth author’s initials, put a period, a comma, a space, three ellipses

separated by spaces, then the very last author’s last name and first initial (e.g., Johnson, K., . . .

Baxter, M.). There is no ampersand (&) when a reference list citation has more than seven

authors. So, delete the ampersand in the citation and follow the above formatting.




NO – add periods after each initial. Add one space after each comma, and after each period.

Remember, after the sixth author’s initial(s), put a period, a comma, a space, three ellipses

separated by spaces, then the very last author’s last name and initial(s).


YES

6. Title of journal article not in italics and in sentence case? (Sentence case: only the first word,


NO – decapitalize everything except the first word and the abbreviation for ADHD.


comma?

NO – italicize the journal title.



NO – delete one of the spaces before the volume number, and put the volume number in italics.


period?

YES

10. DOI present?

YES – however, your reference list now has DOIs in two different formats. One is written like a

web link, and the other says “doi: 10.1007…..” Both are acceptable by APA, but the web link is

preferred.

If all the DOIs in the reference list are already formatted like “doi: 10.1007….,” you can leave

them like that, and change the web link DOI of the previous citation to the same format (i.e.,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hpu.2012.0001 becomes doi:10.1353/hpu.2012.0001). If you choose

this format, there is no space between doi, colon, and the start of the number.

Conversely, you can change the DOIs to web link format (i.e., doi:10.1007/s00702-009-0345-3

becomes http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00702-009-0345-3). Remember to remove the hyperlink if

the link turns into one. Whichever format you choose, remember there is no period at the end.

CORRECTED CITATION:

Marx, I., Hübner, T., Herpertz, S. C., Berger, C., Reuter, E., Kircher, T., . . . Konrad, K. (2010).

Cross-sectional evaluation of cognitive functioning in children, adolescents and young

adults with ADHD. Journal of Neural Transmission, 117(3), 403-419.

doi:10.1007/s00702-009-0345-3

OR




http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00702-009-0345-3

NEXT CITATION:

Sabina, C., Cuevas, C.A., Schally, J. L. (2012). The cultural influences on help-seeking among a national

sample of victimized Latino women. Am J Community Psychol, 49, 347–363. doi:

10.1007/s10464-011-9462-x


JOURNAL ARTICLE


YES




NO – add a space between the first and second initials of the second author, and add an

ampersand (&) before the last author.


YES

5. Title of journal article not in italics and in sentence case? (Sentence case: only the f irst word,


YES


comma?

NO – you can see that this journal title is abbreviated. Using common sense, you can reasonably

guess that the title is American Journal of Community Psychology, but it’s best to be sure. The

NCBI website is a good place to start to find the whole title:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals

Enter the entire journal title and italicize it.



NO – italicize the volume number. In parentheses with no space after the italicized volume

number, put the issue number – if it’s missing, you must find it. A good way to find it is using

http://crossref.org/guestquery. Scroll down to “Search on article title.” Enter last name of first

author and copy/paste article title. The volume and issue number come up. If they don’t, Google

for it.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals

http://crossref.org/guestquery


period?

YES

9. DOI present?

YES – however, make sure all your reference list DOIs are in the same format – either the link

(http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/.....) or doi:10.1007/….. If you choose the latter format, there is no

space between doi, colon, and the start of the number. Remember to remove the hyperlink if the

link turns into one. Whichever format you choose, remember there is no period at the end.

CORRECTED CITATION:

Sabina, C., Cuevas, C. A., & Schally, J. L. (2012). The cultural influences on help-seeking

among a national sample of victimized Latino women. American Journal of Community

Psychology, 49(3-4), 347–363. doi: 10.1007/s10464-011-9462-x

OR



Psychology, 49(3-4), 347–363. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10464-011-9462-x

LAST CITATION:

Sue, S. (1996) Measurement, testing, and ethnic bias: Can solutions be found? In G. R. Sodowsky & J.C.

Impara (Eds.), Multicultural assessment in counseling and clinical psychology 7-36. Lincoln, NE:

Buros Institute of Mental Measurements.


CHAPTER IN A BOOK, NO EDITION


NO


ONE

4. Author is cited with last name, comma, space, first initial, period? (Or last name, comma, space,

first initial, period, space, middle initial, period?)

NO – put last name, comma, space, first initial, period.


NO – add period after the parentheses enclosing the year of publication.

6. Title of chapter is not italicized and in sentence case? (Sentence case: only the first word, proper

nouns, and the first word after a colon are capitalized)

YES

7. Editors are properly listed by first initial, period, space, last name, space, parentheses, Ed. or

Eds., close parentheses, comma?

NO – put the first editor’s initials in front of the last name and add a space between the first and

second initials of the second editor.

8. Title of book is italicized and in sentence case?

NO – italicize the book title.

9. Page range of chapter is in parentheses, beginning with pp., not italicized, with no comma before

the parentheses and a period after?

NO – add non-italicized parentheses, pp. before the page range, and close parentheses.



YES

CORRECTED CITATION:

Sue, S. (1996). Measurement, testing, and ethnic bias: Can solutions be found? In G. R.

Sodowsky & J. C. Impara (Eds.), Multicultural assessment in counseling and clinical

psychology (pp. 7-36). Lincoln, NE: Buros Institute of Mental Measurements.

FINAL STEP: Scroll through the entire reference list. If any citation is split between two pages, make

the entire thing go on the next page.

See the next page for the corrected reference list.

REFERENCES



Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 23(1), 273-289.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hpu.2012.0001



Kazdin, A. E. (2003). Research design in clinical psychology (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson

Education.

Kollins, S. H., Sparrow, E. P., & Conners, C. K. (2010). Guide to assessment scales in attention-

deficit/hyperactivity disorder (2nd ed.). London, UK: Springer Healthcare.




http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00702-009-0345-3



Psychology, 49(3-4), 347–363. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10464-011-9462-x

Sue, S. (1996). Measurement, testing, and ethnic bias: Can solutions be found? In G. R.

Sodowsky & J. C. Impara (Eds.), Multicultural assessment in counseling and clinical

psychology (pp. 7-36). Lincoln, NE: Buros Institute of Mental Measurements.