How to Format an APA Reference List
The reference list is where readers go to verify your sources, so APA defines its format carefully. The entries and the page layout each have rules, and the seventh edition simplified several of them. Here is what a correct APA References page looks like.
Page setup
- Begin the references on a new page after the main text.
- Centre and bold the word References at the top.
- Double-space the entire list.
- Use a hanging indent of half an inch for every entry.
The order of elements
A standard APA entry follows the pattern author, date, title, source. The author comes first with the surname and initials, then the year in parentheses, then the title, then where it was published.
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the work. Publisher.
Garcia, M. (2021). Memory and attention. Academic Press.
Capitalisation and italics
APA uses sentence case for titles of books and articles, which means you capitalise only the first word, the first word after a colon, and any proper nouns. Italicise book and journal titles but not article titles. These rules trip up students coming from MLA, which uses a different capitalisation style.
Ordering and repeated authors
Alphabetise the list by the author’s surname. For several works by the same author, order them by year, earliest first. When there is no author, move the title into the author position and alphabetise by it. For sources with a DOI, include it as a full link at the end of the entry.
Our APA generator applies the capitalisation and ordering rules for you. Generate each entry, paste it into your double-spaced page, and apply the hanging indent through your word processor’s paragraph settings.