Navigating Print Sources: APA Style Reference List Essentials

Every time you write a research paper, you’re making a promise to your reader: that every idea you borrowed can be traced back to its source. The APA reference list is how you keep that promise. But when it comes to print sources – books, journal articles, magazine pieces, dissertations – the formatting rules can feel like a maze. Get one element wrong and your credibility takes a hit. This guide walks you through the essentials of building an accurate APA 7th edition reference list for print sources, source type by source type.

What is a reference list and why does it matter? 🔗

A reference list is a formatted inventory of every source you cited in your paper. It’s not a bibliography of everything you read – only what you actually cited goes in. According to the APA, the reference list allows readers to identify and locate those cited works. Every source in your paper’s body must appear in the list, and every entry in the list must correspond to a citation in your text. No exceptions.

The reference list always starts on a new page at the end of your paper. The label References goes centered and bolded at the top – not italicized, not in quotation marks, not labeled “Works Cited.” The entire list is double-spaced, with no extra blank lines added between entries. Each entry uses a hanging indent – the first line of each reference sits flush with the left margin, and any additional lines are indented by 0.5 inches. Entries are organized alphabetically by the first word of each reference, which is typically the lead author’s last name.

General formatting rules that apply to every entry 🔗

Before diving into specific source types, it helps to understand the rules that cut across all of them.

Author names 🔗

Purdue OWL’s APA guide explains that every author’s name is inverted – last name first, followed by a comma, then the first and middle initials. So “Jane Marie Smith” becomes “Smith, J. M.” For works with two authors, separate the names with a comma and place an ampersand (&) before the last one. For works with up to 20 authors, list all of them. If there are 21 or more, list the first 19, add an ellipsis (…), and then add the final author’s name.

Capitalization and italics 🔗

Titles follow specific capitalization rules depending on whether they stand alone or are part of a larger work. The University of Southern California’s APA guide spells this out clearly: for article and chapter titles, capitalize only the first word of the title, the first word after a colon, and any proper nouns. For journal, magazine, newspaper, and book titles, italicize them. Volume numbers in journal references are also italicized; issue numbers are not.

When there is no author 🔗

If a work has no named author, move the title to the beginning of the entry in place of the author’s name. Only use “Anonymous” if the work is explicitly signed that way. In your in-text citation, use a shortened version of the title in quotation marks (for articles and chapters) or in italics (for books and standalone works), followed by the year.

Citing books 🔗

Books are among the most common print sources, and their format is fairly straightforward in APA 7. The basic structure is: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of book: Subtitle in sentence case. Publisher.

One significant change in APA 7 is that publisher location is no longer required in book references. You simply list the publisher’s name. Also, don’t include superfluous business designations like “Inc.” or “Co.” in the publisher name unless the publisher actually uses those as part of its branding.

Books with one author 🔗

For a single-author book, the format is simple. Example:

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Books with two authors 🔗

List both authors by last name and initials, connected with an ampersand. Delta College’s APA guide demonstrates this with a clear example: both names appear in inverted order, separated by a comma, with an ampersand (&) before the second name.

Later editions 🔗

When citing a book that is not its first edition, include the edition number in parentheses after the title, before the period. For instance: Title of book (3rd ed.). Do not put a period between the title and the parenthetical edition notation.

Chapters in edited books 🔗

When different authors write different chapters in a collected volume, each chapter you cite needs its own separate entry. Massachusetts General Hospital’s APA guide clarifies that these individual references acknowledge the people who contributed the actual content – not just the editors who assembled it.

The format is: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of chapter. In E. E. Editor & F. F. Editor (Eds.), Title of book (pp. xx-xx). Publisher.

Notice that the editor’s initials come before their last name (unlike the author, whose last name comes first). The abbreviation “Ed.” or “Eds.” goes in parentheses after the editor’s name(s). The University of Portland’s citation guide notes that if you have more than one editor, list them in order and place an ampersand before the last editor’s name. You must also include the chapter’s page range.

Journal articles 🔗

Journal articles follow their own format because, as Purdue OWL notes, sources from academic journals carry special weight in research writing and are subject to their own specific rules.

The general format is: Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of article in sentence case. Title of Journal, Volume(Issue), page range. DOI

Continuous vs. separate pagination 🔗

Some journals paginate continuously across an entire volume – meaning page numbers run from 1 through the end of the last issue of that volume without resetting. Others restart page numbering with each new issue. For continuously paginated journals, you include the volume number (italicized) but typically don’t need the issue number, as the page numbers alone locate the article within the volume. For journals with separate pagination per issue, include both the volume and the issue number – the issue number appears in parentheses directly after the volume, with no space between them, and neither a comma nor a period separates them. Example: Journal of Applied Psychology, 25(4), 123-145.

DOIs for journal articles 🔗

APA 7 treats DOIs as the preferred retrieval information whenever they’re available. All DOIs should begin with https://doi.org/ followed by the actual DOI number. For print articles retrieved from academic databases that don’t have DOIs, you do not include a database URL.

Dissertations and theses 🔗

Dissertations and theses are a unique category of print source. They are unpublished works produced for academic degrees, and APA 7 has specific rules for how to cite them depending on whether they were published (made available via a database or repository) or remain unpublished.

For an unpublished dissertation or thesis, the format is: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of dissertation [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Name of Institution.

For a published dissertation available in a database, you include the publication number and database name: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of dissertation (Publication No. XXXXX) [Doctoral dissertation, Name of University]. Database Name.

University of Maryland Global Campus’s citation guide explains that the publication number can be found in the dissertation’s database record. If the work is available freely online rather than through a database, include the URL at the end instead of the database name.

Magazine and newspaper articles 🔗

Magazines and newspapers are periodicals, but they differ from academic journals in key ways – and their APA formatting reflects that.

Magazine articles 🔗

For a magazine article, the University of Arkansas’s APA examples guide shows the format as: Author, A. A. (Year, Month). Title of article. Title of Magazine, Volume(Issue), pages. The month – and day if available – is included with the year. Magazine titles and volume numbers are italicized. If the article doesn’t appear on continuous pages, list all the page numbers the article spans, separated by commas.

Newspaper articles 🔗

Newspaper articles follow a similar structure but require the full date (year, month, and day). Northeast Wisconsin Technical College’s citation guide shows the format as: Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of article. Title of Newspaper, p. XX. For a single page, use “p.” For multiple pages, use “pp.” If the article was retrieved from a print newspaper or a library database, end the reference after the page number. No database URL is needed. Only include a URL if the article was taken directly from the newspaper’s website.

Articles with no author 🔗

When a magazine or newspaper article has no named author, move the article title to the front of the reference where the author’s name would normally go. Alphabetize that entry by the first significant word in the title, ignoring “A,” “An,” or “The.” Your in-text citation will use a shortened title in quotation marks along with the year.

Putting the reference list together 🔗

Once you’ve formatted each entry, assembling the list follows a few final rules. The University of Cambridge’s referencing guide notes that multiple works by the same author are listed in date order, earliest first. Works with no date (noted as “n.d.”) come before dated works. If the same author published multiple works in the same year, add letter suffixes to the year – 2021a, 2021b – based on the alphabetical order of the titles.

One final check before you submit: every source in your reference list must be cited in your paper, and every in-text citation must have a corresponding reference list entry. Cross-checking these two is easy to overlook and critical to get right.

What do you think? When you look at the different source types covered here – books, journal articles, dissertations, magazines, newspapers – which one do you find the trickiest to format correctly, and what specific part of the APA rules tends to trip you up most?

References

1. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/reference-list
2. https://libguides.regiscollege.edu/APA7/reference-list
3. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_author_authors.html
4. https://libguides.usc.edu/APA7th/referencepage
5. https://libguides.massgeneral.org/APA7/reference-citations
6. https://library.delta.edu/apa
7. https://libguides.up.edu/apa/books_ebooks
8. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_basic_rules.html
9. https://libguides.up.edu/apa
10. https://libguides.umgc.edu/c.php?g=1003870&p=7270672
11. https://libguides.uark.edu/apastyle/examples
12. https://nwtc.libguides.com/citations/APA7
13. https://libguides.cam.ac.uk/educationreferencingAPA7th/referencelist
14. https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/format-your-reference-list