APA 7th Edition Referencing Guide

Most of the journal articles you will encounter will be electronic (eJournals).  The examples below concentrate on this format.   The final box shows how you would deal with a journal article available only in print format.

One basic rule:

If a DOI  has been assigned to the article that you are using, you should include this after the page numbers for the article. If no DOI has been assigned use the URL of the website where you have found the article.

What is a DOI:

A DOI (Digital Object Identifier) appears as string of numbers and is unique to the article.  You should be able to find the article by its DOI alone with no other details.

Example DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1080/08927936.2018.1406201

Try it and see!

Structure:

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of article. Title of periodical, volume number(issue number), pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyy

Example:

Wells, D. L. (2007). Domestic dogs and human health: An overview. British Journal of Health Psychology, 12(1), 145-156. https://doi.org/ 10.1348/135910706X103284

In Text:

... (Wells, 2007)

or

Wells (2007).....

Structure:

Include both authors.  In your text link them with "and", but with brackets you can use "&"

Example:

Dell, C. A., & Poole, N. (2015). Taking a paws to reflect on how the work of a therapy dog supports a trauma-informed approach to prisoner health. Journal of Forensic Nursing, 11(3), 167-173. https://doi.org/10/1097/JFN.0000000000000074

In Text:

Dell and Poole (2015)....

or

..... (Dell & Poole, 2015).

Structure:

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number (issue number), pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyy

Example:

McEvedy, S. M., Furness, T., & McKenna, B. (2018). Introduction of a drug-detection dog programme in mental health inpatient units: A mixed-methods study of consumer, staff, and carers' perceptions. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 27(1), 408-421. https://doi.org/inm.12335

In text:

....( McEvedy et al., 2018)

or

....McEvedy et al. (2018)

It is unlikely that you will encounter this - so unlikely, this example is from mathematics! If you find one from psychology, we'll upload it instead.  

Structure: 

List by last names and initials; commas separate author names as with other examples for your first 19 authors.

Then use ellipsis (dots) to represent the the rest of authors (so if there are 24 authors you would need 4 dots) then add final author's name and initials.  

You should have no more than 20 authors in your list.   

The current record for the most authors is over 5000!

Example:

Wiskunde, B., Arslan, M., Fisher, P., Nowak, L., Van den Berg, O., Coetzee, L., Juarez, U., Riyaziyyat, E., Wang, C., Zang, I., Li, P., Yang, R., Kumar, B., Xu, A. Martinez, R., McIntosh, V., Ibanez, L. M., Markinen, G., Virtanen, E., ... Kovacs, A. (2019). Indie pop rocks mathematics: Twenty One Pilots, Nicolas Bourbaki, and the empty set. Journal of Improbable Mathmatics, 27(1), 1935-1968. https://doi.org/10.0000/3mp7-537

In Text:

...(Wiskunde et al., 2019)

Or

Wiskunde et al. (2019)

Structure:

Author, Initial. (Date). Title of article. Title of journal, volume(issue), pages.

Example:

Cushen, P.J., Rife, S.C., & Wann, D. L. (2019). The Emergence of a new Type of Sport Fan: Comaring the Fandom, Motivational Profiles, and Identification of Electronic and Traditional Sports Fan. Journal of Sport Behavior, 42(2), 127-141.

In Text:

... (Cushen et al., 2019)

Or

Cushen et al. (2019) ...

Structure:

Not every article has a DOI, in these cases use a URL.  Try and find a stable URL (or permalink) from the journal itself, rather than one taken from a database (eResource) or a webpage.  

Example:

Soni, B., & Soni, R. (2016). Enhancing Marlow's Hierarchy of Needs for Effective Leadership. Competition Forum, 14(2), 259-263. https://www.quistia.com/read/1P3-4246952371/enhancing-marlow-s-heirarchy-of-needs-for-effective

In Text:

.. (Soni & Soni, 2016)

Or 

Soni and Soni (2016)...

Online News Article

Note: The format for this type of source depends on whether your source comes from a site with an associated newspaper.

If the source does come from a site with an associated newspaper, leave the title of the article unformatted, but italicize the title of the newspaper.

Structure:

Lastname, F. M. (Year, Month Date). Title of article. Title of Publication. URL

Example:

Okri, B. (2020, March, 26). Fear of Covid-19 is a mental contagion - and that's something we can fight. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/26/fear-of-covid-19-is-a-mental-contagion-ben-okri

In Text:

....(Okri, 2020)

Okri (2020)...

If there is no print version (as with the BBC)  put the title of the article in italics and not the source/website.

Structure:

 Lastname, F. M. (Year, Month Date). Title of article. Name of publishing website. URL

Example:

Cuddy, A. (2020), April, 17). 'How can we not be afraid?' - doctors and coronavirus. BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52297156

In Text:

...(Cuddy, 2020)

or

Cuddy (2020)...