Academic Writing Resources Guide

APA Formatting Rules

• Entries should be organized alphabetically by the first author.
• The second line of each entry should be indented, and you do this by using hanging indentation. To learn how to do this, click on the video below.
• An author's name should include their last name and first and middle initial. 
• For volumes where every issue begins with page one, make sure you include the issue number in parentheses. Ex: 44(6)
• For volumes where issues continue the numeration from the previous issue (ex. issue 1 contains pages 1-150, issue 2 contains pages 151-300), you do not have to include the issue.
• When there are multiple works by the same author, you organize entries chronologically with the earliest entry first. 
• The journal or book title needs to be italicized. 
• Only the first word of the title and subtitle should be capitalized, the rest should be lower case.
• APA uses full journal titles, not title abbreviations used in other citation styles like AMA.