Publication Information

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Introduction

The last part of a citation is the publication information. What information you provide depends on the type of source and what’s available. Here we review the most common options.

Print Sources

Periodicals

For journal articles, provide the periodical title, the volume, the issue number (if available), and the page range:

Kappa, A. B., Middlington, E. & Mooney, P. R. (2016). The non-uniformity of heterogeneous co-ed frat houses. Social Architectonics, 12(4), 99-108.

Here are a few tips:

  • Periodical titles are capitalized using title case.
  • You don’t need to abbreviate periodical titles (unless they already were in your source).
  • The volume number is italicized. The issue number goes in parentheses and is followed by a comma.
  • The page range shows the first and last page number. If the page numbers are discontinuous, use a comma (e.g., 22-33, 58-62).

Books

For books and reports, you no longer have to provide the city of publication. Only the publisher needs to be listed:

Youngblood, A. (1999). Addicted to Facebook and fake news: Studies in gerontology. We The North Press.

Note the following:

  • You can shorten the publisher’s name by corporate abbreviations such as Ltd, and Inc. You should, however, retain Books and Press.
  • If the author and the publisher are the same, leave out the publisher.

Electronic Sources

DOI

For online sources, it’s customary to add a link that allows the reader to retrieve the source.

The default link is a DOI, or Digital Object Identifier:

Rush, N. M., Quick, C. F., & Scamper, A. (2016). The handwriting of psychology students analyzed through the notation of the ampersand in final exams. The Psychic Calligraphist, 22(1), 1-18, https://doi.org/10.1241/1487.983cbb

Please see our page on DOIs for a more detailed explanation of how to cite a DOI correctly.

URL

If no DOI is available, you can provide a URL:

Carbuncle, R. D. (2015, February 2). How to fake a fake smile. The Chicago Tribunal. https://www.chicagotribunal.com/fake-url

You do not have to add “Retrieved from” or “Accessed from” before the URL.

Before you hand in your essay, double check that any hyperlinks still work.

For more information about citing publication information, please read pp. 293-301 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.).