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Bibliography according to APA style, 7th edition

Reproduced and adapted with the permission of Polytechnique Montréal Library.

A reference must provide the name of the authors, the year, the title and information on the source.  
The APA style, by the American Psychological Association, is a bibliographic style used in many fields of study.
Always verify with your professor if he or she has any other bibliographic style requirement.

Author(s)

An author may be : an individual, multiple people, a group (institution, government, organizations, etc.) or a combination of people and groups.

  • One author : Last name of the author comes first, folllowed by the initial(s) and a period.
    • Lapierre, L. 
    • Ross, S. A. 
  • Multiple authors : All the authors (up to and including 20) appear in the same order as on the document. An ampersand (&) is used between the last two authors.
    • Lapierre, L., & Jacob, R.
    • Lapierre, L., Aubé, C., Jacob, R., Bareil, C., Ostiguy, M.-C., Simon, L., & Mesny, A.
    • Eaton, W. M., Burnham, M., Hinrichs, C. C., Selfa, T., Archambault, A., Giroux, L., Babakus, E., Gaal, I., Uberti, B., Ma, C., Wachtel, H. K., Terrazas, M., Zabaleta, F., Aaronson, S. A., Fabi, B., Trift, M., Paas, F., Codère, J.-F., Laurell, A. C., & Lapierre, L.
  • Multiple authors, more than 20 : Include the first 19 authors' names, insert an ellipsis, and then add the final author's name.
    • Eaton, W. M., Burnham, M., Hinrichs, C. C., Selfa, T., Archambault, A., Giroux, L., Babakus, E., Gaal, I., Uberti, B., Ma, C., Wachtel, H. K., Terrazas, M., Zabaleta, F., Aaronson, S. A., Fabi, B., Trift, M., Paas, F., Codère, J.-F., Laurell, A. C., ... Zoccali, R.
  • No author : Substitute the title for the author.
    • Management and the Economy. (2012) New York:  McGraw-Hill Irwin.
  • Several documents written by the same author(s): list the references chronologically, with the earliest document first and the most recent one last.
    • Leclerc, M., & Allen, L. (1999). Title 1...
    • Leclerc, M., & Allen, L. (2005). Title 2...
  • Collective work: Usually, the document is a collection of texts by various authors and the editor could also be one of the authors. An editor is a person who prepares the contents of a document to be published. Add (Ed.) after the editor (or "Eds." if multiple editors).
    • Lapierre, L. (Ed.)
    • Lapierre, L., Aubé, C., & Réal, J. (Eds.)
  • Anonymous : use if, and only if, the works is signed "Anonymous".
    • Anonymous. (2017).

Year

The year refers to the year of publication. Do not provide a year in the reference if the document is not published yet.

  • The year appears after the authors, in parentheses and followed by a period.
    • Lapierre, L. (2001).
  • If there is no year, use “n.d.” in parentheses, which means “no date”.
    • Lapierre, L. (n.d.).
  • If the document is about to be published, use "in press".
    • Lapierre. L. (in press).
  • If several documents written by the same author(s) were published the same year : List the references in alphabetical order by title. Place a lowercase letter (a, b,c, etc.) after the year to distinguish them.
    • Zhang, Y. (2010a).
    • Zhang, Y. (2010b).
  • If the reference category includes the month, day, and/or season (newspaper article), put the year first, followed by a comma, and then the month and date or season.
    • Lapierre, L. (2001, August 26).

Retrieval Dates

  • Provide a retrieval date in the source element for a work that is likely or meant to change.

Title

  • Only the first letter of the title (and subtitle, if applicable) is capitalized.
  • For works that stand alone (books, reports, web page, etc.) italicize the title, and use the sentence case.
    • Concise guide to APA style.
  • For works that are part of a greater whole (journal articles, book chapters, etc.), do not italicize the title, and capitalize it using sentence case.
    • The virtue gap in humor: Exploring benevolent and corrective humor.
  • For book and report references, enclose in parentheses after the title any additional information (edition, report number, volume number, etc.). Do not add a period between the title and the parenthetical information.
    • The virtue gap in humor: Exploring benevolent and corrective humor (2nd ed.).
  • Use bracketed descriptions to help identify works outside the peer-reviewed academic literature.
    • Comprehensive meta-analysis [Computer software].

Source element

The source indicates where readers can retrieve the cited work. Items vary depending on the type of document.
The source elements are separated by a comma and the period ends the reference.

Here is the information that must be provided for the source : 

Article : journal, volume(number), pages of the article. DOI (if available).

  • Journal title in italics
  • Volume in italics
  • Number in parenthesis, just after volume (with no space in between)
  • Page range: x-xx
  • Finish the periodical information part of the source element with a period, followed by a DOI, if applicable

Edited book chapter and Reference work: In editor (Ed.), book title (edition, page range). Publisher.

  • Book title in italics preceded by "In"
  • Editor of the collective work followed by "Ed." (or "Eds." if multiple). Initials and surnames are not inverted.
  • Page range in parentheses
  • If present, put the edition in addition to page numbers
  • Publisher
  • For a reference work with a group author, do not repeat the group author name in the source element when the publisher is the same as the author
  • Finish the periodical information part of the source element with a period, followed by a DOI, if applicable