APA Citation: Reference List

• Books
• Articles
• Webpages & Websites
• Reports & Gray Literature
• Class or Course Materials
• Reference Materials (encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc.)

• VCC Style Guide to APA  (PDF)
• Reference Examples (APA Style)
• Reference List: Basic Rules (Purdue University)
• Four Elements of a Reference (Douglas College)
• Further Examples

What is a DOI? A digital object identifier (DOI) is an article’s permanent online location. The DOI usually appears at the top of the article or in the database record for the article.

It serves two purposes:

1. It's an article identifier. It's meant to give a recognizable identity to each online resource (e.g., a journal article).
2. It's a type of web link. In fact, it's a type of permanent link, meaning that it's not meant to change. That's different than regular web addresses, which sometimes go offline or get changed during website maintenance or web programming.

Example: http://doi.org/10.25101/19.2

Learn more

Overview

The reference list is a list of all sources cited in your APA paper. Each in-text citation should have a corresponding reference list entry. All APA reference list entries contain four main components: Author, Date, Title, Source.

Below is a diagram of where to find the four main components ( Author, Date, Title, Source) of an APA reference entry for a journal article:

How to Get Started: 

• Create the reference list on a separate page at the end of your paper with the title References, centered and bolded.
• References should be in alphabetical order and double spaced.
• Your reference list should be intended with a hanging indent. This means the second line onwards of each citation is indented 0.5 inch. Word processing programs such as Microsoft Word and Google Docs have tools for inserting a hanging indent.

The APA Style website provides sample papers including a reference list.