Start the References on a new page. (Reference pages do not count toward your page limit.)
Put the word References at the top of the page, centered, in bold text.
List references in alphabetical order by last name of the first author. (Details below.)
Follow the spacing of the paper (double space but use 1.5 spacing if your paper is 1.5 spaced.) Do not add a blank line between references.
Format using a hanging indent. (Details below.)
To view an example, see page 17 of this sample student paper from the Purdue OWL.
The Purdue OWL gives specific instructions for many types of references.
Here's the basic recipe from the Purdue OWL:
Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number(issue number), pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyy
In APA style, authors have no first names.
Follow this example to:
use italics for journal title and volume number
use capital letters for only the first word of the article title (& subtitle if present) but capitalize all major words in the journal title
include a URL or DOI if applicable
The author could be an organization. The References page of the Purdue OWL sample student paper includes examples.
The Purdue OWL says:
For two authors, use an ampersand (&), for example: Woods, M., & Williams, E.M., (2023).
For three to twenty authors, list names in the order the publication uses, and use commas between names.
For over twenty authors, list the first nineteen as above, then use three dots... and give the last author. Why? In some academic fields the last author is the most important, the one who holds the grant, runs the lab, and directs the research.
Note: the rules are different for in-text citations. In-text citations include only author last names (no first initials). For three or more authors, the in-text citation uses only the first author followed by et al. For example: (Colenback et al., 2023) Learn more from the Purdue OWL.
To cite webpages, blogs, videos etc, consult this page from the Purdue OWL and scroll down to find the specific type of resource.
See the Commonly Asked Questions on this page of the SSW Writing Help site
See the APA Formatting & Style Guide. Look at the left menu and be sure to choose sections which specify Reference List (not in-text citations)
A hanging indent puts the first line of a paragraph at the left margin, and indents every other line of that paragraph. You can use a hanging indent in both Microsoft Word and Google Docs. Here's how.
Start with your list of references in alphabetical order. Be sure you used a line break (probably the Enter key on your keyboard) at the end of each reference.
Use your cursor to highlight your list of references.
From your Paragraph menu select Indents & spacing / Special / Hanging
Click OK and watch the formatting transform.
Start with your list of references in alphabetical order. Be sure you used a line break (probably the Enter key on your keyboard) at the end of each reference.
Use your cursor to highlight your list of references.
From the top menu select Format / Align & Indent / Indentation Options
Under Indentation Options, select Hanging and specify a distance for left margin - .5 inch is good.
Click OK and watch the formatting transform.
Note: a video version of this information will come later.
If you have questions, you can reach out to me (email betsywil@umich.edu). For an immediate response to APA questions you can also Ask a Librarian.