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APA Guide: Electronic Sources

A guide to writing papers and citing sources in American Psychological Association style.

Formatting

For a References page, your citations need to be double spaced and have a hanging indent. A hanging indent just means that every line after the first in your citation is indented 0.5". 

In Microsoft Word (PC or Mac), highlight your citation and right click on it. Select "Paragraph" in the menu that appears, then under "Indentation" click on the Special drop down and select "Hanging". Make sure the "By" field is set to 0.5".

Important Elements for Citation of Electronic Sources

Try and find as many of the following as possible when you wish to cite an electronic source, especially a web page or other source that may not provide an easy citation.

  • Author and/or editor names
  • Article title
  • Website/project title
  • Version information- editions, revision dates, posting dates, volume or issue numbers
  • Publisher information- this may include a university, government agency, or research group.
  • Page or paragraph numbers
  • URL, DOI, or permalink
  • Date you accessed the material

Webpages

Webpages and online documents use a similar citation format to print sources.  If a document, describe the format at the end of the title.

Lastname, F. M. (Year, Month Date). Title of page. Site name. URL

Price, D. (2018, March 23). Laziness does not exist. Medium. https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01

If the resource was written by a group or organization, use the name of the group/organization as the author. Additionally, if the author and site name are the same, omit the site name from the citation.

Group name. (Year, Month Date). Title of page. Site name. URL

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. (2019, November 21). Justice served: Case closed for over 40 dogfighting victimshttps://www.aspca.org/news/justice-served-case-closed-over-40-dogfighting-victims

If no author is listed, start with the title. Use (n.d.) if no date of publication is listed.

Title of page. (Year, Month Date). Site name. Retrieved Month Date, Year, from URL

Tuscan white bean pasta. (2018, February 25). Budgetbytes. Retrieved March 18, 2020, from https://www.budgetbytes.com/tuscan-white-bean-pasta/

Include a date of access when the page's content is likely to change- a developing news story, a publicly edited source like a wiki, or a social media profile, for example.

YouTube Videos

Online videos follow a similar format to citing from other webpages and web sites. However, you will use the creator's screen name as the author's name- even if you know the author's real name, using the screen name allows your readers to more easily find the video. Spell and capitalized the screen name exactly as it appears with the video. 

Last Name, F. M. [Username]. (Year, Month Date). Title of video [Video]. Streaming Service. URL

Lushi, K. [Korab Lushi]. (2016, July 3). Albatross culture 1 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AMrJRQDPjk&t=148s

 

Podcasts

Provide as much information as possible when citing a podcast. If the primary name associated with the podcast is not the author, provide an additional identifier with the name. Identifiers can include Producer and Director.

Host, A. A. (Host). (Year, Month Date). Title of episode (No. if provided) [Audio podcast episode]. In Name of podcast. Publisher. URL

Prime, K. (Host). (2019, March 29). For whom the cowbell tolls [Audio podcast episode]. In Radiolab. WNYC Studios. https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/whom-cowbell-tolls

Online Correspondence

E-mail: You do not need to cite an email in your reference list, but if you refer to it in your paper, provide an in-text citation including the sender's name: (E. Robbins, personal communication, January 4, 2001).

Forum and Discussion Board Postings: 

Lastname, F. M. or Name of Group [username]. (Year, Month Date). Title of post [Online forum post]. Publisher. URL

Stine, R. L. [RL__Stine]. (2013, October 23). I’m R.L. Stine and it’s my job to terrify kids. Ask me anything! [Online forum post]. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1p32dl/

 

Tweet

To cite a tweet, include the username, date of tweet, full text of tweet followed by [Tweet], and the URL.

Lastname, F. M. or Name of Group [@username]. (Year, Month Date). Content of the post up to the first 20 words[Tweet]. Site Name. URL

 

All examples on this page taken from Purdue Online Writing Lab (https://owl.purdue.edu)