APA 7th Citation Guide

If you found a journal article in a print journal, i.e. a hardcopy of the journal, then cite it following the print journal guidelines and examples. This includes the times you find the abstract in an electronic database but obtained the full article in print.

General Guidelines

• Ensure your punctuation is correct

  • Journal article title: Write the title of the journal article in sentence case, like as one writes a sentence, i.e. the first word starts with a capital letter, and the rest is in lower case, except for proper nouns, abbreviations, and acronyms. Begin subheadings with a capital letter. ​​​Find out more about sentence case in the link below.
  • Journal title: In italics and in title case, i.e. all of the main words, not stop words and minor words, like 'a',  'of', and, etc. e.g. Educational Leadership and Administration: Teaching and Program Development. Find out more about title case in the link below.

• Ensure your formatting is correct
  • ​Follow our red format structure and view our examples in black. E.g. For the elements of the reference we have italicized, you also italicize that same element in your reference.

• For specific guidelines for different types of journal articles
  • ​Consult our eJournal articles page for guidelines and examples, and don't include any DOI.

Format

Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of the article in sentence case. Title of Journal in Headline Case, volume(issue #), page #-page #. 

Examples

Brookfield, S. (1985). A critical definition of adult education. Adult Education Quarterly, 36(1), 44-49.

Davis, T. F. (1937). Early orange culture in Florida and the Epocal Cold of 1835. The Florida Historical Quarterly, 15(4), 232-241.

Citing In-Text: Example of one of the references

(Davis, 1937) OR Davis (1937)

For more detailed guidelines on in-text citations go to our Citing In-Text tab.

For more information and examples on how to reference journal articles, including for types not yet covered here, consult the following section in the APA 7th Publication Manual:

Section 10.1 Periodicals, 1 - 14.

Augusta University provides free access to EndNote citation management tool students, faculty, and staff.

If you use EndNote to input your references, then choose the reference type underneath. If you export or import your citations, then check that EndNote automatically categorized them to the below reference type. Edit the reference type if it is incorrect.  

Reference Type: Journal Article