Lawrence V.
Johnson Library
APA Style Guide: Citing Periodicals
A periodical is a work which is published on a regular basis. The most important types of periodical are scholarly journals, popular magazines, and newspapers. Examples of reference citations for other types of periodical may be found beginning on page 239 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2002).
Elements of a Citation
The basic elements of a periodical article citation are:
Author. (Date). Title of article. Title of periodical, volume no., pages.
Each element ends with a period.
The names of all authors are given last name first, then initials of the first name and middle name, if given. Separate the names of multiple authors with commas, and place an ampersand (&) before the name of the last author. The names of multiple authors are always given in the order given in the source.
If there is no author given, the title of the article is the first element in the citation. Do not use "Anonymous." Use "Anonymous" as an author only if it is specifically given in place of an author.
The year of publication is given in parentheses.
- For articles from scholarly journals, the year is all that is required.
- For articles from popular monthly publications, give the year, followed by a comma, and the month.
- For daily and weekly publications, give the year, followed by a comma, then the month and day. Do not abbreviate months.
- If an article has been accepted for publication but not yet published, use "in press" in place of the date. Do not attempt to give an expected date of publication.
- If no date is given, use "n.d." in place of the date.
Article titles are neither placed within quotation marks nor italicized. Only the first word of the title and any proper nouns are capitalized. Enclose information describing the form of the article in square brackets following the article title. Most article types do not require this information. The most common form indications are [Book review], [Letter to the editor], and [Abstract].
Periodical Title and Publication Information
The publication information for periodical articles includes the volume number, issue number, and pages of the article.
- The title of the periodical is italicized and is given in upper and lowercase characters, just as it appears on the publication.
- Do not abbreviate any part of the title.
- Do not attempt to spell out titles or parts of titles which are given as abbreviations on the publication. For example, Ms. Magazine and Inc. Magazine should be given in their abbreviated forms.
- The volume number is given in italics without "vol.," "volume," or similar label.
- Many scholarly journals number pages continuously throughout an annual volume, rather than beginning each issue with page 1. For these journals, do not give an issue number.
- If a periodical begins each issue with page 1, give the issue number in parentheses immediately following the volume number.
- If you don't know whether a journal pages continuously throughout the volume -- when you read an article from a GALILEO database, for example -- it's safer to include the issue number unless the page numbers are so high that it is unlikely that that the issue the article came from began at page 1.
- If a periodical does not use volume numbers, be sure that you give the month, season, or other issue designation with the date.
- Use commas following the periodical title and volume number (or issue number, if you give one).
Scholarly Journal Paged Continuously | Scholarly Journal Beginning Each Issue With Page 1 | Popular Magazine | Newspaper | No Author Given | Book Review | Letter to the Editor
The reference list in your paper must be double-spaced with the first line flush with the left margin and second and later lined indented to the first tab stop. Such formatting is difficult to do on a web page, so the examples are given single-spaced without indentation.
Scholarly Journal Paged Continuously
Sharpe, S. A. (2002). Reexamining stock valuation and inflation: the implications of analysts'
earnings forecasts. Review of Economics and Statistics, 84, 632-648.Scholarly Journal Beginning Each Issue With Page 1
Duran, J. (2001). Naturalism and mannerism in Indian miniatures. Journal of Aesthetic
Education, 35(4), 57-63.Noonan, P. (2002, September/October). The light-hearted president. Saturday Evening
Post, 274, 54-55.Ippolito, M. (2002, May 23). Zoning categories to promote 'new urbanism' projects.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution [Home edition], p. JN1.Fire marshalls losing office; some say cuts hurt inquiries. (2003, September 20). New
York Times, p. B3.Arensen, E. (2002). American crucible: race and nation in the twentieth century, by Gary
Gerstle [Book review]. Journal of American History, 89, 191-193.Pentreath, R. J. (2002, November 15). Looking at the future of radioecology [Letter
to the editor]. Science, 298, 1333-1334.
At present, most of the electronic articles that you read are duplicates of printed sources. Therefore, you should cite them as you would the printed articles, adding a form notation [Electronic version] in square brackets after the article title.
Ellis, K. (2002). Medieval panorama [Electronic version]. Library Journal, 127(1), 96-97.If you have some reason to suspect that the electronic version has been modified from the print in some way, you should add the date you retrieved the article and its URL. Some indications that the electronic version is different include:
Journal-Constitution. Retrieved December 9, 2002 from
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/news/1202/08iraq.html.Use this same format for an article from an online journal which has no print equivalent.
Beige, A., Braun, D., & Knight, P. L. (2000). Driving atoms into decoherence-
free states. New Journal of Physics, 2, Article 22. Retrieved December 9,
2002 from http://www.iop.org/EJ/S/1/NSO841052/
VUaSDlvpHWu1.gClxPwFDw/article/1367-2630/2/1/ 322/nj0122.html.
August 1, 2005
Lawrence V. Johnson Library
Southern Polytechnic State University
Southern Polytechnic State University, 1100 S. Marietta Parkway, Marietta, GA 30060-2896
