Sara Lee
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APA Lesson Four
Creating References
Carol J. Amato
University of Phoenix
COMM 102: Communication Skills for Career Growth
April 4, 2002
Lesson Three discussed how to add citations to the text. Now our readers know which parts of the report came from other sources. Thats only half the battle, however. What if one of those readers wants to go back to the original source and read more detail? All we gave as information in the citation was the authors last name, the copyright year, and possibly the page number. What book or article did that information come from, however? The reader cant tell from the little bit of information we gave; therefore, we have to add a reference list to the end of the report giving the detailed information. The citations, then, act as pointers to the reference list.
Sources of References
Over the course of your career here at UOP, you will be citing all kinds of sources, such as books, magazines and journals, newspapers, company brochures, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and government documents, to name just some. These sources could be from print versions of these documents or from the Internet. You have to include complete information about the source you used so that the reader will know exactly how to find the original book or magazine.
Setting Up the Reference Page
Place the references on a separate page at the end of your report. Center the title “References” at the top of the page. List the references themselves in alphabetical order by author last name.
Creating the Reference
Each type of source (book, magazine, newspaper, dictionary, etc.) has a specific way of being referenced. Not only do the sources have their own ways of being referenced, but the information is listed differently depending on the number of authors, whether there is no author, whether there is an editor or an author and an editor, etc. What does this mean? It means it is impossible to memorize all of these formats; therefore, it is critical that you have a comprehensive APA manual that has examples of all of them. This lesson shows you how to format a reference for a book with one author and an article with one author.
Referencing a Book With One Author
A reference for a book with one author appears as shown in Figure 1 and consists of the following elements:
1. Authors last name.
2. Authors first initial and middle initial, if available
3. Year book was copyrighted
4. Title of book
5. City where publisher is located
6. Name of publisher
To create this reference, follow these steps:
Starting at the left margin, type the authors last name in full, followed by a comma and a space.
Type the authors first initial (not the full first name), followed by a period and a space, then the middle initial (if available), followed by a period and a space. If the authors middle name is not listed, just use the first initial.
Remember: Never, never use the full first name!
3. Then type the copyright year in parentheses, followed by a period and a space.
Type the book title and italicize it. Only the first word has a capital letter; the rest of the words are lower case.
If there is no subsequent edition, place a period after the title, then a space.
If there is a subsequent edition, type a space, then an opening parenthesis, followed by the edition number in abbreviated format (i.e., 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.). Then type the abbreviation “ed,” followed by a period, a closing parenthesis, and another period.
Then type the city of publication, a colon, a space, then the name of the publisher, followed by a period. Include the two-letter state code or country name if the city is not listed in Table 15 on page 161 (i.e., Blue Ridge Summit, PA). For the state code abbreviation, see Table 13, page 56.
Continue your reference all the way to the right margin. If it continues to a second line, double-space the second line and indent it three spaces.
Follow this format exactly.
Parris, C. A. (1969). Mastering executive arts and skills. New
York: Atheneum.
Parris, C. A. (1969). Mastering executive arts and skills (2nd
ed.). New York: Atheneum.
Figure 1. Examples of a Reference of a Book with One Author.
Referencing a Magazine Article With One Author
When you reference a magazine article with an author, you must reference both the article and the magazine it is in. A reference for a magazine article with an author appears as shown in Figure 2 and consists of the following elements:
1. Authors last name
2. Authors first initial and middle initial, if available
3. Year, month, (and day, if applicable) of magazine