19. Dates. Put the year of publication in parentheses immediately after the author’s name(s). In a
book, the date is usually on the copyright page behind the title page. The date of a website is
trickier: don’t use a “Last Reviewed” date or a website copyright date. Use a “Last Updated”
date only when the update clearly applies to the information you’re reading as opposed to
some other feature of the page. If your source truly provides no date, use the abbreviation
“n.d.” (“no date”) instead of the year. Manual, pp. 262, 290.
If you’re citing a work that’s been republished, put the recent publication date in the usual
place, after the author’s name. The original date closes the citation, after any DOI or URL, and
looks like this: (Original work published 1815). Manual, p. 265, 325
20. Capitalization. In the title and subtitle of a book, chapter, or article, capitalize only the first
word and any proper nouns. In journal, magazine, and newspaper titles, capitalize all major
words. Manual, p. 291.
21. Italics. Italicize titles of books, journals, magazines, and newspapers. Also italicize volume
numbers in journal references. Leave article and chapter titles alone: don’t italicize them or put
them in quotation marks. Manual, p. 293.
22. Publication information. The publication information required for books includes only the
name of the publisher; if the publisher is the same as the author, it doesn’t even need that.
The requirement for articles includes volume, issue, and page numbers. Manual, pp. 295-296.
23. Databases. APA doesn’t include database information unless a source is available only from
a particular database, like Cochran. If you include a database name in your reference (some
archival documents can only be found in electronic databases), put it in italics. Manual, p. 296.
24. DOIs. Many sources have a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), a permanent number that
goes with them wherever they’re published online. If your source has a DOI, your
citation must include it. The doi itself looks something like 10.xxxx/gobbledygook. It can
appear in many formats, but APA only uses one. If you find a doi as part of a larger
URL that doesn’t look like the one below, cut out everything except the doi and reformat
it. Don’t put a period at the end. Manual, pp. 299-300.
htpps://doi.org/10.xxxx/gobbledygook
25. URLs. If an electronic source has a DOI, don’t include the URL. No DOI? Try to find a
URL that links to the source directly. Don’t use a URL specific to a particular library;
don’t use a URL specific to a general database like EBSCO or Academic Search
Complete. If those are the only URLs you can find, don’t include a URL in your citation.
Manual, pp. 299-300.
If your source is available only from a specific database and the URL linking to the
document doesn’t require a login, use that URL. If it does require a login, list the URL
for the database instead. A URL begins with “http” or “https”: don’t put a “retrieved from”
statement before it (except in special situations—see F. below) or a period after it. You
can leave your URLs live and hyperlinked (blue, underlined) or you can remove the
hyperlinks. Check your teacher’s preference. Manual, pp. 298-299.
26. Retrieval dates. Don’t include retrieval dates for online sources unless the source is both
unarchived and expected to change over time (e.g. online dictionary, Google map). Wikipedia
pages are archived, so you don’t need to include a retrieval date for them. Manual, p. 290.