Health Studies Introduction: APA Style

Refer to the Publication Manual of the APA for detailed information on how to cite your sources.

The library's copies of the Manual are held on the Reference and Reference Desk shelves.  

Here's how the following types of articles should appear in a References list within your paper or other assignment:

Journal article from a print publication:

Paul, S.P. (2011). An infant with intussusception.  Nursing Times, 104(46),

28-29.

The elements of this citation are:  Author, Publication Year, Article Title, Journal Title, Volume, Issue, Pages. 

Note the following:

The author's name is listed last name first, with initials following.  The publication year is in parentheses.

The title of the article is not capitalized, excepting the first word of the title, the first word after a colon, and proper names.

The title of the journal is italicized, as is the volume number.  The issue number is in parentheses. (If no issue number is given, you may omit it.)

The page numbers have a hyphen between them, with no abbreviations such as p., pp. or pg.

Journal article from a database (with DOI):

Zavorsky, G.S. & Longo, L.D. (2011). Exercise guidelines in pregnancy:

New perspectives. Sports Medicine, 41(5), 345-360.

https://www.doi.org/10.2165/11583930-000000000-00000

This citation has the same elements as the one above it, plus a DOI (digital object identifier) after the page numbers. You will often see the DOI listed under the article entry in a database.  It also may appear on the first page of the article PDF.  See the box on the right for more tips on finding DOIs.

Journal article from a database (when DOI is NOT available):

 Glazener, C.M.A. (2005). Parental perceptions and adaptations to

parenthood. British Journal of Midwivery, 13(9), 578-585. 

If an article has more than 20 authors, list the first 19 names, followed by three dots and the last author's name.

Purchase the APA Publication Manual.

Take a look at the APA LibGuide.

This Sample APA Style paper is also a helpful resource.

The APA website includes many free video tutorials for learning and using APA style.

Use RefWorks to organize and manage your references. 

A DOI (digital object identifier) is a numeric name given to a journal article or any other type of content found on the Internet.  DOI names are used to provide current information about articles, including where they (or information about them) can be found on the Internet.

If you can't locate a DOI in the database where you found the article, or on a page of the article itself, here's something else to try:

The website https://www.crossref.org/guestquery/ has a form that allows researchers to enter an article author and title, and search for the DOI if one exists. Skip the first "Bibliographic Metadata search" and scroll down to the "Search on article title" area.  Enter the information and click search.  If no results appear, try the top search, entering more information about the article.

If you can't locate a DOI in this way, remember that including it in your citation is not an absolute requirement of APA style. You may omit it if not found.