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Are you writing an essay or do you have an assignment that requires the use of APA citations in your reference list?

Whether you've never heard of APA citations or you're just looking to brush up on your skills, this page will help walk you through creating an APA citation in your reference list, specifically for an online scholarly journal article.

While there are many details to remember while creating citations, especially when you're juggling several different kinds of sources, we have tried to describe the process for creating a journal article citation entry in a way that is as straightforward as possible.

Hopefully this page can serve as a resource for you to come back to if you need to consult the APA citation template for a scholarly journal article.

To begin, we should set up our Reference List.

The reference list should always begin on a new page.

Title your reference list References. This should be centered at the top of your page.

Make sure you are using Times New Roman font and your size is set to 12.



Now, let's have a look at the template we're going to follow as we create our APA citation:



All of the information you will need in this template can be found in the scholarly journal article you have chosen.

For illustration purposes, we're going to walk you through an example article so that you can learn where to find each component of your APA citation.

Not all journal articles display the information in the same way. You may have to look harder for some components of the citation in certain articles.

The example article we will be using, however, makes it fairly easy to find the information we need. Let's get started!

Step 1: Author/Authors

As we can see in our template, the first thing we need to do is list the author or authors.



Let's look at our article to locate the author(s).



As we can see, the authors listed are Most, Wiesel and Blitzer.

In our reference list, we are going to list the authors by last name, then first initial, and then middle initial.

This article does not include the authors' middle initials, so therefore, we are just going to list them by last name and first initial:

Last Name, First Initial.

Each author's name should be separated by a period and a comma.

The final author's name should be followed by only a period.

If you have two or more authors, the last two authors should be separated by an ampersand (&).

Here is what the first part of our citation should look like:



Step 2: Year

Now our template wants us to find the year that the article was published.



Let's go back to our article to find the year for our reference list:



As we can see, the year this article was published was 2007.

We will put this in our reference list right after the authors. Make sure you put the year in parentheses and type a period after it.



Step 3: Title of Article

According to our template, the next task is to find the title of the article.



The title is one of the simpler components of our citation to find. If we go back to the article, you should see the title is fairly easy to spot.

It should be large and obvious, and it is probably what drew you to the article in the first place!



In this case, the title of our article is Identity and Attitudes towards Cochlear Implant Among Deaf and Hard of Hearing Adolescents.

Let's go ahead and type that into our reference list.



Type a period after you have entered in the title.

Step 4: Title of Journal

Our next step is to find the title of the journal that the article was published in. Here's another look at our template:



If we look at our article, we can locate the journal name at the top of our screen, here:

For this article, the name of the journal is Deafness & Education International. When we type in the name of the journal into our reference list, we need to use italics.



Type a comma after the title of the journal. Be sure you are still using italics.

Step 5: Volume

If we consult our template, we will see that the next step to our citation is the volume of the journal in which the article was published.



Let's revisit our article to locate the volume, here:



As we can see, the volume we are going to enter into our reference list is 9.

All we are going to type for this part of the citation is simply the volume number. Do not write "volume" before the number. Also, make sure you are still using italics for the volume number.

Here is what it should look like:



After we have typed in the volume, we are no longer using italics.

Step 6: Issue

The next step, according to our template, is to find the issue.



The issue can usually be found next to or near the volume. Here is where we located it in our example article:



The issue in our article is 2.

In our reference list, we need to enter this number directly after the volume number. Do not put a space between them. The issue number goes in a set of parentheses directly next to the volume.

Make sure you are no longer using italics. Starting at the opening parenthesis, you should stop using italics.



After you have entered in the issue within a set of parentheses, type a comma.

Step 7: Page Numbers

We're getting close! Our next step is to find the page numbers.



In our example article, we can find the page numbers underneath the authors' names.



As we can see, the page numbers in this article are 68-82.

Let's enter the page numbers into our reference list citation, like this:



After typing in the page numbers, type a comma.

Step 7: DOI

This is our last step regarding the content in our citation! Our final step is to find the DOI, or Digital Object Identifier.



In your article, you should either see a link or a string of numbers labeled DOI. In this case, we have a link. We're going to copy the numbers at the end of the link, beginning with the 1, and paste this into our reference list.



After the page numbers in our reference list, we are going to type in DOI in all capital letters, followed by a colon and a space. It is after this space that we will paste the numbers that we copied from the article.



Congratulations! We have made it through our citation.

There is one last thing we need to do in terms of formatting.

Every line after the first line in our citation needs to be indented by half an inch. Put your cursor at the beginning of the second line in your citation and press enter.

Then, drag the triangle in your ruler (left indent) half an inch to the right. If you did it correctly, it should look like this:



Now our citation is complete!

Hopefully this gave you a better idea of how to craft an APA citation for a scholarly journal article.

Remember, if you used a different kind of source, your citation will not look exactly like this.

If you're interested in a step-by-step walk-through on how to create an APA citation for a scholarly journal article, check out this video:


     

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