example of a reference page for a research paper

APA Style 6th Edition: Citing Your Sources

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Sample Reference Page

Generic Example
Identified Reference Types
Formatting Rules

example of a reference page for a research paper

References cited in text must appear in the reference list and vice versa (exception for personal communication which is not included in a Reference list).
Make sure that all citation information (names of authors, titles, volume and issue numbers, edition number, page numbers, city and state name, publisher name and location information) is correct.
When listing titles, the only words you should capitalize are the first word of the title, the first word of the subtitle (if there is one), and proper nouns (Russia, Eleanor Roosevelt). The only exception to this rule is when you list the titles of magazines, newspapers, or academic journals that contain the articles you’re quoting. In these cases, use “headline” capitalization (meaning you capitalize all words except articles, conjunctions, and prepositions). See examples below for clarification
The following should be italicized: Titles of books, ebooks, newspapers, journals, magazines, movies, dissertation/thesis, films, videos, television series, podcasts, YouTube videos, artwork, maps, music albums and unpublished manuscripts. Additionally, volumes of journals are also italicized.
Reference lists must be double-spaced , with a hanging indent:
The following cities can be listed without a state because they are well known for publishing: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Amsterdam, Jerusalem, London, Milan, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Tokyo, Vienna.

Order of References in Reference List

Alphabetize letter by letter
Alphabetize prefixes such as Mc and Mac literally
Alphabetize surnames that contain articles and prepositions (de, la, du, von, etc.) according to the rules of the language of origin
Alphabetize items with numerals as if the numerals were spelled out
Alphabetize group authors such as associations or agencies by the first significant word of the name, and use the full official name, not an acronym
If the author is designated as Anonymous, then the entry is alphabetized as if Anonymous were a true name
If there is no author, the entry is alphabetized by the first significant word in the title
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APA Formatting and Style (7th ed.)

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On the left is a partial list of reference page examples. To see a more complete list, please click on the two pdfs below.

Common Reference Examples Guide From the APA Style Blog
7th ed. APA Reference Page Examples This handout shows how to format your reference page in APA format. It also provides examples for citing books, articles, websites, and more.

New to In-Text Citations and the Reference List? Check out these short tutorials:

Reference Lists and In-text Citations Learn how the Reference List and In-text Citations work together to give credit to your sources.
Introduction to the Reference List This tutorial will show you the four parts or elements that make up a reference.
How to Find A Citation in OneSearch This handout will show you how to find the APA 7th Edition citation for an article in your OneSearch results.
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Next: Reference Page Format >>
Last Updated: Sep 7, 2024 3:49 PM
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Home / Guides / Citation Guides / APA Format / APA Reference Page

How to Format an APA Reference Page

In APA, the “Works Cited” page is referred to as a “Reference List” or “Reference Page.” “Bibliography” also may be used interchangeably, even though there are some differences between the two.

If you are at the point in your article or research paper where you are looking up APA bibliography format, then congratulations! That means you’re almost done.

In this guide, you will learn how to successfully finish a paper by creating a properly formatted APA bibliography. More specifically, you will learn how to create a reference page . The guidelines presented here come from the 7 th edition of the APA’s Publication Manual .

A note on APA reference page style: In this guide, “bibliography” and “references” may be used interchangeably, even though there are some differences between the two. The most important thing is to use the label “References” when writing your paper since APA style recommends including a reference page.

Here’s a run-through of everything this page includes:

Difference between an APA bibliography and a reference page

What about annotated bibliographies, understanding apa reference page format, apa reference page formatting: alphabetizing by surname, q: what should not be on an apa reference page.

The difference between a bibliography and a reference page is a matter of scope. A bibliography usually includes all materials and sources that were used to write the paper. A reference page, on the other hand, only includes entries for works that were specifically cited in the text of the paper.

There are some cases in which a professor or journal might request an annotated bibliography . An annotated bibliography is basically a reference page that includes your comments and insights on each source.

An annotated bibliography can be a document all on its own, or part of a bigger document. That means creating an annotated bibliography by itself could be an assignment, or you may have to include one as part of your research paper, journal submission, or other project.

If you do need to add an APA annotated bibliography , it goes after the reference page on its own page, inside the appendices.

A properly formatted APA reference page begins on a new page, after the end of the text. It comes before any figures, tables, maps, or appendices. It’s double-spaced and features what’s called a hanging indent , where the first line of each reference is not indented, and the second line of each reference is indented 0.5 inches. The reference page is also labeled with a bold, center-justified, and capitalized “References.”

To summarize, the reference page should be:

Placed on its own page, after the text but before any tables, figures, or appendices.
In the same font as the rest of the paper.
Double-spaced the whole way through (including individual references).
Formatted with hanging indents (each line after the first line of every entry indented 0.5 inches).
Labeled with a bold, center-justified, and capitalized “References.”

Note: You can use the paragraph function of your word processing program to apply the hanging indent.

Q: What font am I supposed to use for the reference page or bibliography?

The APA reference page/bibliography should be in the same font as the rest of your paper. However, APA Style does not actually call for one specific font. According to Section 2.19 of the Publication Manual , the main requirement is to choose a font that is readable and accessible to all users. Some of the recommended font options for APA style include:

Sans serif fonts: Calibri (11pt), Arial (11pt), or Lucida (10pt).
Serif fonts: Times New Roman (12pt), Georgia (11pt), or Normal/Computer Modern (10pt).

Q: What are the margins supposed to be for the reference page or bibliography?

Aside from the 0.5 inch hanging indent on the second line of each reference entry, you do not need to modify the margins of the reference page or bibliography. These should be the same as the rest of your paper, which according to APA is 1-inch margins on all sides of the page. This is the default margin setting for most computer word processors, so you probably won’t have to change anything.

Q: What information goes into an APA style reference page or bibliography?

An APA style reference page should include full citations for all the sources that were cited in your paper. This includes sources that were summarized, paraphrased, and directly quoted. Essentially, if you included an in-text citation in your paper, that source should also appear in your reference list. The reference list is organized in alphabetical order by author.

The formatting for reference list citations varies depending on the kind of source and the available information. But for most sources, your reference list entry will include the following:

The last name(s) and initials of the author(s).
The date the source was published (shown in parentheses).
The title of the source in sentence case. The title should be in italics if the source stands on its own (like a book, webpage, or movie).
The name of the periodical, database, or website if the source is an article from a magazine, journal, newspaper, etc. Names of periodicals are usually italicized; names of databases and websites usually are not.
The publisher of the source and/or the URL where the source can be found.

Here are a few templates and examples for how common sources should be formatted in an APA style reference list. If your source is not found here, there is also a guide highlighting different APA citation examples .

Citing a Book

Author’s last name, Author’s first initial. Author’s middle initial. (Year of publication). Title of work . Publisher.

James, Henry. (2009). The ambassadors . Serenity Publishers.

Citing a Journal

Author’s last name, Author’s first initial. Author’s middle initial. (Year, Month Date published). Article title. Journal Name , Volume(Issue), page number(s). https://doi.org/ or URL (if available)

Jacoby, W. G. (1994). Public attitudes toward government spending. American Journal of Political Science , 38(2), 336-361. https://doi.org/10.2307/2111407

Citing a Website

Author’s last name, Author’s first initial. Author’s middle initial. (Year, Month Date published). Article title or page title . Site Name. URL

Limer, E. (2013, October 1). Heck yes! The first free wireless plan is finally here . Gizmodo. https://gizmodo.com/heck-yes-the-first-free-wireless-plan-is-finally-here

Next, let’s take a look at a real example of a properly formatted APA reference page to see how these pieces come together.

APA reference page example

Creating an APA reference page is actually a lot easier than creating a bibliography with other style guides. In fact, as long as you are aware of the formatting rules, the reference page practically writes itself as you go.

Below is an example reference page that follows the guidelines detailed above. EasyBib also has a guide featuring a complete APA style sample paper , including the reference page.

All APA citations included in the reference page should be ordered alphabetically, using the first word of the reference entry. In most cases, this is the author’s surname (or the surname of the author listed first, when dealing with citations for sources with multiple authors ). However, there are times when a reference entry might begin with a different element.

Creating an alphabetized reference page or bibliography might seem like a simple task. But when you start dealing with multiple authors and similar last names, it can actually get a little tricky. Fortunately, there are a few basic rules that can keep you on track.

The “nothing precedes something” rule

When the surnames of two or more authors begin with the same letters, the “nothing precedes something” rule is how to figure it out. Here is an example of how it works.

Imagine your reference page includes the authors Berg, M.S. and Bergman, H.D. The first four letters of each author are the same. The fifth letters are M and H respectively. Since H comes before M in the alphabet, you might assume that Bergman, H.D. should be listed first.

APA Style requires that “nothing precede something,” which means that Berg will appear before Bergman. Similarly, a James would automatically appear before a Jameson, and a Michaels before a Michaelson.

Disregard spaces and punctuation marks

If a surname has a hyphen, apostrophe, or other punctuation mark, it can be ignored for alphabetization purposes. Similarly, anything that appears inside of parentheses or brackets should be disregarded.

Ordering multiple works by the same author

It is not uncommon for a research paper to reference multiple books by the same author. If you have more than one reference entry by the same person, then the entries should be listed chronologically by year of publication.

If a reference entry has no year of publication available, then it should precede any entries that do have a date. Here’s an example of a properly alphabetized order for multiple entries from the same author:

Guzman, M.B. (n.d.).

Guzman, M.B. (2016).

Guzman, M.B. (2017).

Guzman, M.B. (2019).

Guzman, M.B. (in press).

“In press” papers do not yet have a year of publication associated with them. All “in press” sources are listed last, like the one shown above.

Ordering works with the same author and same date

If the same author has multiple entries with the same year of publication, you need to differentiate them with lowercase letters. Otherwise, the in-text citations in your paper will correspond to more than one reference page entry.

Same author and same year of publication

Here’s a look at how to use lowercase letters to differentiate between entries with the same author and same year of publication:

Guzman, M.B. (2020a).

Guzman, M.B. (2020b).

Guzman, M.B. (2020c).

These lowercase letters are assigned to make the in-text citations more specific. However, it does not change the fact that their year of publication is the same. If no month or day is available for any of the sources, then they should be ordered alphabetically using the title of the work.

When alphabetizing by title, ignore the words “A,” “An,”,and “The” if they’re the first word of the title.

Same author and same year of publication, with more specific dates

If more specific dates are provided, such as a month or day, then it becomes possible to order these entries chronologically.

Guzman, M.B. (2020b, April 2).

Guzman, M.B. (2020c, October 15).

Ordering authors with the same surname but different initials

Authors who share the same surname but have different first or middle names can be alphabetized by their first initial or second initial.

Guzman, R.L. (2015).

Ordering works with no listed author, or an anonymous author

If you have reference entries with no listed author, the first thing to double-check is whether or not there was a group author instead. Group authors can be businesses, task forces, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, etc.

If there is no individual author listed, then have another look at the source. If it is published on a government agency website, for instance, there is a good chance that the agency was the author of the work, and should be listed as such in the reference entry. You can read more about how to handle group authors in Section 9.11 of the Publication Manual .

What if the work is actually authored by “Anonymous”?

If the work you’re referencing actually has the word “Anonymous” listed as the author, then you can list it as the author and alphabetize it as if it were a real name. But this is only if the work is actually signed “Anonymous.”

What if there is no listed author and it’s definitely not a group author?

If you have confirmed that there is no individual or group author for the work, then you can use the work’s title as the author element in the reference entry. In any case where you’re using the work’s title to alphabetize, you should skip the words “A,” “An,” and “The.”

An APA reference page should not contain any of the following:

The content of your paper (the reference page should start on its own page after the end of your paper).
Entries for works for further reading or background information or entries for an epigraph from a famous person (the reference page should only include works that are referenced or quoted in your paper as part of your argument).
Entries for personal communications such as emails, phone calls, text messages, etc. (since the reader would not be able to access them).
Entries for whole websites, periodicals, etc. (If needed, the names of these can be mentioned within the body of your paper instead.)
Entries for quotations from research participants (since they are part of your original research, they do not need to be included).

Published October 28, 2020.

APA Formatting Guide

APA Formatting

Annotated Bibliography
Block Quotes
et al Usage
In-text Citations
Multiple Authors
Paraphrasing
Page Numbers
Parenthetical Citations
Reference Page
Sample Paper
APA 7 Updates
View APA Guide

Citation Examples

Book Chapter
Journal Article
Magazine Article
Newspaper Article
Website (no author)
View all APA Examples

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The following rules will help you identify when to use DOIs and when to use URLs in references:

Use a DOI wherever available, be it a print version or online version.
For a print publication that does not have a DOI, do not add a DOI or URL (even if a URL is available).
For an online publication, if both a DOI and URL are given, include only the DOI.
For online publications that only have a URL (and no DOI), follow the below recommendations:
Add a URL in the reference list entry for publications from websites (other than databases). Double check that the URL will work for readers.
For publications from most academic research databases, which are easily accessible, do not include a URL or database information in the reference. In this case, the reference will be the same as the print version.
For publications from databases that publish limited/proprietary work that would only be available in that database, include the database name and the URL. If the URL would require a login, include the URL for the database home page or login page instead of the URL for the work.
If a URL will not work for the reader or is no longer accessible, follow the guidance for citing works with no source.

To format your APA references list, follow these recommendations:

Begin the references on a new page. This page should be placed at the end of the paper.
All sides of the paper should have a 1-inch margin.
Set the heading as “References” in bold text and center it.
Arrange the reference entries alphabetically according to the first item within the entries (usually the author surname or title).
Add a hanging indent of 0.5 inches (i.e., indent any line after the first line of a reference list entry).

See above for a visual example of a reference page and additional examples.

Special Cases

Multiple entries with the same author(s) are arranged by publication year. Entries with no dates first, then in chronological order. If the year published is also the same, a letter is added to the year and the entries are arranged alphabetically (after arrangement by year).

Robin, M. T. (n.d.)
Robin, M. T. (1987)
Robin, M. T. (1989a)
Robin, M. T. (1989b)

Single-author source and multi-author source that share one author. One-author entries are listed first even if the multi-author entries were published earlier.

Dave, S. P., Jr. (2006)
Dave, S. P., Jr., & Glyn, T. L. (2005)

For references with multiple authors that have the same first author but different subsequent authors, alphabetize the entries by the last name of the second author (or third if the first two authors are the same).

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APA References Page Formatting and Example

Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

The APA reference page (also called the reference list) is the final page of your paper where all sources you cited in the main text are listed.

It should include the full details of all sources you cited in the main text, arranged A-Z alphabetically by author’s surname.

Everything cited in the text must appear in the reference list, and everything on your reference page must be something you have referred to in the text. Make sure you don”t have anything in one place that isn’t in the other.

Reference Page vs. Bibliography

A reference list includes all works that have been cited in the assignment. A bibliography is a detailed list of references cited in your work, plus the background readings or other material you may have read, but not cited.

Note : This page reflects the latest version of the APA Publication Manual (i.e., APA 7), which released in October 2019.

Reference Page: Basic Rules

List references on a new page. Type “References” as page heading, written in boldface, at the top center of the page. Use double spacing. Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last name of the first author of each work. For multiple articles by the same author, list the entries in chronological order, from earliest to most recent. Indent second and subsequent lines of each entry using a hanging indent of 5-7 spaces (by pressing Ctrl + T on a PC, or Command (⌘) + T on a Mac). All references in APA end with a full stop except when the reference ends with a URL or a DOI.

APA Reference List Example

An Example of an APA Format Reference List

Journal Article Reference in APA Format

Author or authors. The surname is followed by a comma and the first initials.
Year of publication of the article (in parentheses). End with a period.
Article title. Capitalize only the first letter of the first word. End with a period.
Capitalize all major words in the title of the journal, followed by a comma.
Italicize journal title and volume number. Do not put a space between in the volue number and the parentheses around the issue number.
Issue number of journal in parentheses (no italics) followed by a comma.
Page range of article. Use an en dash (not a hyphen); do not put spaces around the dash. End with a period.
Include a DOI (digital object identifier) for all works that have one (i.e. online journal articles). Do not put a period after the DOI url.

Journal Article (Online): One Author

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number (issue number), page numbers. doi: or URL of the journal’s home page

Matsunaga, M. (2011). Underlying circuits of social support for bullied victims: An appraisalbased perspective on supportive communication and postbullying adjustment. Human Communication Research, 37 (2), 174-206. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.2010.01398.x

Journal Article (Online): 2-7 Authors

Author, A. A., Author, A. A., Author, A. A., Author, A. A., & Author, A. A. (Year). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number (issue number), page numbers. doi: or URL of the journal’s home page

Williams, S. L., & Mickelson, K. D. (2008). A paradox of support seeking and rejection among the stigmatized. Personal Relationships, 15 (4), 493-509. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6811.2008.00212.x

Book Reference in APA Format

Book title (in italics ). Capitalize only the first letter of the first word. End with a period.
Edition (in parentheses), if other than first. Position this after the title but before the period.
Incude the name of the publisher, followed by a period. Do not include the publisher location.
Include a DOI for all workds that have one, regardless of whether you used the online version or print version. Do not put a period after the DOI url.

Book: One Author

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of the work . Publisher.

Fletcher, D. P. (2018). Disrupters: Success strategies for women who break the mold . Entrepreneur Press.

Book: Two Authors, and Edition

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of the work (edition). Publisher.

Moran, A., & Toner, J. (2017). A critical introduction to sport psychology (3rd ed.). Routledge.

Chapter in an Edited Book: One Author

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of chapter. In A. Editor & B. Editor (Eds.), Title of the book (pages of chapter). Publisher.

Haybron, M. D. (2008). Philosophy and the science of the subjective well-being. In M. Eid & R. J. Larsen (Eds.), The science of subjective well-being (pp. 17-43). Guilford Press.

Reference for a Chapter in Edited Book in APA Format

Title of the book chapter. Capitalize only the first letter of the first word. End with a period.
Write the word “In” and the initials and last name (not inverted) of each editor. Use “(Ed.)” for one editor or “(Eds.)” for multiple editors. End with a comma.
Write “pp.” and include the chapter page range (in parentheses). End with a period.
Include a DOI if available. Do not put a period after the DOI url.

Reference for a Website in APA Format

Year, Month Day of publication (in parentheses). Use the most exact date possible. End with a period.
Title (in italics ). End with a period.
Website name. Capitalize all major words. End with a period.
Website URL. Do not put a period after the url.

APA Website Reference Example

McLeod, S. A. (2019, September 29). APA reference page formatting and example . Simply Psychology. www.www.www.www.www.www.simplypsychology.org/apa-reference-page.html

Further Information

APA Style 7th Edition Quick Reference Guide
APA Style Citations & References

The Complete Guide to APA Format in 2020

APA Reference Page

Headings and Subheadings
Discussion Section
Websites and Online Sources
Journals and Periodicals
Other Print Sources
Other Non-Print Sources
In-text Citations
Footnotes and Endnotes
Using MyBib Responsibly
Miscellaneous Questions

An APA reference page is a list of sources you've mentioned or used throughout your writing, formatted in the APA style, and should be included at the very end of your paper. The details of each source must be displayed in a specific way, depending on the type of the source ( websites , books , journals , or other sources ).

A Reference Page must:

Have the title of ' Reference List ' at the very top
Show every source you've directly referenced in your paper, or taken data from to help you write your paper.
List all sources in alphabetical order by the author's last name. For example, a source by Albert Einstein would be higher in the list than a source by Elon Musk, as the E in Einstein comes before the M in Musk alphabetically.
Use a hanging indent for each entry after the first line, indented by half an inch from the left margin.
Retain all original punctuation and formatting for any names and titles of the sources.

Our APA citation generator can do all this for you automatically. To start, just search for one of the sources used in your writing using the tool below. Alternatively we have also explained how to format specific sources on the next page.

APA Style (7th ed.)

Paper Formatting in APA 7
Position of the citation
Secondary Referencing
Date of Publication
Page numbers
Citing Sources Multiple Times
Citing from Web pages
Paraphrasing and Summarising
Examples of References in APA (7th ed.) style
Examples of References in APA style
Introduction
Examples of References in APA style (7th edition)
APA Reference Examples A-Z
Comparison of APA 6th and 7th eds

There are many different types of references (e.g. books, journal articles, websites). Click on the type you require below to see the components of the reference with an example.

Journal Articles
Web pages and social media
Newspaper articles

Dictionary or Encyclopaedia

Thesis or dissertation.

Reports and Datasets
Conferences
Images, figures and tables

Exhibitions

Audiovisual and Digital Media
Lecture Notes and Presentations

Author/Editor (Surname, Initials) ,
(Year of publication).
Title (in italics) .
Edition (other than first edition) .

An e-book retrieved from an academic database that does not have a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is referenced as though it were the print version, as above. (A DOI is a unique alphanumeric string that identifies content and provides a persistent link to its location on the internet. DOIs can be found in database records and the reference lists of published works).

Books with a URL or a DOI can be referenced like this:

Author/editor (Surname, Initials)

(Year of publication)

Title of book (in italics)
(Edition) (if not the 1st edition)

Book Chapter

Author of chapter/section (Surname, Initials)
Title of chapter/section.
‘In:’ followed by author/editor of book, (in direct order)
Title of book (in italics) .
(Page reference).

Journal article (print)

Author(s) (Surname, Initials)
Title of article

Title of journal (in italics, first letter of each word should be capitalised, except for words such as and, of, the)

Issue information (volume, issue, pages) (volume in italics)

Journal article (online)

Title of article.
Title of journal (in italics, first letter of each word should be capitalised, except for words such as and, of, the)
Issue information (date, volume, issue no., pages) (volume in italics)

Journal article (database without DOI)

Journal articles retrieved from databases without a DOI can be referenced like a print journal, as above.

Journal article (with DOI)

Issue information (date, volume , issue no., pages) (volume in italics)

Journal article (21 or more authors)

List the first nineteen authors followed by three spaced ellipsis points (...) and then the last author's name.

Journal article (pre-publication)

“Pre-print”, “In press” and “advanced online publication” usually refer to articles that have been accepted for publication, but may not yet have been assigned to a publication volume/issue. These articles can be cited using the year of online publication and the DOI.

Issue information (date, volume, issue no., pages) (if any available)
Advance online publication.

arXiv is a collection facility for scientific 'e-prints'. Some of them have been published and some have not. APA recommends updating your references when you're close to finishing your assignment. If you've cited a preprint that has since been published, cite the published journal article.

In the example below, you will see that the title is in italics. This is because it hasn't yet been accepted in a journal and is, therefore, considered a stand-alone work.

Journal Article (with article numbers, not page numbers)

If the journal article has an article number instead of a page range, include the word “Article” and then the article number instead of the page range.

Journal Title (in italics)
Volume , (in italics)
Article number

Magazine Article

(Year of publication, Month day)
Title of magazine (in italics, first letter of each word should be capitalised, except for words such as and, of, the)
Page numbers (if available)

Author (Surname, Initials or Organisation name)
(Year) (Month Day, if applicable).
Title of webpage (in italics)
Website name (if applicable and different to author)

If no date can be established, use n.d. to indicate no date in the citation and the reference.

Author of message
(Year, Month Day).
Title of message
Title of blog

X (formerly known as Twitter)

Author and/or [screen name]

(Year, Month day) tweet posted
full text of tweet (If a tweet is longer than 20 words, write the first 20 words)

Author and/or [given name]
(Year, month day)
Title of page or post (first 20 words)
[Facebook status update].
For individual authors, provide their full first name in square brackets after their initial as this is their social media identity information.
For the title, provide the name of the page or the content or caption of the post (up to the first 20 words).

LinkedIn Profile

Author (name associated with the account)
Title of page ( Use the page title in the reference (e.g., “Home,” “About,” “Jobs”).)
[LinkedIn page].
Retrieved date from: URL ( Provide a retrieval date because the content is designed to change over time and is not archived)

(Year posted, month day)

Content of the post (up to the first 20 words, in italics)

[Photograph/Video/Story]. (description of post)

Author and/or [Username]
Content of the post up to the first 20 words. Count a URL or other link, a hashtag, or an emoji as one word each, and include them in the reference if they fall within the first 20 words. Do not italicize emojis.
[Video] description of the audiovisuals

Wikipedia is a free online encyclopaedia, created and edited by volunteers around the world. It is not a scholarly source, so your lecturer may not be happy for you to use it as a source in your assignments. Scholarly assignments should generally rely on peer-reviewed and other scholarly work vetted by experts in the field. However, it may be a good starting point for you in your research to find citations to original source materials that you do want to use.

Wikipedia is a constantly changing site, so cite an archived version of the page, if you can (select 'view history' and then the date of the version you used). If it doesn't have a permanent link to an archived version of the page, include a URL for the entry and the retrieval date.

Date of last update (year, month day)
Title of wiki (in italics)
URL (include Retrieved date, if necessary)

Newspaper article (print)

Author (Surname, Initials) (if name of writer not given, start with the name of the Newspaper (in italics))
(Year of publication, Month day).
Title of article
Title of newspaper (in italics) .
Page reference.

Newspaper article (online)

Author (Surname, Initials)

Author of entry (if there is one) (Surname, initials)
Title of entry.
‘In:’ Editor (initial and surname) (Ed.)
Title of dictionary or encyclopaedia (in italics) .
(Edition, page numbers of entry)

Author (Surname, Initials)
(Year of submission).
Title of thesis (in italics) .
(Type of thesis or dissertation) e.g. Unpublished Master's thesis
Degree awarding body
Name of database or archive. URL (if published)

Title of data (version) (in italics)
[Type of work] (i.e. dataset)

Government Publication

Name of Government Department
Title (in italics)
(Report Series and number) (if available)
Publisher (if in print)
URL (if online)

Company Report

Title of report . (in italics)
Publisher or URL

Name of authority or organisation.
Number and title of standard (in italics) .
Publisher
URL (if accessed online)

Conference Paper (in edited book)

Title of the contribution paper
In: Name of editor or conference chair (Initial, Last name (Ed (s).)
Title of conference proceedings (in Italics)
(Page numbers)
URL or DOI (if available)

Conference Paper (Journal)

Author of paper
Title of paper
Title of Journal (in italics)
Issue information (volume, issue, date)

Conference Paper or Poster Presentation

(Year, month day of conference).

[Paper presentation or Poster presentation or Conference presentation]

Title of conference: Subtitle of conference
Location of Conference

Images, illustrations, photos (print)

If you are citing an illustration, figure, diagram or table, start with the source in which it appeared. For example, i f you are referencing an image printed in a book, you first mention the image in-text, indicating the name and creator of the image, and the book in which it can be found, along with the page details. The reference list entry will be for the whole article or book.

In-text citation:

Reference List:

In the reference list, you list the book in which the image is found:

When you include an image or photo in your text, as well as citing the source, you will also need to include a caption and list it in a Table of Figures ( click here for more information ). Images you created yourself don't have to be cited, but should still be included in the list of figures.

Image, illustration, photo or table (online)

Creator (Surname, initial(s))
[Internet handle] (if appropriate)
Title of image, figure, illustration or table
[Type of image]. (image, chart, diagram, graph, illustration or photograph)

Hosting service (e.g. Instagram, Flickr)

Photographs (Online Collection)

Photographer
Title of photograph (if applicable)
[ Title of collection]

If you viewed an image in person rather than online (e.g. in a museum or gallery), the source information is different. You will need to include the name and location of the institution where you viewed the image.

(Year of creation) (if available)
Title of the work (in italics)
[Format description] (in square brackets)

If you haven't seen the artwork in person and saw it online, add the website URL at the end of your reference.

Originator (Name of organisation)
Sheet number, scale.
Publisher (if different from author)
URL (if viewed online)

It can often be hard to find accurate information about images accessed online. However, if you do need to cite an image with no author, date or title listed, there are ways around this. For untitled images, include a description of the image, in square brackets, where the title would usually go. If there is no publication date, add “n.d.” in place of the date, and add the date that you accessed the image.

Curator(s) (Surname, Initial(s)) .
(Year or years ran).
Exhibition Title [Exhibition].
Museum name,
City, Country.
URL of exhibition website (if available)

When the curator is unknown, move the title of the exhibition to the author position of the reference.

Exhibition Catalogue

Artist (Surname, Initial) (or Gallery/Institution).
(Year, Month).
[Exhibition catalogue].

Director(s) (Surname, Initial) (Director)
(Year of original release).
[Description]. (e.g. Film)
Production Company

Film (from Streaming Service)

Only specify how you watched a film (e.g. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, HULU, etc.) when it is important to indicate a specific version. Put this information in square brackets following the word, "Film" and a semicolon.

(Year) (in round brackets)

Online Video

Creator (Surname, Initial). [Screen name].
(Year, Month day).
Title of video [Video]

Hosting Website

TV Programme

Executive Producer(s) (Executive Producer(s)).

(Years - it aired, use present if still airing ).

Title (in italics) [TV series].

Production Company;

Broadcaster name

Episode of a TV Series

Writer (surname and initial(s)) & Director (surname and initial(s))
(Date of broadcast or copyright)
Title of episode

(Series number, episode number) (in round brackets)

[TV series episode]
Executive Producer(s) (initials and surname)
Series title (in italics)
Production company

Radio Programme (Online)

Name of announcer

(Year, Month Day of broadcast).

Title of programme (in italics)

[Description i.e. Radio broadcast ].

Name of site that published the broadcast

URL of broadcast

Name of host (Host)

(Dates) Provide the span of years during which the podcast aired here; if ongoing give the year of first broadcast and word “- present”.

Title of podcast (in italics)

[Audio or Video Podcast]

Publisher/production company

For specific ‘ Podcast episodes ’, provide the precise date on which the podcast episode first aired. Supply the episode number after the episode title, if available, in brackets. Indicate the type of podcast episode in square brackets, e.g. [Audio podcast episode] or [Video podcast episode]. Write the word “In” and then the title of the podcast in italics. Give the Publisher or Production company and the URL.

Lecture Notes

Notes you took during a lecture or class handouts that are not posted online are not retrievable by someone else, so do not belong in your reference list. Instead, you treat them like personal communication and just refer to them in your text.

Lecture Notes or Powerpoint Slides (online)

Lecturer (Surname, Initial(s))

Title of item [Class handout or PowerPoint slides]. (in italics).

Platform or Institution (e.g. ATU).

Recorded Lectures/Talks

Name of Speaker

(Date) (in round brackets) (Provide as specific a date as possible; in the example, only the year and month are available.)

Title of video (in italics)

TED Conferences

When the TED Talk is on YouTube, list the owner of the YouTube account (here, TED) as the author to aid in retrieval. Credit YouTube as the publisher of the TED Talk and then provide the URL. When the speaker is not listed as the author, integrate their name into the narrative if desired:

Online Course or Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)

Author (Surname, Initial(s))

Title of course (in italics)

Site that holds the course

A lecture from an online course cites the instructor for the particular lecture in the author part of the reference and the names of all the lecturers in the source element. The URL given should be to the main page of the course.

Open Educational Resource

(Year added with Month day, if available).
Retrieved date from URL ( When contents of a page are meant to be updated over time but are not archived, include a retrieval date in the reference.)

Vinyl

Music on CD or Vinyl

Writer ( Surname, Initial ).
Title of song
Title of album (in italics)
Record Label.

Music Streaming

Name of artist.
Title of album/track (in italics)
[Description]. (no need to indicate how you heard the song)
Record Label

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Citing Sources: Sample Reference List Citations

Style Links & Samples
Sample Reference List Citations
Sample Notes and Bibliography Citations
Sample Author Date Citations
Citing Nontraditional Sources in Chicago
Sample Citations
Major Changes to the New MLA
Capitalization and Personal Names in Foreign Languages
Citing Primary Sources
Ancient Texts
Citation Consultations Policy

When formatting a citation in APA style, pay particular attention to italics, punctuation, indentation, and capitalization.

Many more samples of citations presented in the APA style can be found in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association . Please consult this book or a librarian for help with unusual resources.

All of the following samples are taken from:

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

(In the above sample, the name of the organization is the author. Note that only proper names are capitalized in the title, and the edition number follows the title.)

Book: (This sample from Purdue OWL )

Calfee, R. C., & Valencia, R. R. (1991). APA guide to preparing manuscripts for journal publication . Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Book with an Editor:

Robinson, D. N. (Ed.). (1992). Social discourse and moral judgment . San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Note: italicize the title of the book and do not capitalize any words in titles except the first word, proper names, and after a colon. Use the author's or editor's initials only for first and middle names.

Chapter from an Edited Volume or Anthology :

Haybron, D. M. (2008). Philosophy and the science of subjective well-being. In M. Eid & R. J. Larsen (Eds.), The science of subjective well-being (pp. 17-43). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Scholarly Article:

Fuentes, A. (2016). Contemporary evolutionary theory in biological anthropology: Insight into human evolution, genomics and challenges to racialized pseudo-science. Revista Cuicuilco , 23 (65), 293-304.

Note: Do not set off the title of the article with quotes, italics, underlines, or capital letters (except for the first word, proper names or after a colon). Italicize the title of the journal and capitalize all words in the title of the journal. This sample includes the volume number (23) which is italicized to set it off from the other numbers. The issue number (65) appears in parentheses and is not italicized. You will also notice that there is no space left between the volume number and the first parenthesis for the issue number.

Scholarly Article (with multiple authors):

Calvo, M. G., & Lang, P. J. (2004). Gaze patterns when looking at emotional pictures: Motivationally biased attention. Motivation and Emotion, 28 , 221-243. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:MOEM.0000040153.26156.ed

Note: This sample includes the volume number (28), which is italicized to set it off from the page numbers. There is no issue number in this example because the journal is paginated by volume. Provide the DOI when available for electronic documents. If a DOI is not available for a scholarly article retrieved online, you should supply the URL of the journal's homepage (NOT the URL from the database). Note authors' names, indentations, spare use of capital letters, page numbers, and use of periods and commas.

Charts and Graphs

Since the APA manual does not give direct information for citing every type of source, including charts or graphs, they instruct you to follow the example that is most like the source you are trying to cite. Be sure to provide enough information so your readers can locate the source on their own. When possible provide author or creator, year of publication, title, and publishing and/or retrieval data. When citing a chart, graph or map it may be best to follow the citation style for the format in which the information is presented.

All captions for charts should follow the guidelines below for captions for figures.

Captions for Figures (Charts, Graphs, and Maps): Publication manual of the American Psychological Association 5.20-5.25

All captions should be labeled as Figure followed by a number. The caption should begin with a descriptive phrase and include a citation to the original source and copyright information at the end.

Figure 1. Relations between trust beliefs and school adjustment at T1 and loneliness changes during development in early childhood. All paths attained significance at p> .05. Adapted from “The Relation Between Trust Beliefs and Loneliness During Early Childhood, Middle Childhood, and Adulthood,” by K. J. Rotenberg, N. Addis, L. R. Betts, A. Corrigan, C. Fox, Z. Hobson, & … and M. J. Boulton, 2010, Personality and social psychology bulletin , 36, p. 1090. Copyright 2010 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Documentaries or Feature Films:

David, L., Bender, L., Burns S.Z. (Producers), & Guggenheim, P.D. (Director). (2006). An inconvenient truth [Motion picture]. United States: Paramount Pictures.

Note : If a film is not available in wide distribution, add the following to the citation after the country of origin: (Available from Distributor name, full address and zip code).

Online Resources

More examples and samples of papers written using the APA style can be found at the following websites:

APA Style.Org The APA Citation Style's official website, as excerpted from the 6th edition.
Excelsior College OWL APA style guide from Excelsior College's Online Writing Lab.
Slate Citation Machine Excellent tool for citing sources in MLA and APA style. Simple fill in the form for the type of source you are citing, i.e. a book, journal article, website, etc., and this tool will show you the way to cite the reference. Be careful of your capitalization.
Cornell University Library Guide to APA Citation Style

Additional Information for Citing Special Sources

Ohio Wesleyan University - Citing Maps
Map Citation Guide from the University of North Carolina
Citation Fox (citation generator)
Knight Cite from Calvin College (citation generator)
Last Updated: May 22, 2024 1:38 PM
URL: https://libguides.dickinson.edu/citing

APA Citation Style

Citation examples.

Paper Format
Style and Grammar Guidelines
Citation Management Tools
What's New in the 7th Edition?
APA Style References Guidelines from the American Psychological Association
APA Style (OWL - Online Writing Lab, Purdue University)
Common Reference Examples Handout
Journal Article
Magazine Article
Newspaper Article
Edited Book Chapter
Dictionary Entry
Government Report
YouTube Video
Facebook Post
Webpage on a Website
Supplemental Reference Examples
Archival Documents and Collections

Grady, J. S., Her, M., Moreno, G., Perez, C., & Yelinek, J. (2019). Emotions in storybooks: A comparison of storybooks that represent ethnic and racial groups in the United States. , (3), 207–217.

Jerrentrup, A., Mueller, T., Glowalla, U., Herder, M., Henrichs, N., Neubauer, A., & Schaefer, J. R. (2018). Teaching medicine with the help of “Dr. House”. , (3), Article e0193972.

Parenthetical citations: (Grady et al., 2019; Jerrentrup et al., 2018)

Narrative citations: Grady et al. (2019) and Jerrentrup et al. (2018)

If a journal article has a DOI, include the DOI in the reference.
If the journal article does not have a DOI and is from an academic research database, end the reference after the page range (for an explanation of why, see the database information page). The reference in this case is the same as for a print journal article.
Do not include database information in the reference unless the journal article comes from a database that publishes original, proprietary content, such as UpToDate (see an example on the database information page).
If the journal article does not have a DOI but does have a URL that will resolve for readers (e.g., it is from an online journal that is not part of a database), include the URL of the article at the end of the reference.
If the journal article has an article number instead of a page range, include the article number instead of the page range (as shown in the Jerrentrup et al. example).

Rabinowitz, F. E. (2019). . American Psychological Association.

Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). . Penguin Books.

Parenthetical citations: (Rabinowitz, 2019; Sapolsky, 2017)

Narrative citations: Rabinowitz (2019) and Sapolsky (2017)

If the book includes a DOI, include the DOI in the reference after the publisher name.
Do not include the publisher location.
If the book does not have a DOI and comes from an academic research database, end the book reference after the publisher name. Do not include database information in the reference. The reference in this case is the same as for a print book.

Schaefer, N. K., & Shapiro, B. (2019, September 6). New middle chapter in the story of human evolution. , (6457), 981–982.

Schulman, M. (2019, September 9). Superfans: A love story. .

Parenthetical citations: (Schaefer & Shapiro, 2019; Schulman, 2019)

Narrative citations: Schaefer and Shapiro (2019) and Schulman (2019)

If a magazine article has a DOI, include the DOI in the reference.
If the magazine article does not have a DOI and is from an academic research database, end the reference after the page range. Do not include database information in the reference. The reference in this case is the same as for a print magazine article.
If the magazine article does not have a DOI but does have a URL that will resolve for readers (e.g., it is from an online magazine that is not part of a database), include the URL of the article at the end of the reference.
If the magazine article does not have volume, issue, and/or page numbers (e.g., because it is from an online magazine), omit the missing elements from the reference (as in the Schulman example).

Carey, B. (2019, March 22). Can we get better at forgetting?

Parenthetical citation: (Carey, 2019)

Narrative citation: Carey (2019)

If the newspaper article is from an academic research database, end the reference after the page range. Do not include database information in the reference. The reference in this case is the same as for a print newspaper article.
If the newspaper article has a URL that will resolve for readers (e.g., it is from an online newspaper), include the URL of the article at the end of the reference.
If the newspaper article does not have volume, issue, and/or page numbers (e.g., because it is from an online newspaper), omit the missing elements from the reference, as shown in the example.
If the article is from a news website (e.g., CNN, HuffPost)—one that does not have an associated daily or weekly newspaper—use the format for a webpage on a website instead.

Aron, L., Botella, M., & Lubart, T. (2019). Culinary arts: Talent and their development. In R. F. Subotnik, P. Olszewski-Kubilius, & F.
C. Worrell (Eds.), (pp. 345–359). American Psychological Association.

Parenthetical citation: (Aron et al., 2019)

Narrative citation: Aron et al. (2019)

If the edited book chapter includes a DOI, include the chapter DOI in the reference after the publisher name.
If the edited book chapter does not have a DOI and comes from an academic research database, end the edited book chapter reference after the publisher name. Do not include database information in the reference. The reference in this case is the same as for a print edited book chapter.
Do not create references for chapters of authored books. Instead, write a reference for the whole book and cite the chapter in the text if desired (e.g., Kumar, 2017, Chapter 2).

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Culture. In . Retrieved September 9, 2019, from

Parenthetical citation: (Merriam-Webster, n.d.)

Narrative citation: Merriam-Webster (n.d.)

Because entries in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary are updated over time and are not archived, include a retrieval date in the reference.
Merriam-Webster is both the author and the publisher, so the name appears in the author element only to avoid repetition.
To quote a dictionary definition, view the pages on quotations and how to quote works without page numbers for guidance. Additionally, here is an example: Culture refers to the “customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group” (Merriam-Webster, n.d., Definition 1a).

National Cancer Institute. (2019). (NIH Publication No. 18-2059). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health.

Parenthetical citation: (National Cancer Institute, 2019)

Narrative citation: National Cancer Institute (2019)

The specific agency responsible for the report appears as the author. The names of parent agencies not present in the group author name appear in the source element as the publisher. This creates concise in-text citations and complete reference list entries.

Harvard University. (2019, August 28). [Video]. YouTube.

Parenthetical citation: (Harvard University, 2019)

Narrative citation: Harvard University (2019)

Use the name of the account that uploaded the video as the author.
If the account did not actually create the work, explain this in the text if it is important for readers to know. However, if that would mean citing a source that appears unauthoritative, you might also look for the author’s YouTube channel, official website, or other social media to see whether the same video is available elsewhere.

APA Databases [@APA_Databases]. (2019, September 5). [Tweet]. Twitter.

Gates, B. [@BillGates]. (2019, September 7). [Thumbnail with link attached] [Tweet]. Twitter.

Parenthetical citations: (APA Databases, 2019; Gates, 2019)

Narrative citations: APA Databases (2019) and Gates (2019)

Present the name of the individual or group author the same as you would for any other reference. Then provide the Twitter handle (beginning with the @ sign) in square brackets, followed by a period.
Provide the first 20 words of the tweet as the title. Count a URL, a hashtag, or an emoji as one word each, and include them in the reference if they fall within the first 20 words.
If the tweet includes an image, a video, a poll, or a thumbnail image with a link, indicate that in brackets after the title: [Image attached], [Video attached], [Thumbnail with link attached].
The same format used for Twitter is also used for Instagram.

News From Science. (2019, June 21). [Image attached] [Status update]. Facebook.

Parenthetical citation: (News From Science, 2019)

Narrative citation: News From Science (2019)

Provide the first 20 words of the Facebook post as the title. Count a URL or other link, a hashtag, or an emoji as one word each, and include them in the reference if they fall within the first 20 words.
If a status update includes images, videos, thumbnail links to outside sources, or content from another Facebook post (such as when sharing a link), indicate that in square brackets.

Fagan, J. (2019, March 25). . OER Commons. Retrieved September 17, 2019, from

National Institute of Mental Health. (2018, July). . U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health.

Woodyatt, A. (2019, September 10). . CNN.

World Health Organization. (2018, May 24). .

Parenthetical citations: (Fagan, 2019; National Institute of Mental Health, 2018; Woodyatt, 2019; World Health Organization, 2018)

Narrative citations: Fagan (2019), National Institute of Mental Health (2018), Woodyatt (2019), and World Health Organization (2018)

Provide as specific a date as is available on the webpage. This might be a year only; a year and month; or a year, month, and day.
Italicize the title of a webpage.
When the author of the webpage and the publisher of the website are the same, omit the publisher name to avoid repetition (as in the World Health Organization example).
When contents of a page are meant to be updated over time but are not archived, include a retrieval date in the reference (as in the Fagan example).
Use the webpage on a website format for articles from news websites such as CNN and HuffPost (these sites do not have associated daily or weekly newspapers). Use the newspaper article category for articles from newspaper websites such as The New York Times or The Washington Post .
Create a reference to an open educational resources (OER) page only when the materials are available for download directly (i.e., the materials are on the page and/or can be downloaded as PDFs or other files). If you are directed to another website, create a reference to the specific webpage on that website where the materials can be retrieved. Use this format for material in any OER repository, such as OER Commons, OASIS, or MERLOT.
Do not create a reference or in-text citation for a whole website. To mention a website in general, and not any particular information on that site, provide the name of the website in the text and include the URL in parentheses. For example, you might mention that you used a website to create a survey.

The following supplemental example references are mention in the Publication Manual:

retracted journal or magazine article
edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)
edition of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD)
religious work
annotated religious work

Archival document and collections are not presented in the APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition . This content is available only on the APA Style website . This guidance has been expanded from the 6th edition.

Archival sources include letters, unpublished manuscripts, limited-circulation brochures and pamphlets, in-house institutional and corporate documents, clippings, and other documents, as well as such nontextual materials as photographs and apparatus, that are in the personal possession of an author, form part of an institutional collection, or are stored in an archive such as the Archives of the History of American Psychology at the University of Akron or the APA Archives. For any documents like these that are available on the open web or via a database (subscription or nonsubscription), follow the reference templates shown in Chapter 10 of the Publication Manual.

The general format for the reference for an archival work includes the author, date, title, and source. The reference examples shown on this page may be modified for collections requiring more or less specific information to locate materials, for different types of collections, or for additional descriptive information (e.g., a translation of a letter). Authors may choose to list correspondence from their own personal collections, but correspondence from other private collections should be listed only with the permission of the collector.

Keep in mind the following principles when creating references to archival documents and collections:

As with any reference, the purpose is to direct readers to the source, despite the fact that only a single copy of the document may be available and readers may have some difficulty actually seeing a copy.
Include as much information as is needed to help locate the item with reasonable ease within the repository. For items from collections with detailed finding aids, the name of the collection may be sufficient; for items from collections without finding aids, more information (e.g., call number, box number, file name or number) may be necessary to help locate the item.
If several letters are cited from the same collection, list the collection as a reference and provide specific identifying information (author, recipient, and date) for each letter in the in-text citations (see Example 3).
Use square brackets to indicate information that does not appear on the document.
Use “ca.” (circa) to indicate an estimated date (see Example 5).
Use italics for titles of archival documents and collections; if the work does not have a title, provide a description in square brackets without italics.
Separate elements of the source (e.g., the name of a repository, library, university or archive, and the location of the university or archive) with commas. End the source with a period.
If a publication of limited circulation is available in libraries, the reference may be formatted as usual for published material, without the archival source.
Note that private letters (vs. those in an archive or repository) are considered personal communications and cited in the text only.

1. Letter from a repository

Frank, L. K. (1935, February 4). [Letter to Robert M. Ogden]. Rockefeller Archive Center (GEB Series 1.3, Box 371, Folder 3877), Tarrytown, NY, United States.

Parenthetical citation: (Frank, 1935)
Narrative citation: Frank (1935)
Because the letter does not have a title, provide a description in square brackets.

2. Letter from a private collection

Zacharius, G. P. (1953, August 15). [Letter to William Rickel (W. Rickel, Trans.)]. Copy in possession of Hendrika Vande Kemp.

Parenthetical citation: (Zacharius, 1953)
Narrative citation: Zacharius (1953)
In this example, Hendrika Vande Kemp is either the author of the paper or the author of the paper has received permission from Hendrika Vande Kemp to cite a letter in Vande Kemp’s private collection in this way. Otherwise, cite a private letter as a personal communication .

3. Collection of letters from an archive

Allport, G. W. (1930–1967). Correspondence. Gordon W. Allport Papers (HUG 4118.10), Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, MA, United States.

Parenthetical citation: (Allport, 1930–1967)
Narrative citation: Allport (1930–1967)

To cite specific letters in the text, provide the author and range of years as shown in the reference list entry, plus details about who wrote the specific letter to whom and when the specific letter was written.

Parenthetical citation: (Allport, 1930–1967, G. Boring to Allport, December 26, 1937)
Narrative citation: Allport (1930–1967, Allport to G. Boring, March 1, 1939)
Use the parenthetical citation format to cite a letter that E. G. Boring wrote to Allport because Allport is the author in the reference. Use either the parenthetical or narrative citation format to cite letters that Allport wrote.

4. Unpublished papers, lectures from an archive or personal collection

Berliner, A. (1959). Notes for a lecture on reminiscences of Wundt and Leipzig. Anna Berliner Memoirs (Box M50), Archives of the History of American Psychology, University of Akron, Akron, OH, United States.

Parenthetical citation: (Berliner, 1959)
Narrative citation: Berliner (1959)

5. Archival/historical source for which the author and/or date is known or is reasonably certain but not stated on the document

Allport, A. (presumed). (ca. 1937). Marion Taylor today—by the biographer [Unpublished manuscript]. Marion Taylor Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, MA, United States.

Parenthetical citation: (Allport, ca. 1937)
Narrative citation: Allport (ca. 1937)
Because the author is reasonably certain but not stated on the document, place the word “presumed” in parentheses after the name, followed by a period.
Because the date is reasonably certain but not stated on the document, the abbreviation “ca.” (which stands for “circa”) appears before the year in parentheses.

6. Archival source with group author

Subcommittee on Mental Hygiene Personnel in School Programs. (1949, November 5–6). Meeting of Subcommittee on Mental Hygiene Personnel in School Programs. David Shakow Papers (M1360), Archives of the History of American Psychology, University of Akron, Akron, OH, United States.

Parenthetical citation: (Subcommittee on Mental Hygiene Personnel in School Programs, 1949)
Narrative citation: Subcommittee on Mental Hygiene Personnel in School Programs (1949)

7. Interview recorded and available in an archive

Smith, M. B. (1989, August 12). Interview by C. A. Kiesler [Tape recording]. President’s Oral History Project, American Psychological Association, APA Archives, Washington, DC, United States.

Parenthetical citation: (Smith, 1989)
Narrative citation: Smith (1989)
For interviews and oral histories recorded in an archive, list the interviewee as the author. Include the interviewer’s name in the description.

8. Transcription of a recorded interview, no recording available

Sparkman, C. F. (1973). An oral history with Dr. Colley F. Sparkman/Interviewer: Orley B. Caudill. Mississippi Oral History Program (Vol. 289), University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, United States.

Parenthetical citation: (Sparkman, 1973)
Narrative citation: Sparkman (1973)

9. Newspaper article clipping, historical, in personal collection

Psychoanalysis institute to open. (1948, September 18). [Clipping from an unidentified Dayton, OH, United States, newspaper]. Copy in possession of author.

Parenthetical citation: (“Psychoanalysis Institute to Open,” 1948)
Narrative citation: “Psychoanalysis Institute to Open” (1948)
Use this format only if you are the person who is in possession of the newspaper clipping.

10. Historical publication of limited circulation

Sci-Art Publishers. (1935). Sci-Art publications [Brochure]. Roback Papers (HUGFP 104.50, Box 2, Folder “Miscellaneous Psychological Materials”), Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, MA, United States.

Parenthetical citation: (Sci-Art Publishers, 1935)
Narrative citation: Sci-Art Publishers (1935)

11. Archived photographs, no author and no title

[Photographs of Robert M. Yerkes]. (ca. 1917–1954). Robert Mearns Yerkes Papers (Box 137, Folder 2292), Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, New Haven, CT, United States.

Parenthetical citation: ([Photographs of Robert M. Yerkes], ca. 1917–1954)
Narrative citation: [Photographs of Robert M. Yerkes] (ca. 1917–1954)
Because the archived photographs do not have a title, provide a bracketed description instead.
Because the archived photographs do not have an author, move the bracketed description to the author position of the reference.

12. Microfilm

U.S. Census Bureau. (1880). 1880 U.S. census: Defective, dependent, and delinquent classes schedule: Virginia [Microfilm]. NARA Microfilm Publication T1132 (Rolls 33–34), National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC, United States.

Parenthetical citation: (U.S. Census Bureau, 1880)
Narrative citation: U.S. Census Bureau (1880)

Read the full APA guidelines on citing ChatGPT

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

Parenthetical citation: (OpenAI, 2023)
Narrative citation: OpenAI (2023)

Author: The author of the model is OpenAI.

Date: The date is the year of the version you used. Following the template in Section 10.10, you need to include only the year, not the exact date. The version number provides the specific date information a reader might need.

Title: The name of the model is “ChatGPT,” so that serves as the title and is italicized in your reference, as shown in the template. Although OpenAI labels unique iterations (i.e., ChatGPT-3, ChatGPT-4), they are using “ChatGPT” as the general name of the model, with updates identified with version numbers.

The version number is included after the title in parentheses. The format for the version number in ChatGPT references includes the date because that is how OpenAI is labeling the versions. Different large language models or software might use different version numbering; use the version number in the format the author or publisher provides, which may be a numbering system (e.g., Version 2.0) or other methods.

Bracketed text is used in references for additional descriptions when they are needed to help a reader understand what’s being cited. References for a number of common sources, such as journal articles and books, do not include bracketed descriptions, but things outside of the typical peer-reviewed system often do. In the case of a reference for ChatGPT, provide the descriptor “Large language model” in square brackets. OpenAI describes ChatGPT-4 as a “large multimodal model,” so that description may be provided instead if you are using ChatGPT-4. Later versions and software or models from other companies may need different descriptions, based on how the publishers describe the model. The goal of the bracketed text is to briefly describe the kind of model to your reader.

Source: When the publisher name and the author name are the same, do not repeat the publisher name in the source element of the reference, and move directly to the URL. This is the case for ChatGPT. The URL for ChatGPT is https://chat.openai.com/chat . For other models or products for which you may create a reference, use the URL that links as directly as possible to the source (i.e., the page where you can access the model, not the publisher’s homepage).

What to include and what to exclude

Works included in a reference list.

The reference list provides a reliable way for readers to identify and locate the works cited in a paper. APA Style papers generally include reference lists, not bibliographies.

In general, each work cited in the text must appear in the reference list, and each work in the reference list must be cited in the text. Check your work carefully before submitting your manuscript or course assignment to ensure no works cited in the text are missing from the reference list and vice versa, with only the following exceptions.

Works Excluded From a Reference List

There are a few kinds of works that are not included in a reference list. Usually a work is not included because readers cannot recover it or because the mention is so broad that readers do not need a reference list entry to understand the use.

Information on works included in a reference list is covered in Sections 2.12 and 8.4 of the APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition

*This guidance has been expanded from the 6th edition.*

Personal communications such as emails, phone calls, or text messages are cited in the text only, not in the reference list, because readers cannot retrieve personal communications.
General mentions of whole websites, whole periodicals, and common software and apps in the text do not require in-text citations or reference list entries because the use is broad and the source is familiar.
The source of an epigraph does not usually appear in the reference list unless the work is a scholarly book or journal. For example, if you open the paper with an inspirational quotation by a famous person, the source of the quotation does not appear in the reference list because the quotation is meant to set the stage for the work, not substantiate a key point.
Quotations from research participants in a study you conducted can be presented and discussed in the text but do not need citations or reference list entries. Citations and reference list entries are not necessary because the quotations are part of your original research. They could also compromise participants’ confidentiality, which is an ethical violation.
References included in a meta-analysis, which are marked with an asterisk in the reference list, may be cited in the text (or not) at the author’s discretion. This exception is relevant only to authors who are conducting a meta-analysis.

DOIs and URLs

The DOI or URL is the final component of a reference list entry. Because so much scholarship is available and/or retrieved online, most reference list entries end with either a DOI or a URL.

A DOI is a unique alphanumeric string that identifies content and provides a persistent link to its location on the internet. DOIs can be found in database records and the reference lists of published works.
A URL specifies the location of digital information on the internet and can be found in the address bar of your internet browser. URLs in references should link directly to the cited work when possible.

Follow these guidelines for including DOIs and URLs in references:

Include a DOI for all works that have a DOI, regardless of whether you used the online version or the print version.
If a print work does not have a DOI, do not include any DOI or URL in the reference.
If an online work has both a DOI and a URL, include only the DOI.
For works without DOIs from websites (not including academic research databases), provide a URL in the reference (as long as the URL will work for readers).
For works without DOIs from most academic research databases , do not include a URL or database information in the reference because these works are widely available. The reference should be the same as the reference for a print version of the work.
For works from databases that publish original, proprietary material available only in that database (such as the UpToDate database) or for works of limited circulation in databases (such as monographs in the ERIC database), include the name of the database or archive and the URL of the work. If the URL requires a login or is session-specific (meaning it will not resolve for readers), provide the URL of the database or archive home page or login page instead of the URL for the work. See the page on including database information in references for more information.
If the URL is no longer working or no longer provides readers access to the content you intend to cite, follow the guidance for works with no source .
Other alphanumeric identifiers such as the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) and the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) are not included in APA Style references.

Follow these guidelines to format DOIs and URLs:

Present both DOIs and URLs as hyperlinks (i.e., beginning with “http:” or “https:”).
Because a hyperlink leads readers directly to the content, it is not necessary to include the words “Retrieved from” or “Accessed from” before a DOI or URL.
It is acceptable to use either the default display settings for hyperlinks in your word-processing program (e.g., usually blue font, underlined) or plain text that is not underlined.
Leave links live if the work is to be published or read online.
Follow the current recommendations of the International DOI Foundation to format DOIs in the reference list, which as of this publication is as follows:

https://doi.org/ xxxxx

The string “https://doi.org/” is a way of presenting a DOI as a link, and “xxxxx” refers to the DOI number.
The preferred format of the DOI has changed over time. Although older works use previous formats (e.g., “http:/dx.doi.org/” or “doi:” or “DOI:” before the DOI number), in your reference list, standardize DOIs into the current preferred format for all entries. For example, use https://doi.org/10.1037/a0040251 in your reference even though that article, published in 2016, presented the number in an older format.
Copy and paste the DOI or URL from your web browser directly into your reference list to avoid transcription errors. Do not change the capitalization or punctuation of the DOI or URL. Do not add line breaks manually to the hyperlink; it is acceptable if your word-processing program automatically adds a break or moves the hyperlink to its own line.
Do not add a period after the DOI or URL because this may interfere with link functionality.

When a DOI or URL is long or complex, you may use shortDOIs or shortened URLs if desired.

Use the shortDOI service provided by the International DOI Foundation to create shortDOIs. A work can have only one DOI and only one shortDOI; the shortDOI service will either produce a new shortDOI for a work that has never had one or retrieve an existing shortDOI.
Some websites provide their own branded shortened URLs, and independent URL shortening services are available as well. Any shortened URL is acceptable in a reference as long as you check the link to ensure that it takes you to the correct location.
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How to Do a Reference Page for a Research Paper

Last Updated: December 7, 2022 References

This article was co-authored by Diane Stubbs . Diane Stubbs is a Secondary English Teacher with over 22 years of experience teaching all high school grade levels and AP courses. She specializes in secondary education, classroom management, and educational technology. Diane earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Delaware and a Master of Education from Wesley College. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 73,343 times.

Once you finish writing a paper, you'll also have to create a reference page that lists all of your sources, whether they are from books, journals, interviews or websites. This page makes it easy for your readers to find the documents you used to write your paper.

During the Research and Writing Process

Step 1 Take note of every source you use during the research process.

For books, this includes the author, the title of the book, the editors (if it has named editors), the name of the essay plus the page numbers of the essays, the publishing company, the place of publication, the date of publication, and where you found the book (more for your own purposes).
If you are using a journal article, you'll need the author's name, the name of the article, the name of the journal, the volume and issue number, the date of publication, the page numbers of the article, and likely the DOI (digital object identifier—a number like an ISBN for books) and/or the database or website you found the article.

Step 2 Keep the notes on your sources organized.

One helpful way of keeping track of your sources is to write source cards. These are small note cards that contain all of the relevant information on a particular source.
Source cards are a neat and convenient way of organizing your sources - you can store all of your source cards in a small box or folder, in alphabetical order.

Step 3 Track which sources you actually use.

However, in some instances, you may also need to reference sources that were beneficial to your argument, but that you didn't end up citing in the paper. These sources shouldn't be listed on the reference page itself, but on a separate page, such as the Modern Language Association's "Work Consulted" page.
It is more common to use only a "Works Cited" page, therefore you should only include a "Works Consulted"page if your teacher or professor requests it.

Writing the Reference Page

Step 1 Place your reference page at the end of your paper.

For instance, you may be required to use American Psychological Association style (APA), the Modern Language Association's guidelines (MLA), Chicago style, or American Sociological Association style (ASA).
You'll find examples of each of these styles in the section below. Each will have you create slightly different references, though you will use the same basic information.

Step 3 Alphabetize your reference page by the authors' last names.

When you have multiple works by the same author, you can also use the title to decide which reference comes first in an alphabetized list.

Step 4 Make sure to include every resource you used in your paper.

Formatting the Reference Page

Step 1 Use the correct spacing and indentation.

Double-space your reference page just as you double-spaced the rest of your paper.
Use hanging indention. Hanging indentation is when the first line of each reference is all the way over to the left, while any subsequent lines are indented.

Step 2 Learn how to reference books according to the appropriate style guide.

MLA: Roberts, Georgina. Eating Pie for Dinner. Waco: Great Books for Eating, 2002. Print.
APA: Roberts, G. (2002). Eating pie for dinner. Waco, Texas: Great Books for Eating.
Chicago: Roberts, Georgina. Eating Pie for Dinner. Waco, Texas: Great Books for Eating, 2002.
ASA: Roberts, Georgina. 2002. Eating Pie for Dinner. Waco, TX: Great Books for Eating.
Note that the two styles used most often in the sciences, APA and ASA, both place higher value on the date, pushing it closer to the beginning of the reference. Chicago and MLA are used more often in the humanities, so the date is not quite as important in those styles.

Step 3 Learn how to reference journal articles according to the appropriate style guide.

MLA: Thompson, Joy. "Pie for Life." Bakers Anonymous 8.2 (2005): 35-43. Web. 2 Feb. 2007.
APA: Thompson, J. (2005). Pie for life. Bakers Anonymous, 8(2), 35-43. doi:102342343
Chicago: Thompson, Joy. "Pie for Life." Bakers Anonymous 8, no. 2 (2005): 35-43. Accessed February 2, 2007. Doi: 102342343.
ASA: Thompson, Joy. 2005. "Pie for Life." Bakers Anonymous 8 (2):35-43.

Step 4 Use other resources to learn how to format more complicated sources.

If you want to go to the original sources, check out The Chicago Manual of Style, The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, or American Sociological Association (ASA) Style Guide.

Community Q&A

To achieve hanging indention, highlight the text and use the small triangles located on the ruler at the top of the screen. Move the bottom triangle over by about half an inch. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

↑ https://penandthepad.com/reference-research-paper-2701.html
↑ http://nob.cs.ucdavis.edu/classes/ecs015-2007-02/paper/citations.html
↑ https://html.com/resources/citation-guide/
↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/resources.html
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/05/
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/05/
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/717/02/

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References: Common Reference List Examples

Article (with doi).

Alvarez. E., & Tippins, S. (2019). Socialization agents that Puerto Rican college students use to make financial decisions. Journal of Social Change , 11 (1), 75–85. https://doi.org/10.5590/JOSC.2019.11.1.07

Laplante, J. P., & Nolin, C. (2014). Consultas and socially responsible investing in Guatemala: A case study examining Maya perspectives on the Indigenous right to free, prior, and informed consent. Society & Natural Resources , 27 , 231–248. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2013.861554

Provide a DOI number if there is one. DOI stands for "digital object identifier," a number specific to the article that can help others locate the source. Use CrossRef.org to locate DOI information. This rule applies regardless of how the source was accessed (e.g., online, paper, etc.; see APA 7, Section 9.34).

In APA 7, format the DOI as a web address. Active hyperlinks for DOIs and URLs should be used for documents meant for screen reading. Present these hyperlinks in blue and underlined text (the default formatting in Microsoft Word), although plain black text is also acceptable. Be consistent in the formatting choice for DOIs and URLs throughout the reference list. (Note that this guidance has changed from APA 6 where all hyperlink formatting was removed and no active links were included. In APA 6, the URLs appeared in plain, black type and did not link out from the document.)

Also see our Quick Answer FAQ, "Can I use the DOI format provided by library databases?"

Jerrentrup, A., Mueller, T., Glowalla, U., Herder, M., Henrichs, N., Neubauer, A., & Schaefer, J. R. (2018). Teaching medicine with the help of “Dr. House.” PLoS ONE , 13 (3), Article e0193972. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193972

For journal articles that are assigned article numbers rather than page ranges, include the article number in place of the page range.

For more on citing electronic resources, see Electronic Sources References .

Article (Without DOI)

Found in a common academic research database or in print.

Casler , T. (2020). Improving the graduate nursing experience through support on a social media platform. MEDSURG Nursing , 29 (2), 83–87.

If an article does not have a DOI and you retrieved it from a common academic research database through the university library, there is no need to include any additional electronic retrieval information. The reference list entry looks like the entry for a print copy of the article. (This format differs from APA 6 guidelines that recommended including the URL of a journal's homepage when the DOI was not available.)

Note that APA 7 has additional guidance on reference list entries for articles found only in specific databases or archives such as Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, UpToDate, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global, and university archives. See APA 7, Section 9.30 for more information.

Found on an Open Access Website

Eaton, T. V., & Akers, M. D. (2007). Whistleblowing and good governance. CPA Journal , 77 (6), 66–71. http://archives.cpajournal.com/2007/607/essentials/p58.htm

Provide the direct web address/URL to a journal article found on the open web, often on an open access journal's website.

In APA 7, active hyperlinks for DOIs and URLs should be used for documents meant for screen reading. Present these hyperlinks in blue and underlined text (the default formatting in Microsoft Word), although plain black text is also acceptable. Be consistent in your formatting choice for DOIs and URLs throughout your reference list. (Note that this guidance has changed from APA 6 where all hyperlink formatting was removed and no active links were included. In APA 6, the URLs appeared in plain, black type and did not link out from the document.)

Weinstein, J. A. (2010). Social change (3rd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield.

If the book has an edition number, include it in parentheses after the title of the book. If the book does not list any edition information, do not include an edition number. The edition number is not italicized. (Note: In APA 6, the location of the publisher was included. This is no longer the case in APA 7; only the publisher name is provided.) Regarding publisher name, when a publisher is named after a person (as is the case with Lawrence Erlbaum or John Wiley), list only the surname (Erlbaum or Wiley). In addition, exclude “Publishers,” “Inc.,” and “Co.” from publisher names in reference entries.

American Nurses Association. (2010). Nursing: Scope and standards of practice (2nd ed.).

In APA 7, if the author and publisher are the same, only include the author in its regular place and omit the publisher. (Note that this is a change from APA 6, where the term “Author” was used for the publisher instead of repeating the name.)

Lencioni, P. (2012). The advantage: Why organizational health trumps everything else in business . Jossey-Bass. https://amzn.to/343XPSJ

As a change from APA 6 to APA 7, it is no longer necessary to include the ebook format in the title. However, if you listened to an audiobook and the content differs from the text version (e.g., abridged content) or your discussion highlights elements of the audiobook (e.g., narrator's performance), then note that it is an audiobook in the title element in brackets. For ebooks and online audiobooks, also include the DOI number (if available) or nondatabase URL but leave out the electronic retrieval element if the ebook was found in a common academic research database, as with journal articles. APA 7 allows for the shortening of long DOIs and URLs, as shown in this example. See APA 7, Section 9.36 for more information.

Chapter in an Edited Book

Poe, M. (2017). Reframing race in teaching writing across the curriculum. In F. Condon & V. A. Young (Eds.), Performing antiracist pedagogy in rhetoric, writing, and communication (pp. 87–105). University Press of Colorado.

Include the page numbers of the chapter in parentheses after the book title. The page range should not be italicized.

Christensen, L. (2001). For my people: Celebrating community through poetry. In B. Bigelow, B. Harvey, S. Karp, & L. Miller (Eds.), Rethinking our classrooms: Teaching for equity and justice (Vol. 2, pp. 16–17). Rethinking Schools.

Also include volume number and edition numbers in the parenthetical information after the book title where relevant.

Freud, S. (1961). The ego and the id. In J. Strachey (Ed.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 19, pp. 3-66). Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1923)

When a text has been republished as part of an anthology collection, after the author’s name include the date of the version that was read. At the end of the entry, place the date of the original publication inside parenthesis along with the note “original work published.” For in-text citations of republished work, use both dates in the parenthetical citation, original date first with a slash separating the years, as in this example: Freud (1923/1961). For more information on reprinted or republished works, see APA 7, Sections 9.40-9.41.

Dissertations or Theses

Retrieved from a database

Nalumango, K. (2019). Perceptions about the asylum-seeking process in the United States after 9/11 (Publication No. 13879844) [Doctoral dissertation, Walden University]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

Retrieved From an Institutional or Personal Website

Evener. J. (2018). Organizational learning in libraries at for-profit colleges and universities [Doctoral dissertation, Walden University]. ScholarWorks. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6606&context=dissertations

Unpublished Dissertation or Thesis

Kirwan, J. G. (2005). An experimental study of the effects of small-group, face-to-face facilitated dialogues on the development of self-actualization levels: A movement towards fully functional persons [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center.

For further examples and information, see APA 7, Section 10.6.

Legal Material

For legal references, APA follows the recommendations of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation , so if you have any questions beyond the examples provided in APA, seek out that resource as well.

Court Decisions

Reference format:

Name v. Name, Volume Reporter Page (Court Date). URL

Sample reference entry:

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/347us483

Sample citation:

In Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court ruled racial segregation in schools unconstitutional.

Note: Italicize the case name when it appears in the text of your paper rather than citing it—for example, “Cases such as Brown v. Board of Education and Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle illustrate ...”

Name of Act, Title Source § Section Number (Year). URL

Sample reference entry for a federal statute:

Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq. (2004). https://www.congress.gov/108/plaws/publ446/PLAW-108publ446.pdf

Sample reference entry for a state statute:

Minnesota Nurse Practice Act, Minn. Stat. §§ 148.171 et seq. (2019). https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/148.171

Sample citation: Minnesota nurses must maintain current registration in order to practice (Minnesota Nurse Practice Act, 2010).

Note: The § symbol stands for "section." Use §§ for sections (plural). To find this symbol in Microsoft Word, go to "Insert" and click on Symbol." Look in the Latin 1-Supplement subset.

Note: U.S.C. stands for "United States Code."

Note: The Latin abbreviation " et seq. " means "and what follows" and is used when the act includes the cited section and ones that follow.

Note: List the chapter first followed by the section or range of sections.

Unenacted Bills and Resolutions

(Those that did not pass and become law)

Title [if there is one], bill or resolution number, xxx Cong. (year). URL

Sample reference entry for Senate bill:

Anti-Phishing Act, S. 472, 109th Cong. (2005). https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/senate-bill/472

Sample reference entry for House of Representatives resolution:

Anti-Phishing Act, H.R. 1099, 109th Cong. (2005). https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/1099

The Anti-Phishing Act (2005) proposed up to 5 years prison time for people running Internet scams.

These are the three legal areas you may be most apt to cite in your scholarly work. For more examples and explanation, see APA 7, Chapter 11.

Magazine Article

Clay, R. (2008, June). Science vs. ideology: Psychologists fight back about the misuse of research. Monitor on Psychology , 39 (6). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2008/06/ideology

Note that for citations, include only the year: Clay (2008). For magazine articles retrieved from a common academic research database, leave out the URL. For magazine articles from an online news website that is not an online version of a print magazine, follow the format for a webpage reference list entry.

Newspaper Article

Baker, A. (2014, May 7). Connecticut students show gains in national tests. New York Times . http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/nyregion/national-assessment-of-educational-progress-results-in-Connecticut-and-New-Jersey.html

Include the full date in the format Year, Month Day. Do not include a retrieval date for periodical sources found on websites. Note that for citations, include only the year: Baker (2014). For newspaper articles retrieved from a common academic research database, leave out the URL. For newspaper articles from an online news website that is not an online version of a print newspaper, follow the format for a webpage reference list entry.

Technical and Research Reports

The general structure for a technical or research report is as follows:

Author, A. A. (Publication Year). Title of work . Publisher Name. DOI or URL

Edwards, C. (2015). Lighting levels for isolated intersections: Leading to safety improvements (Report No. MnDOT 2015-05). Center for Transportation Studies. http://www.cts.umn.edu/Publications/ResearchReports/reportdetail.html?id=2402

Technical and research reports by governmental agencies and other research institutions usually follow a different publication process than scholarly, peer-reviewed journals. However, they present original research and are often useful for research papers. Sometimes, researchers refer to these types of reports as gray literature , and white papers are a type of this literature. See APA 7, Section 10.4 for more information.

American Federation of Teachers. (n.d.). Community schools . http://www.aft.org/issues/schoolreform/commschools/index.cfm

If there is no specified author, then use the organization’s name as the author. In such a case, there is no need to repeat the organization's name after the title.

Vartan, S. (2018, January 30). Why vacations matter for your health . CNN. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/why-vacations-matter/index.html

For webpages from news websites, include the site name after the title and before the URL. If the source is an online newspaper or magazine, follow the models in the previous sections of this page. In APA 7, active hyperlinks for DOIs and URLs should be used for documents meant for screen reading. Present these hyperlinks in blue and underlined text (the default formatting in Microsoft Word), although plain black text is also acceptable. Be consistent in your formatting choice for DOIs and URLs throughout your reference list. (Note that this guidance has changed from APA 6 where all hyperlink formatting was removed, and no active links were included. In APA 6, the URLs appeared in plain, black type and did not link out from the document.)

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MLA Sample Works Cited Page

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This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Note: We have chosen to include the date of access for the online sources below. The latest MLA guidelines specify that this is optional, but strongly recommended for sources whose date of publication is unavailable.

Note also: The citation for An Inconvenient Truth below assumes the film has been cited by its title in the text. If it had been cited by the name of its director, the citation would need to begin with Guggenheim's surname. MLA guidelines specify that both styles are acceptable (see, e.g., this "Ask the MLA" page ).

Works Cited

Dean, Cornelia. "Executive on a Mission: Saving the Planet." The New York Times , 22 May 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/science/earth/22ander.html?_r=0. Accessed 29 May 2019.

Ebert, Roger. Review of An Inconvenient Truth , directed by Davis Guggenheim. Ebert Digital LLC , 1 June 2006, www.rogerebert.com/reviews/an-inconvenient-truth-2006. Accessed 15 June 2019.

Gowdy, John. "Avoiding Self-Organized Extinction: Toward a Co-Evolutionary Economics of Sustainability." International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology, vol. 14, no. 1, 2007, pp. 27-36.

Harris, Rob, and Andrew C. Revkin. “Clinton on Climate Change.” The New York Times , 17 May 2007, www.nytimes.com/video/world/americas/1194817109438/clinton-on-climate-change.html. Accessed 29 July 2016.

An Inconvenient Truth . Directed by Davis Guggenheim, Paramount, 2006.

Leroux, Marcel. Global Warming: Myth or Reality?: The Erring Ways of Climatology . Springer, 2005.

Milken, Michael, et al. "On Global Warming and Financial Imbalances." New Perspectives Quarterly , vol. 23, no. 4, 2006, p. 63.

Nordhaus, William D. "After Kyoto: Alternative Mechanisms to Control Global Warming." American Economic Review , vol. 96, no. 2, 2006, pp. 31-34.

---. "Global Warming Economics." Science, vol. 294, no. 5545, 9 Nov. 2001, pp. 1283-84, DOI: 10.1126/science.1065007.

Regas, Diane. “Three Key Energy Policies That Can Help Us Turn the Corner on Climate.” Environmental Defense Fund , 1 June 2016, www.edf.org/blog/2016/06/01/3-key-energy-policies-can-help-us-turn-corner-climate. Accessed 19 July 2016.

Revkin, Andrew C. “Clinton on Climate Change.” The New York Times , 17 May 2007, www.nytimes.com/video/world/americas/1194817109438/clinton-on-climate-change.html. Accessed 29 July 2016.

Shulte, Bret. "Putting a Price on Pollution." US News & World Report , vol. 142, no. 17, 14 May 2007, p. 37. Ebsco, Access no: 24984616.

Uzawa, Hirofumi. Economic Theory and Global Warming . Cambridge UP, 2003.

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Knowledge Base
Citing sources

Citation Styles Guide | Examples for All Major Styles

Published on June 24, 2022 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on November 7, 2022.

A citation style is a set of guidelines on how to cite sources in your academic writing . You always need a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize a source to avoid plagiarism . How you present these citations depends on the style you follow. Scribbr’s citation generator can help!

Different styles are set by different universities, academic associations, and publishers, often published in an official handbook with in-depth instructions and examples.

There are many different citation styles, but they typically use one of three basic approaches: parenthetical citations , numerical citations, or note citations.

Parenthetical citations

Chicago (Turabian) author-date

CSE name-year

Numerical citations

CSE citation-name or citation-sequence

Note citations

Chicago (Turabian) notes and bibliography

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Types of citation: parenthetical, note, numerical, which citation style should i use, parenthetical citation styles, numerical citation styles, note citation styles, frequently asked questions about citation styles.

The clearest identifying characteristic of any citation style is how the citations in the text are presented. There are three main approaches:

Parenthetical citations: You include identifying details of the source in parentheses in the text—usually the author’s last name and the publication date, plus a page number if relevant ( author-date ). Sometimes the publication date is omitted ( author-page ).
Numerical citations: You include a number in brackets or in superscript, which corresponds to an entry in your numbered reference list.
Note citations: You include a full citation in a footnote or endnote, which is indicated in the text with a superscript number or symbol.

Citation styles also differ in terms of how you format the reference list or bibliography entries themselves (e.g., capitalization, order of information, use of italics). And many style guides also provide guidance on more general issues like text formatting, punctuation, and numbers.

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In most cases, your university, department, or instructor will tell you which citation style you need to follow in your writing. If you’re not sure, it’s best to consult your institution’s guidelines or ask someone. If you’re submitting to a journal, they will usually require a specific style.

Sometimes, the choice of citation style may be left up to you. In those cases, you can base your decision on which citation styles are commonly used in your field. Try reading other articles from your discipline to see how they cite their sources, or consult the table below.

Discipline	Typical citation style(s)
Economics
Engineering & IT
Humanities	; ;
Law	;
Medicine	; ;
Political science
Psychology
Sciences	; ; ; ;
Social sciences	; ; ;

The American Anthropological Association (AAA) recommends citing your sources using Chicago author-date style . AAA style doesn’t have its own separate rules. This style is used in the field of anthropology.

AAA reference entry	Clarke, Kamari M. 2013. “Notes on Cultural Citizenship in the Black Atlantic World.” 28, no. 3 (August): 464–474. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43898483.
AAA in-text citation	(Clarke 2013)

APA Style is defined by the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association . It was designed for use in psychology, but today it’s widely used across various disciplines, especially in the social sciences.

	Wagemann, J. & Weger, U. (2021). Perceiving the other self: An experimental first-person account of nonverbal social interaction. , (4), 441–461. https://doi.org/10.5406/amerjpsyc.134.4.0441
	(Wagemann & Weger, 2021)

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The citation style of the American Political Science Association (APSA) is used mainly in the field of political science.

APSA reference entry	Ward, Lee. 2020. “Equity and Political Economy in Thomas Hobbes.” , 64 (4): 823–35. doi: 10.1111/ajps.12507.
APSA in-text citation	(Ward 2020)

The citation style of the American Sociological Association (ASA) is used primarily in the discipline of sociology.

ASA reference entry	Kootstra, Anouk. 2016. “Deserving and Undeserving Welfare Claimants in Britain and the Netherlands: Examining the Role of Ethnicity and Migration Status Using a Vignette Experiment.” 32(3): 325–338. doi:10.1093/esr/jcw010.
ASA in-text citation	(Kootstra 2016)

Chicago author-date

Chicago author-date style is one of the two citation styles presented in the Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition). It’s used mainly in the sciences and social sciences.

	Encarnação, João, and Gonçalo Calado. 2018. “Effects of Recreational Diving on Early Colonization Stages of an Artificial Reef in North-East Atlantic.” 22, no. 6 (December): 1209–1216. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45380397.
	(Encarnação and Calado 2018)

The citation style of the Council of Science Editors (CSE) is used in various scientific disciplines. It includes multiple options for citing your sources, including the name-year system.

CSE name-year reference entry	Graham JR. 2019. The structure and stratigraphical relations of the Lough Nafooey Group, South Mayo. Irish Journal of Earth Sciences. 37: 1–18.
CSE name-year citation	(Graham 2019)

Harvard style is often used in the field of economics. It is also very widely used across disciplines in UK universities. There are various versions of Harvard style defined by different universities—it’s not a style with one definitive style guide.

	Hoffmann, M. (2016) ‘How is information valued? Evidence from framed field experiments’, , 126(595), pp. 1884–1911. doi:10.1111/ecoj.12401.
	(Hoffmann, 2016)

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MLA style is the official style of the Modern Language Association, defined in the MLA Handbook (9th edition). It’s widely used across various humanities disciplines. Unlike most parenthetical citation styles, it’s author-page rather than author-date.

	Davidson, Clare. “Reading in Bed with .” , vol. 55, no. 2, Apr. 2020, pp. 147–170. https://doi.org/10.5325/chaucerrev.55.2.0147.
	(Davidson 155)

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The American Chemical Society (ACS) provides guidelines for a citation style using numbers in superscript or italics in the text, corresponding to entries in a numbered reference list at the end. It is used in chemistry.

ACS reference entry

1. Hutchinson, G.; Alamillo-Ferrer, C.; Fernández-Pascual, M.; Burés, J. Organocatalytic Enantioselective α-Bromination of Aldehydes with -Bromosuccinimide. , 87, 7968–7974.

The American Medical Association ( AMA ) provides guidelines for a numerical citation style using superscript numbers in the text, which correspond to entries in a numbered reference list. It is used in the field of medicine.

1. Jabro JD. Predicting saturated hydraulic conductivity from percolation test results in layered silt loam soils. . 2009;72(5):22–27.

CSE style includes multiple options for citing your sources, including the citation-name and citation-sequence systems. Your references are listed alphabetically in the citation-name system; in the citation-sequence system, they appear in the order in which you cited them.

CSE citation-sequence or citation-name reference entry

1. Nell CS, Mooney KA. Plant structural complexity mediates trade-off in direct and indirect plant defense by birds. Ecology. 2019;100(10):1–7.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ( IEEE ) provides guidelines for citing your sources with IEEE in-text citations that consist of numbers enclosed in brackets, corresponding to entries in a numbered reference list. This style is used in various engineering and IT disciplines.

IEEE reference entry

1. J. Ive, A. Max, and F. Yvon, “Reassessing the proper place of man and machine in translation: A pre-translation scenario,” , vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 279–308, Dec. 2018, doi: 10.1007/s10590-018-9223-9.

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) citation style is defined in Citing Medicine: The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (2nd edition).

NLM reference entry

1. Hage J, Valadez JJ. Institutionalizing and sustaining social change in health systems: the case of Uganda. Health Policy Plan. 2017 Nov;32(9):1248–55. doi:10.1093/heapol/czx066.

Vancouver style is also used in various medical disciplines. As with Harvard style, a lot of institutions and publications have their own versions of Vancouver—it doesn’t have one fixed style guide.

Vancouver reference entry

1. Bute M. A backstage sociologist: Autoethnography and a populist vision. Am Soc. 2016 Mar 23; 47(4):499–515. Available from: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12108-016-9307-z doi:10.1007/s12108-016-9307-z

The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation is the main style guide for legal citations in the US. It’s widely used in law, and also when legal materials need to be cited in other disciplines.

Bluebook footnote citation

David E. Pozen, , 165, U. P🇦. L. R🇪🇻. 1097, 1115 (2017).

Chicago notes and bibliography

Chicago notes and bibliography is one of the two citation styles presented in the Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition). It’s used mainly in the humanities.

	Best, Jeremy. “Godly, International, and Independent: German Protestant Missionary Loyalties before World War I.” 47, no. 3 (September 2014): 585–611. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008938914001654.
	1. Jeremy Best, “Godly, International, and Independent: German Protestant Missionary Loyalties before World War I,” 47, no. 3 (September 2014): 599. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008938914001654.

The Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities ( OSCOLA ) is the main legal citation style in the UK (similar to Bluebook for the US).

OSCOLA footnote citation

1. Chris Thornhill, ‘The Mutation of International Law in Contemporary Constitutions: Thinking Sociologically about Political Constitutionalism’ [2016] MLR 207.

There are many different citation styles used across different academic disciplines, but they fall into three basic approaches to citation:

Parenthetical citations : Including identifying details of the source in parentheses —usually the author’s last name and the publication date, plus a page number if available ( author-date ). The publication date is occasionally omitted ( author-page ).
Numerical citations: Including a number in brackets or superscript, corresponding to an entry in your numbered reference list.
Note citations: Including a full citation in a footnote or endnote , which is indicated in the text with a superscript number or symbol.

Check if your university or course guidelines specify which citation style to use. If the choice is left up to you, consider which style is most commonly used in your field.

APA Style is the most popular citation style, widely used in the social and behavioral sciences.
MLA style is the second most popular, used mainly in the humanities.
Chicago notes and bibliography style is also popular in the humanities, especially history.
Chicago author-date style tends to be used in the sciences.

Other more specialized styles exist for certain fields, such as Bluebook and OSCOLA for law.

The most important thing is to choose one style and use it consistently throughout your text.

A scientific citation style is a system of source citation that is used in scientific disciplines. Some commonly used scientific citation styles are:

Chicago author-date , CSE , and Harvard , used across various sciences
ACS , used in chemistry
AMA , NLM , and Vancouver , used in medicine and related disciplines
AAA , APA , and ASA , commonly used in the social sciences

APA format is widely used by professionals, researchers, and students in the social and behavioral sciences, including fields like education, psychology, and business.

Be sure to check the guidelines of your university or the journal you want to be published in to double-check which style you should be using.

MLA Style is the second most used citation style (after APA ). It is mainly used by students and researchers in humanities fields such as literature, languages, and philosophy.

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Caulfield, J. (2022, November 07). Citation Styles Guide | Examples for All Major Styles. Scribbr. Retrieved September 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/citing-sources/citation-styles/

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Peer Reviewed

GPT-fabricated scientific papers on Google Scholar: Key features, spread, and implications for preempting evidence manipulation

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Academic journals, archives, and repositories are seeing an increasing number of questionable research papers clearly produced using generative AI. They are often created with widely available, general-purpose AI applications, most likely ChatGPT, and mimic scientific writing. Google Scholar easily locates and lists these questionable papers alongside reputable, quality-controlled research. Our analysis of a selection of questionable GPT-fabricated scientific papers found in Google Scholar shows that many are about applied, often controversial topics susceptible to disinformation: the environment, health, and computing. The resulting enhanced potential for malicious manipulation of society’s evidence base, particularly in politically divisive domains, is a growing concern.

Swedish School of Library and Information Science, University of Borås, Sweden

Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, Lund University, Sweden

Division of Environmental Communication, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden

Research Questions

Where are questionable publications produced with generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) that can be found via Google Scholar published or deposited?
What are the main characteristics of these publications in relation to predominant subject categories?
How are these publications spread in the research infrastructure for scholarly communication?
How is the role of the scholarly communication infrastructure challenged in maintaining public trust in science and evidence through inappropriate use of generative AI?

research note Summary

A sample of scientific papers with signs of GPT-use found on Google Scholar was retrieved, downloaded, and analyzed using a combination of qualitative coding and descriptive statistics. All papers contained at least one of two common phrases returned by conversational agents that use large language models (LLM) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Google Search was then used to determine the extent to which copies of questionable, GPT-fabricated papers were available in various repositories, archives, citation databases, and social media platforms.
Roughly two-thirds of the retrieved papers were found to have been produced, at least in part, through undisclosed, potentially deceptive use of GPT. The majority (57%) of these questionable papers dealt with policy-relevant subjects (i.e., environment, health, computing), susceptible to influence operations. Most were available in several copies on different domains (e.g., social media, archives, and repositories).
Two main risks arise from the increasingly common use of GPT to (mass-)produce fake, scientific publications. First, the abundance of fabricated “studies” seeping into all areas of the research infrastructure threatens to overwhelm the scholarly communication system and jeopardize the integrity of the scientific record. A second risk lies in the increased possibility that convincingly scientific-looking content was in fact deceitfully created with AI tools and is also optimized to be retrieved by publicly available academic search engines, particularly Google Scholar. However small, this possibility and awareness of it risks undermining the basis for trust in scientific knowledge and poses serious societal risks.

Implications

The use of ChatGPT to generate text for academic papers has raised concerns about research integrity. Discussion of this phenomenon is ongoing in editorials, commentaries, opinion pieces, and on social media (Bom, 2023; Stokel-Walker, 2024; Thorp, 2023). There are now several lists of papers suspected of GPT misuse, and new papers are constantly being added. 1 See for example Academ-AI, https://www.academ-ai.info/ , and Retraction Watch, https://retractionwatch.com/papers-and-peer-reviews-with-evidence-of-chatgpt-writing/ . While many legitimate uses of GPT for research and academic writing exist (Huang & Tan, 2023; Kitamura, 2023; Lund et al., 2023), its undeclared use—beyond proofreading—has potentially far-reaching implications for both science and society, but especially for their relationship. It, therefore, seems important to extend the discussion to one of the most accessible and well-known intermediaries between science, but also certain types of misinformation, and the public, namely Google Scholar, also in response to the legitimate concerns that the discussion of generative AI and misinformation needs to be more nuanced and empirically substantiated (Simon et al., 2023).

Google Scholar, https://scholar.google.com , is an easy-to-use academic search engine. It is available for free, and its index is extensive (Gusenbauer & Haddaway, 2020). It is also often touted as a credible source for academic literature and even recommended in library guides, by media and information literacy initiatives, and fact checkers (Tripodi et al., 2023). However, Google Scholar lacks the transparency and adherence to standards that usually characterize citation databases. Instead, Google Scholar uses automated crawlers, like Google’s web search engine (Martín-Martín et al., 2021), and the inclusion criteria are based on primarily technical standards, allowing any individual author—with or without scientific affiliation—to upload papers to be indexed (Google Scholar Help, n.d.). It has been shown that Google Scholar is susceptible to manipulation through citation exploits (Antkare, 2020) and by providing access to fake scientific papers (Dadkhah et al., 2017). A large part of Google Scholar’s index consists of publications from established scientific journals or other forms of quality-controlled, scholarly literature. However, the index also contains a large amount of gray literature, including student papers, working papers, reports, preprint servers, and academic networking sites, as well as material from so-called “questionable” academic journals, including paper mills. The search interface does not offer the possibility to filter the results meaningfully by material type, publication status, or form of quality control, such as limiting the search to peer-reviewed material.

To understand the occurrence of ChatGPT (co-)authored work in Google Scholar’s index, we scraped it for publications, including one of two common ChatGPT responses (see Appendix A) that we encountered on social media and in media reports (DeGeurin, 2024). The results of our descriptive statistical analyses showed that around 62% did not declare the use of GPTs. Most of these GPT-fabricated papers were found in non-indexed journals and working papers, but some cases included research published in mainstream scientific journals and conference proceedings. 2 Indexed journals mean scholarly journals indexed by abstract and citation databases such as Scopus and Web of Science, where the indexation implies journals with high scientific quality. Non-indexed journals are journals that fall outside of this indexation. More than half (57%) of these GPT-fabricated papers concerned policy-relevant subject areas susceptible to influence operations. To avoid increasing the visibility of these publications, we abstained from referencing them in this research note. However, we have made the data available in the Harvard Dataverse repository.

The publications were related to three issue areas—health (14.5%), environment (19.5%) and computing (23%)—with key terms such “healthcare,” “COVID-19,” or “infection”for health-related papers, and “analysis,” “sustainable,” and “global” for environment-related papers. In several cases, the papers had titles that strung together general keywords and buzzwords, thus alluding to very broad and current research. These terms included “biology,” “telehealth,” “climate policy,” “diversity,” and “disrupting,” to name just a few. While the study’s scope and design did not include a detailed analysis of which parts of the articles included fabricated text, our dataset did contain the surrounding sentences for each occurrence of the suspicious phrases that formed the basis for our search and subsequent selection. Based on that, we can say that the phrases occurred in most sections typically found in scientific publications, including the literature review, methods, conceptual and theoretical frameworks, background, motivation or societal relevance, and even discussion. This was confirmed during the joint coding, where we read and discussed all articles. It became clear that not just the text related to the telltale phrases was created by GPT, but that almost all articles in our sample of questionable articles likely contained traces of GPT-fabricated text everywhere.

Evidence hacking and backfiring effects

Generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) can be used to produce texts that mimic scientific writing. These texts, when made available online—as we demonstrate—leak into the databases of academic search engines and other parts of the research infrastructure for scholarly communication. This development exacerbates problems that were already present with less sophisticated text generators (Antkare, 2020; Cabanac & Labbé, 2021). Yet, the public release of ChatGPT in 2022, together with the way Google Scholar works, has increased the likelihood of lay people (e.g., media, politicians, patients, students) coming across questionable (or even entirely GPT-fabricated) papers and other problematic research findings. Previous research has emphasized that the ability to determine the value and status of scientific publications for lay people is at stake when misleading articles are passed off as reputable (Haider & Åström, 2017) and that systematic literature reviews risk being compromised (Dadkhah et al., 2017). It has also been highlighted that Google Scholar, in particular, can be and has been exploited for manipulating the evidence base for politically charged issues and to fuel conspiracy narratives (Tripodi et al., 2023). Both concerns are likely to be magnified in the future, increasing the risk of what we suggest calling evidence hacking —the strategic and coordinated malicious manipulation of society’s evidence base.

The authority of quality-controlled research as evidence to support legislation, policy, politics, and other forms of decision-making is undermined by the presence of undeclared GPT-fabricated content in publications professing to be scientific. Due to the large number of archives, repositories, mirror sites, and shadow libraries to which they spread, there is a clear risk that GPT-fabricated, questionable papers will reach audiences even after a possible retraction. There are considerable technical difficulties involved in identifying and tracing computer-fabricated papers (Cabanac & Labbé, 2021; Dadkhah et al., 2023; Jones, 2024), not to mention preventing and curbing their spread and uptake.

However, as the rise of the so-called anti-vaxx movement during the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing obstruction and denial of climate change show, retracting erroneous publications often fuels conspiracies and increases the following of these movements rather than stopping them. To illustrate this mechanism, climate deniers frequently question established scientific consensus by pointing to other, supposedly scientific, studies that support their claims. Usually, these are poorly executed, not peer-reviewed, based on obsolete data, or even fraudulent (Dunlap & Brulle, 2020). A similar strategy is successful in the alternative epistemic world of the global anti-vaccination movement (Carrion, 2018) and the persistence of flawed and questionable publications in the scientific record already poses significant problems for health research, policy, and lawmakers, and thus for society as a whole (Littell et al., 2024). Considering that a person’s support for “doing your own research” is associated with increased mistrust in scientific institutions (Chinn & Hasell, 2023), it will be of utmost importance to anticipate and consider such backfiring effects already when designing a technical solution, when suggesting industry or legal regulation, and in the planning of educational measures.

Recommendations

Solutions should be based on simultaneous considerations of technical, educational, and regulatory approaches, as well as incentives, including social ones, across the entire research infrastructure. Paying attention to how these approaches and incentives relate to each other can help identify points and mechanisms for disruption. Recognizing fraudulent academic papers must happen alongside understanding how they reach their audiences and what reasons there might be for some of these papers successfully “sticking around.” A possible way to mitigate some of the risks associated with GPT-fabricated scholarly texts finding their way into academic search engine results would be to provide filtering options for facets such as indexed journals, gray literature, peer-review, and similar on the interface of publicly available academic search engines. Furthermore, evaluation tools for indexed journals 3 Such as LiU Journal CheckUp, https://ep.liu.se/JournalCheckup/default.aspx?lang=eng . could be integrated into the graphical user interfaces and the crawlers of these academic search engines. To enable accountability, it is important that the index (database) of such a search engine is populated according to criteria that are transparent, open to scrutiny, and appropriate to the workings of science and other forms of academic research. Moreover, considering that Google Scholar has no real competitor, there is a strong case for establishing a freely accessible, non-specialized academic search engine that is not run for commercial reasons but for reasons of public interest. Such measures, together with educational initiatives aimed particularly at policymakers, science communicators, journalists, and other media workers, will be crucial to reducing the possibilities for and effects of malicious manipulation or evidence hacking. It is important not to present this as a technical problem that exists only because of AI text generators but to relate it to the wider concerns in which it is embedded. These range from a largely dysfunctional scholarly publishing system (Haider & Åström, 2017) and academia’s “publish or perish” paradigm to Google’s near-monopoly and ideological battles over the control of information and ultimately knowledge. Any intervention is likely to have systemic effects; these effects need to be considered and assessed in advance and, ideally, followed up on.

Our study focused on a selection of papers that were easily recognizable as fraudulent. We used this relatively small sample as a magnifying glass to examine, delineate, and understand a problem that goes beyond the scope of the sample itself, which however points towards larger concerns that require further investigation. The work of ongoing whistleblowing initiatives 4 Such as Academ-AI, https://www.academ-ai.info/ , and Retraction Watch, https://retractionwatch.com/papers-and-peer-reviews-with-evidence-of-chatgpt-writing/ . , recent media reports of journal closures (Subbaraman, 2024), or GPT-related changes in word use and writing style (Cabanac et al., 2021; Stokel-Walker, 2024) suggest that we only see the tip of the iceberg. There are already more sophisticated cases (Dadkhah et al., 2023) as well as cases involving fabricated images (Gu et al., 2022). Our analysis shows that questionable and potentially manipulative GPT-fabricated papers permeate the research infrastructure and are likely to become a widespread phenomenon. Our findings underline that the risk of fake scientific papers being used to maliciously manipulate evidence (see Dadkhah et al., 2017) must be taken seriously. Manipulation may involve undeclared automatic summaries of texts, inclusion in literature reviews, explicit scientific claims, or the concealment of errors in studies so that they are difficult to detect in peer review. However, the mere possibility of these things happening is a significant risk in its own right that can be strategically exploited and will have ramifications for trust in and perception of science. Society’s methods of evaluating sources and the foundations of media and information literacy are under threat and public trust in science is at risk of further erosion, with far-reaching consequences for society in dealing with information disorders. To address this multifaceted problem, we first need to understand why it exists and proliferates.

Finding 1: 139 GPT-fabricated, questionable papers were found and listed as regular results on the Google Scholar results page. Non-indexed journals dominate.

Most questionable papers we found were in non-indexed journals or were working papers, but we did also find some in established journals, publications, conferences, and repositories. We found a total of 139 papers with a suspected deceptive use of ChatGPT or similar LLM applications (see Table 1). Out of these, 19 were in indexed journals, 89 were in non-indexed journals, 19 were student papers found in university databases, and 12 were working papers (mostly in preprint databases). Table 1 divides these papers into categories. Health and environment papers made up around 34% (47) of the sample. Of these, 66% were present in non-indexed journals.


Indexed journals*	5	3	4	7	19
Non-indexed journals	18	18	13	40	89
Student papers	4	3	1	11	19
Working papers	5	3	2	2	12
Total	32	27	20	60	139

Finding 2: GPT-fabricated, questionable papers are disseminated online, permeating the research infrastructure for scholarly communication, often in multiple copies. Applied topics with practical implications dominate.

The 20 papers concerning health-related issues are distributed across 20 unique domains, accounting for 46 URLs. The 27 papers dealing with environmental issues can be found across 26 unique domains, accounting for 56 URLs. Most of the identified papers exist in multiple copies and have already spread to several archives, repositories, and social media. It would be difficult, or impossible, to remove them from the scientific record.

As apparent from Table 2, GPT-fabricated, questionable papers are seeping into most parts of the online research infrastructure for scholarly communication. Platforms on which identified papers have appeared include ResearchGate, ORCiD, Journal of Population Therapeutics and Clinical Pharmacology (JPTCP), Easychair, Frontiers, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer (IEEE), and X/Twitter. Thus, even if they are retracted from their original source, it will prove very difficult to track, remove, or even just mark them up on other platforms. Moreover, unless regulated, Google Scholar will enable their continued and most likely unlabeled discoverability.


Environment	researchgate.net (13)	orcid.org (4)	easychair.org (3)	ijope.com* (3)	publikasiindonesia.id (3)
Health	researchgate.net (15)	ieee.org (4)	twitter.com (3)	jptcp.com** (2)	frontiersin.org (2)

A word rain visualization (Centre for Digital Humanities Uppsala, 2023), which combines word prominences through TF-IDF 5 Term frequency–inverse document frequency , a method for measuring the significance of a word in a document compared to its frequency across all documents in a collection. scores with semantic similarity of the full texts of our sample of GPT-generated articles that fall into the “Environment” and “Health” categories, reflects the two categories in question. However, as can be seen in Figure 1, it also reveals overlap and sub-areas. The y-axis shows word prominences through word positions and font sizes, while the x-axis indicates semantic similarity. In addition to a certain amount of overlap, this reveals sub-areas, which are best described as two distinct events within the word rain. The event on the left bundles terms related to the development and management of health and healthcare with “challenges,” “impact,” and “potential of artificial intelligence”emerging as semantically related terms. Terms related to research infrastructures, environmental, epistemic, and technological concepts are arranged further down in the same event (e.g., “system,” “climate,” “understanding,” “knowledge,” “learning,” “education,” “sustainable”). A second distinct event further to the right bundles terms associated with fish farming and aquatic medicinal plants, highlighting the presence of an aquaculture cluster. Here, the prominence of groups of terms such as “used,” “model,” “-based,” and “traditional” suggests the presence of applied research on these topics. The two events making up the word rain visualization, are linked by a less dominant but overlapping cluster of terms related to “energy” and “water.”

The bar chart of the terms in the paper subset (see Figure 2) complements the word rain visualization by depicting the most prominent terms in the full texts along the y-axis. Here, word prominences across health and environment papers are arranged descendingly, where values outside parentheses are TF-IDF values (relative frequencies) and values inside parentheses are raw term frequencies (absolute frequencies).

Finding 3: Google Scholar presents results from quality-controlled and non-controlled citation databases on the same interface, providing unfiltered access to GPT-fabricated questionable papers.

Google Scholar’s central position in the publicly accessible scholarly communication infrastructure, as well as its lack of standards, transparency, and accountability in terms of inclusion criteria, has potentially serious implications for public trust in science. This is likely to exacerbate the already-known potential to exploit Google Scholar for evidence hacking (Tripodi et al., 2023) and will have implications for any attempts to retract or remove fraudulent papers from their original publication venues. Any solution must consider the entirety of the research infrastructure for scholarly communication and the interplay of different actors, interests, and incentives.

We searched and scraped Google Scholar using the Python library Scholarly (Cholewiak et al., 2023) for papers that included specific phrases known to be common responses from ChatGPT and similar applications with the same underlying model (GPT3.5 or GPT4): “as of my last knowledge update” and/or “I don’t have access to real-time data” (see Appendix A). This facilitated the identification of papers that likely used generative AI to produce text, resulting in 227 retrieved papers. The papers’ bibliographic information was automatically added to a spreadsheet and downloaded into Zotero. 6 An open-source reference manager, https://zotero.org .

We employed multiple coding (Barbour, 2001) to classify the papers based on their content. First, we jointly assessed whether the paper was suspected of fraudulent use of ChatGPT (or similar) based on how the text was integrated into the papers and whether the paper was presented as original research output or the AI tool’s role was acknowledged. Second, in analyzing the content of the papers, we continued the multiple coding by classifying the fraudulent papers into four categories identified during an initial round of analysis—health, environment, computing, and others—and then determining which subjects were most affected by this issue (see Table 1). Out of the 227 retrieved papers, 88 papers were written with legitimate and/or declared use of GPTs (i.e., false positives, which were excluded from further analysis), and 139 papers were written with undeclared and/or fraudulent use (i.e., true positives, which were included in further analysis). The multiple coding was conducted jointly by all authors of the present article, who collaboratively coded and cross-checked each other’s interpretation of the data simultaneously in a shared spreadsheet file. This was done to single out coding discrepancies and settle coding disagreements, which in turn ensured methodological thoroughness and analytical consensus (see Barbour, 2001). Redoing the category coding later based on our established coding schedule, we achieved an intercoder reliability (Cohen’s kappa) of 0.806 after eradicating obvious differences.

The ranking algorithm of Google Scholar prioritizes highly cited and older publications (Martín-Martín et al., 2016). Therefore, the position of the articles on the search engine results pages was not particularly informative, considering the relatively small number of results in combination with the recency of the publications. Only the query “as of my last knowledge update” had more than two search engine result pages. On those, questionable articles with undeclared use of GPTs were evenly distributed across all result pages (min: 4, max: 9, mode: 8), with the proportion of undeclared use being slightly higher on average on later search result pages.

To understand how the papers making fraudulent use of generative AI were disseminated online, we programmatically searched for the paper titles (with exact string matching) in Google Search from our local IP address (see Appendix B) using the googlesearch – python library(Vikramaditya, 2020). We manually verified each search result to filter out false positives—results that were not related to the paper—and then compiled the most prominent URLs by field. This enabled the identification of other platforms through which the papers had been spread. We did not, however, investigate whether copies had spread into SciHub or other shadow libraries, or if they were referenced in Wikipedia.

We used descriptive statistics to count the prevalence of the number of GPT-fabricated papers across topics and venues and top domains by subject. The pandas software library for the Python programming language (The pandas development team, 2024) was used for this part of the analysis. Based on the multiple coding, paper occurrences were counted in relation to their categories, divided into indexed journals, non-indexed journals, student papers, and working papers. The schemes, subdomains, and subdirectories of the URL strings were filtered out while top-level domains and second-level domains were kept, which led to normalizing domain names. This, in turn, allowed the counting of domain frequencies in the environment and health categories. To distinguish word prominences and meanings in the environment and health-related GPT-fabricated questionable papers, a semantically-aware word cloud visualization was produced through the use of a word rain (Centre for Digital Humanities Uppsala, 2023) for full-text versions of the papers. Font size and y-axis positions indicate word prominences through TF-IDF scores for the environment and health papers (also visualized in a separate bar chart with raw term frequencies in parentheses), and words are positioned along the x-axis to reflect semantic similarity (Skeppstedt et al., 2024), with an English Word2vec skip gram model space (Fares et al., 2017). An English stop word list was used, along with a manually produced list including terms such as “https,” “volume,” or “years.”

Artificial Intelligence
/ Search engines

Cite this Essay

Haider, J., Söderström, K. R., Ekström, B., & Rödl, M. (2024). GPT-fabricated scientific papers on Google Scholar: Key features, spread, and implications for preempting evidence manipulation. Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review . https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-156

/ Appendix B

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This research has been supported by Mistra, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, through the research program Mistra Environmental Communication (Haider, Ekström, Rödl) and the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation [2020.0004] (Söderström).

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

The research described in this article was carried out under Swedish legislation. According to the relevant EU and Swedish legislation (2003:460) on the ethical review of research involving humans (“Ethical Review Act”), the research reported on here is not subject to authorization by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (“etikprövningsmyndigheten”) (SRC, 2017).

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original author and source are properly credited.

Data Availability

All data needed to replicate this study are available at the Harvard Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WUVD8X

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the article manuscript as well as the editorial group of Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review for their thoughtful feedback and input.

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3.6. (165) In APA, the "Works Cited" page is referred to as a "Reference List" or "Reference Page." "Bibliography" also may be used interchangeably, even though there are some differences between the two. If you are at the point in your article or research paper where you are looking up APA bibliography format, then congratulations!
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GPT-fabricated scientific papers on Google Scholar: Key features
Academic journals, archives, and repositories are seeing an increasing number of questionable research papers clearly produced using generative AI. They are often created with widely available, general-purpose AI applications, most likely ChatGPT, and mimic scientific writing. Google Scholar easily locates and lists these questionable papers alongside reputable, quality-controlled research.
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APA Style provides guidelines to help writers determine the appropriate level of citation and how to avoid plagiarism and self-plagiarism. We also provide specific guidance for in-text citation, including formats for interviews, classroom and intranet sources, and personal communications; in-text citations in general; and paraphrases and direct quotations.