Citation Styles by Discipline: Social Sciences

Most of the social sciences (psychology, sociology, education, etc.) use APA style for citations and formatting. APA style is currently in its 7th edition.

General APA in-text citations follow this pattern:

(Author, Year of publication).

To cite an online journal article in a reference entry in APA 7th edition include the following elements:

1. Author(s) of the article: Give the last name and initials (e. g. Watson, J. D.) of up to 20 authors with the last name preceded by an ampersand (&). For 21 or more authors include the first 19 names followed by an ellipsis (…) and add the last author's name.
2. Year of publication: Give the year in brackets followed by a full stop.
3. Title of the research article: Only the first letter of the first word and proper nouns are capitalized.
4. Title of periodical: Give the full, non-abbreviated title of the periodical in title case. It should also be italicized.
5. Volume number: The volume number is also italicized.
6. Issue number: For journals that are paginated by issue give the issue number in brackets.
7. Page numbers: Give the full page range.
8. DOI or URL: Include the digital object identifier (DOI) as a hyperlink starting with 'https://doi.org/'. If no DOI can be found, include the URL that directly links to the cited work.

To cite a book in a reference entry in APA 7th edition include the following elements:

1. Author(s) of the book: Give the last name and initials (e. g. Watson, J. D.) of up to 20 authors with the last name preceded by an ampersand (&). For 21 or more authors include the first 19 names followed by an ellipsis (…) and add the last author's name.
2. Year of publication: Give the year in brackets followed by a full stop.
3. Title of the book: Book titles are italicized. Only the first letter of the first word and proper nouns are capitalised.
4. Edition number: Include information about the edition if it is not the first.
5. Publisher: Give the name of the publisher but omit terms, such as Publishers, Co., and Inc. Retain the words Books and Press.
6. DOI: Include the DOI, if available.

To cite a webpage in a reference entry in APA 7th edition include the following elements:

1. Author(s) of the webpage: Give the last name and initials (e. g. Watson, J. D.) of up to 20 authors with the last name preceded by an ampersand (&). For 21 or more authors include the first 19 names followed by an ellipsis (…) and add the last author's name.
2. Date of publication: Give the year, month and day in brackets followed by a full stop, e.g. (2019, June 13).
3. Title of the webpage: Give the title of the specific webpage an italicize.
4. Title of the website: Give the official title of the website.
5. URL: Give the full URL of the web page including the protocol (http:// or https://).

APA Citation Guide 
This guide provides a detailed overview of APA style.

APA Citation Guides 
This website is organized by source type and provides details about, and examples of, correct APA citations.

What Citation Style to Use for Sociology 
This article discusses the major citation styles used in sociology.

APA Style
The official APA Style website from the American Psychological Association.

Purdue OWL APA Guide
This highly regarded APA resource is from the Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University.

The ultimate guide to citing in APA
This guide provides detailed information on creating citations in APA style.