APA (7th ed.) for Student Papers

Basic things to remember about Reference List citations

1 - Citation generators are a convenience...but you cannot rely on them.

For example, although the title and seriation of your own paper should use "title case" (i.e., all the major words are capitalized) when it comes to citations of articles, APA directs that they be placed in "sentence case" (i.e., you treat the article title like a sentence, and only capitalize the first word, and any proper nouns).  Note how the following citation for the Mintz article (downloaded from a ProQuest citation generator) fails to put the article in "Sentence case". 

Mintz, A. I. (2022). Plato, the Poets, and the Philosophical Turn in the Relationship Between Teaching, Learning, and Suffering. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 41(3), 259-271. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-022-09823-x

2 - Use only initials for an author (or editor's) first and middle names.

For the Mintz article, the citation should properly begin: 

"Mintz, A."

NOT

"Mintz, Avi"

3 - If you have multiple authors, use commas and the ampersand [&] sign (rather than the word and) to connect them.

If Mintz had had co-authors, the citation would properly begin: 

"Mintz, A., Smith, V. & Jones, W."

NOT

"Mintz, A, Smith, V., and Jones, W."

4 - The publication date immediately follows the author's name in parentheses.

Tip:  Publication dates in APA always need to be in parentheses.  (Depending on specifics, there may be other stuff inside the parenthesis with the publication date.)

5 - Missing information can simply be omitted from your citation, with one exception: the publication date.  In the event no date of publication is supplied, you use (n.d.) in the space for the date.

For example, if the Mintz article did not have a publication date listed, the citation would properly begin:

"Mintz, A. (n.d.)."

1 - Article titles and book titles are written in sentence case.

This means you capitalize the first word of the title (and subtitle, if applicable) as well as any proper nouns.  Otherwise, everything else stays lowercase (like in a sentence).

2 - Journal titles, however, are written in title case.

Look again at the two citations from our example Reference page:

It can get confusing when to use capitalization and italics in a Reference List citation.  Use this chart to help you remember the basics

Step 1 - Immediately after the journal title, put a comma...and then the volume number.  The issue number (if there is one) will immediately follow the journal number and will be enclosed in parentheses.

Step 2a - Consider the comma immediately following the journal title and the volume number part of the journal title.  Thus, they will be in italics.

Step 2b - If there is an issue number, it will come immediately after the volume number with no space.  The issue number should be enclosed in parentheses and should be followed by a comma.  (NOTE: Neither the parentheses around the issue number, nor the issue number, nor the comma following the issue number should be italicized.)

Step 3 - The page range should be in regular font, with a period at the end.  (NOTE:  There is no "pp." or anything like that in front of the page range.  Just put the numbers.)

Step 4 - If your resource has a digital object identifier (DOI) or a stable uniform resource locator (URL) that is freely-accessible to anyone, then you include it as the last element in the citation.  There will be no period after the DOI/URL.