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APA Publication Manual 7th ed.

Citing Web Content

Webpage on a website with a group author

World Health Organization. (2018, March). Questions and answers on immunization and vaccine safety. https://www.who.int/features/qa/84/en/

  • Parenthetical citation: (World Health Organization, 2018)
  • Narrative citation: World Health Organization (2018)

 

Webpage on a website without an individual author

Martin Lillie, C. M. (2016, December 29). Be kind to yourself: How self-compassion can improve your resilience. Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/self-compassion-can-improve-your-resiliency/art-20267193

  • Parenthetical citation: (Martin Lillie, 2016)
  • Narrative citation: Martin Lillie (2016)

 

Webpage on a website with a retrieval date

U.S. Census Bureau. (n.d.). U.S. and world population clock. U.S. Department of Commerce. Retrieved July 3, 2019, from https://census.gov/popclock/

  • Parenthetical citation: (U.S. Census Bureau, n.d.)
  • Narrative citation: U.S. Census Bureau (n.d.)

Items found in an archive can be a little different.  Check out the examples below for guidance about what citations might need to include for these items. 
 

No Title

A letter is not likely to have a title, so instead you substitute a description in brackets in the title position.

Nightingale, F. (1866, July 15). [Letter to Madame Schwabe]. Reynolds-Finley Historical Library. https://uab.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/NIGHTINGALE/id/97

 

Archive's Title

If you think using the title assigned by the library would help, you could put the title the archive has given the document in the title position instead of a description. (Because the library's title identifies the source as being a letter, you do not need to add [Letter] after the title.)

Nightingale, F. (1866, July 15). Florence Nightingale letter to Madame Schwabe, July 15, 1866. Reynolds-Finley Historical Library. https://uab.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/NIGHTINGALE/id/97

  • Parenthetical citation: (Nightingale, 1866)
  • Narrative citation: Nightingale (1866)

 

Multiple Items

Per APA "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."

Nightingale, F. (1853-1893). Correspondence. Florence Nightingale Letters. Reynolds-Finley Historical Library, University of Alabama at Birmingham. http://contentdm.mhsl.uab.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/NIGHTINGALE

  • Parenthetical citation: (Nightingale, 1853-1893, Donald to Nightingale May 4, 1860).
  • Narrative citation: Nightingale (1853-1893, Donald to Nightingale May 4, 1860).

 

Note: Section 10.8 of the 7th edition of the Publication Manual can be used as  template to format items in digital repositories.  The best example to follow is Example 95 on page 346, a radio interview recording in a digital archive.  Example 73, an informal work from an institutional repository, also provides an idea of how the reference could look like.  Additional guidance for for archival documents may be found here: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/archival 

Dictionary, thesaurus, or encyclopedia

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Practice. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved May 5, 2019, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/practice

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

Zalta, E. N.  (2019). Ethics. In The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Summer 2019 ed.). Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/ethics

  • Parenthetical citation: (Zalta, 2019)
  • Narrative citation: Zalta (2019)

Other Interesting Content

Manual for a test, scale, or inventory

Tellegen, A., & Ben-Porath, Y. S. (2011). Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory - 2 Restructure Form (MMPI-2-RF): Technical manual. Pearson.

  • Parenthetical citation: (Tellegen & Ben-Porath, 2011)
  • Narrative citation: Tellegen & Ben-Porath (2011)

 

Test, scale, or inventory itself

Project Implicit. (n.d.). Gender-Science IAT. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

  • Parenthetical citation: (Project Implicit, 2018)
  • Narrative citation: Project Implicit (2018)

Cite the test, scale, or inventory itself only if a manual or other supporting literature is not available to cite; if a manual is available for a test, cite the manual, not the test.

 

Database record for a test

Cardoza, D., Morris, J. K., Myers, H. F., & Rodriguez, N. (2000). Acculturative Stress Inventory (ASI) (TC022704) [Database record]. ETS Testlink.

  • Parenthetical citation: (Cardoza et al., 2018)
  • Narrative citation: Cardoza et al. (2018)

You will cite most guidelines posted through AHRQ and the National Guideline Clearinghouse (guideline.gov) like websites and web reports.  this includes the following details.

  • author
  • year
  • title of the work
  • number identifier for the standard (if any)
  • source

National Environmental Education & Training Foundation. (2005, August). Environmental management of pediatric asthma: Guidelines for health care providers. (475)  http://guideline.gov/content.aspx?id=10019&search=asthma

Note: Guidelines published in a traditional journal, whether in print or online, should be cited as journal articles.

Data Sets

National Center for Education Statistics. (2016). Fast Response Survey System (FRSS): Teachers' use of educational technology in U.S. public schools, 2009 (ICPSR 35531; Version V3) [Data set and code book]. National Archive of Data on Arts and Culture. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR35531.v3

  • Parenthetical citation: (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016)
  • Narrative citation: National Center for Education Statistics (2016)

Pew Research Center. (2018). American trends panel Wave 26 [Data set]. https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/dataset/american-trends-panel-wave-26/

  • Parenthetical citation: (Pew Research Center, 2018)
  • Narrative citation: Pew Research Center (2018)

 

Unpublished raw data

Baer, R. A. (2015). [Unpublished raw data on the correlations between the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills]. University of Kentucky.

Oregon Youth Authority. (2011). Recidivism outcomes [Unpublished raw data].

  • Parenthetical citation: (Baer, 2015; Oregon Youth Authority, 2011)
  • Narrative citation: Baer (2015) and Oregon Youth Authority (2011)

 

Citing Graphic Data

Sometimes you will use a website which allows you to select and compare data. These might be sites from the Census, the CDC, or a site like Nursing Home Compare from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Purdue's OWL site for APA offers recommendations for citing data sets and graphic data. We recommend you combine pieces of these two formats to cite a resource like Nursing Home Compare. This allows you to credit the source and provide your reader with the information needed to retrieve the data you used.  


Example:

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (2013, June 30). [Comparison of Mount Royal Towers and Fairview Health and Rehabilitation Center]. Nursing Home Compare [Data file]. http://www.medicare.gov/nursinghomecompare/

  • Parenthetical citation: (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 2013)
  • Narrative citation: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (2013)

Report by a government agency or other organization

Austrailian Government Productivity Commission & New Zealand Productivity Commission. (2012). Strengthening trans-Tasman economic relations. http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/austrailia-new-zealand/report/trans-tasman.pdf

 

Report by individual authors at a government agency or other organization

Fried, D., & Polyakova, A. (2018). Democratic defense against disinformation. Atlantic Council. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/Democratic_Defence_Against_Disinformation_FINAL.pdf

 

Report by a task force, working group, or other group

British Cardiovascular Society Working Group. (2016). British Cardiovascular Society Working Group report: Out-of-hours cardiovascular care: Management of cardiac emergencies and hospital in-patients. British Cardiovascular Society. http://www.bcs.com/documents/BCSOOHWP_Final_Report_05092016.pdf

  • Capitalize the name of the task force or working group wherever it appears in the reference because it is a proper noun.

 

Annual report

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (2017). Agency financial report: Fiscal year 2017. https://www.sec.gov/files/sec-2017-agency-financial-report.pdf

 

Issue brief

Lichtenstein, J. (2013). Profile of veteran business owners: More young veterans appear to be starting businesses (Issue Brief No. 1). U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy. https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/Issue%20Brief%201,%20Veteran%20Business%20Owners.pdf

  • Issue briefs are typically numbers; identify the number of the brief after the title in parentheses.
  • If a number is not provided, identify the work as an issue brief in square brackets following the title as a notation.