How to reference journals, printed and
electronic, in APA?
Professional journals are often excellent sources to add
credibility to your writing.
Here is the information you need to reference
journals in your work: author's name,
article title, journal name, year of
publication, volume, issue, page numbers,
the URL, or DOI for electronically accessed journals.
What is a DOI?
A DOI or Digital Object Identifier, is a character string
that identifies an electronically stored source.
It is more stable than a URL and
is therefore a preferred way of making
reference to the source in academic writing.
Here is an example of a DOI.
Where can you find the above information?
For printed journals, you will find most
of the information on the cover and
within the contents page.
For electronic journals, you should click in the
appropriate link.
For the Journal of Applied Psychology, for example, you click
on the link, View Table of Contents and
Online First Publication.
How to create your journal entry in the reference list?
Put the family name first, followed by a
comma, and the initials followed by full
stops; then, insert the year in brackets,
followed by a full stop; then insert the
article titles, and subtitles, if any,
followed by a full stop.
Insert a colon between the title and
any subtitle.
It is important to note that
only the first letter of the title is
capitalised, and any proper nouns or acronyms;
then insert the name of the
journal title in italics, with each word
capitalised and the volume number also in italics;
note that for grammar words
like articles, prepositions, auxiliary
verbs, etc., you should not capitalise.
Then, add the issue number, in brackets.
This is not in italics.
Then insert the page
numbers of the articles, followed by a
full stop. If the article is from an
electronic version of the journal, you
then add the DOI or URL.
Remember to indent the second and subsequent lines
of your end of text reference list.
I hope you've found this video useful, and for
more information on APA referencing,
click on the link below.
