Tutorial: Creating an APA Style Article Citation
Channel: CSB/SJU Libraries
Date: 03/09/2021

Transcript: In this video, you’ll learn how to create a citation for a scholarly article in APA format. An article citation is made of several common elements, which include the article authors, article title, journal title, publication year, journal volume and issue numbers, page numbers, and DOI.

A citation will start with the authors. List the authors in the order they are found on the paper, with the last name, a comma, and the first and middle initials, each with a period and a space between, followed by a comma before the next author. If there are between 2 and 20 authors, put an ampersand before the last author. If there are more than 20 authors, list the first 19 authors, put an ellipsis (3 periods), and then list the last author. When using an ellipsis, do not use an ampersand.

After you list the authors, you will add the year of publication in parenthesis followed by a period. Next you list the title of the article. The article title should use sentence case, meaning only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized. If there is a colon in the title, the first word after the colon is also capitalized. End the article title with a period.

   Add the title of the Journal that published the article. The Journal Title should be italicized and in title case, meaning the first and all words with more than 3 letters are capitalized. The Journal Title is followed by a comma and a space. 

Next, list the journal Volume number, which is also italicized. The journal issue number goes after the volume number in parenthesis and is NOT italicized. The issue number (or volume number, if there is no issue number) is followed by a comma and then the page numbers, which have a period after them. Some electronic-only journals will have an article number rather than page numbers, which you should list here.

The final element of the citation is the DOI, or Digital Object Identifier. It will start with https://doi.org/ followed by the DOI assigned to your article. 

Now that you know the elements and format of an APA citation, I will show you where to locate each element in both the Web of Science and PubMed databases.

When you click on a title from the list of search results in Web of Science, you’ll see the record page for an article. At the top of the page is the Article Title. This is followed by the list of authors, in the order they should be listed in your citation. Below the authors, you will see the Journal Title above the journal’s volume number, issue number, and page numbers. The DOI is listed next, and finally you’ll see the publication date.

Now let’s see how we combine these elements to create our citation. First you list the authors, then the publication year. Next is the article title. Next comes the Journal title.  This is followed by the Journal volume number. The Journal title and volume are both italicized. Next is the issue number and page numbers. Finally, end your citation with the DOI, which always starts with http://doi.org/ even if the prefix isn’t listed in the database.

Next we’ll take a look at an article record in PubMed, where the citation elements are arranged a bit differently than in Web of Science. The first thing listed in the PubMed record is the abbreviated Journal Title. You’ll want to hover over this to see the full Journal Title, which you’ll need for your APA citation. This is followed by the publication date, the volume number, issue number, page numbers, and DOI. Under this information you’ll see the article title. Under the title are the article authors listed in the order they should appear in your citation. 

You can put these elements together by hand to create your citation, or you can use PubMed’s built-in Cite tool. To use the cite tool, click the blue Cite button, change the format to APA, and copy the citation. However, you will need to proofread and make corrections to the auto-generated citation. For example, the capitalization in the article title and journal title are incorrect.

You can find more information about how to generate an APA citation on the Library website. Click on the Citation Help link, where you’ll find links to the official APA manual, a physical book found in both libraries, as well as the Purdue Owl guide to APA citations, which is an authoritative online citation guide. If you still have questions, reach out to a librarian, the writing center, or your professor.