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APA 7th Edition Citation Guide

Step 1: Author (Names)

Authors: Basic Information

Reference list citations start with author information. Since author information comes first, it is the first component that your readers will identify and therefore needs to tie most directly to the In-text citation. In this regard, it is the main identifying component.

Examples

Falvo, D. R.

Rudd, A., & Gordon, B. S.

Formatting Author Information

Always list the author's surname before listing his or her initials.

You only need to provide initials for the first and middle names but do include initials for all middle names provided by the source.

Include a comma after every last name and in-between different authors' names. Include a period after every initial. Always close the Author portion of the citation with one period.

Do not attempt to place the authors' names in alphabetical order. Authors for a given work are listed in a specific order for specific reasons and should be left in the order in which you find them.

Auhtors: Advanced Information

Multiple Authors

Authors' names are inverted (last name first); give the last name and initials for all authors of a particular work for up to and including 20 authors. In the case there are 2 to 20 authors place an ampersand before the final author's name.

If there are 21 or more authors, list the first 19 author's names and insert an ellipsis. After the ellipsis, add the final author's name.

No Author

Sometimes you will not know the author's exact name. If a source claims the author is anonymous, then state the author as "Anonymous".

If a source has no specific author but is the work of a larger group or organization, please follow the example below for a group author.

If a source provides editor information instead of author information, see the example below for editors.

If a source has no author listed, whether an individual or a group, do not include any author information (i.e., do not mark it as "Anonymous"). Instead, list the source's title first followed by the date. In this case, you are marking the title as the citation's main identifying component, which is usually the author. To cite this source in-text, provide the title with the date instead of the author with the date.

Group Author

If an organization, institution, corporation, and/or agency is the author, provide the full name of the group, not its initials or acronym.

Order of Authors

List authors according to the order they appear on the source. Do not alphabetize the names.

Similar Author Information

If you are citing multiple items by the same author that were created the same year (e.g. multiple webpages on the same website), distinguish the sources by including letters in the date information.

If you have different authors with the same last name and initials, include their given names in brackets.

Examples

Jackson, S. [Samual].

Jackson, S. [Samantha].

Editors

If a source (usually a book) provides only editor information, list the editors in place of the author. You must include in parentheses "Ed." or "Eds." to distinguish the names as editors.

Example

Marquez, J. C., & Henderson, H. (Eds.).

If you are citing an edited book (i.e., a book that includes multiple chapters by different authors), leave the author's information as the citation's main identifying component as described above. You should include the editor's information after the title, but do not invert the editor's name.

Example

Asher, J. W. (2003). The rise to prominence: Educational psychology 1920-1960. In B. J. Zimmerman & D. H. Schunk (Eds.), Education psychology: A century of contributions, (pp. 189-205). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

Punctuation

If an author has a hyphen in his or her first name, use initials and maintain the hyphen in your citation.

Example

Larson, J.-P. (for John-Paul Larson)