APSA Citation Generator With Complete Guide and Referencing Tips

One Author

In most in-text citations, the author’s last name and publishing date are used.

If the source has page numbers and you’re quoting something directly, include a relevant number into parenthesis.

To form a clearer understanding, let’s see an example of the American Political Science Association citation. If you introduce an author in a sentence, this is how it should look like.

If the author’s name doesn’t feature in the text but the quote is there, form sentence like this, placing all information into parenthesis only.

If no direct quotes are present, follow the same model but remove page numbers unless your professor asked to include them in particular.

Two Authors

Apply a similar system when you need to cite publications with two authors. Last names and dates are used, and page numbers are included in the case of direct quotes. The only difference is, put a conjunction “and” between two names. Here’s an example.

3-5 Authors

Same rules apply if there are between three to five authors. List all names, either in text or in parenthesis, and add a conjunction before the last name.

Six and More Authors

For more than 5 authors, put “et al.” after the first name.

Organization as an Author

To avoid mistakes in citing organizations as authors, using the APSA reference generator is the best option, but if you have to format everything manually, just make sure to learn how the organization is called. Then, treat it like you would an author in previous examples.

Unknown Author

In these cases, start citations with the title of your source. For example, if you’re citing an article with no author, entitled “Homophobia Can Go No Further”, use it where last name would be.

Authors with the Same Last Name

For authors who share last name, just add their first names’ initials.

For example:

Several Works by One Author in the Same Year

With such an intricate issue, even the APSA citation machine won’t help because it doesn’t know whether you’ve already mentioned this author’s work, which was published in the same year, or not. So, you have to do it manually, but no worries, everything’s simple! Add lowercase letters to publication dates alphabetically. For the first work, use this model:

For the second one, change letters:

Multiple Sources in One Citation

To indicate several sources at once, which is particularly relevant in literature reviews, list all names like you would normally do with one author and separate sources with semicolon.

Electronic Sources

Regardless of university standards, you’ll have to rely on electronic sources occasionally. In APSA citation style, there is no difference between online and published materials when it comes to in-text citations. Just mention author and date combination like in all examples above.

Unknown Date

When no date is visible, use author’s or organization’s name and put n.d. after them.

Books

Books’ titles must be in italics. You need author’s full first and last name, as well as source’s date, title, and publishing house. Some APSA paper format requires the mention of state where this publishing house is located, so clarify this stuff with university professor beforehand. Look at this example.

For referencing books with more than one author, apply the rules pointed out in the in-text citations section and/or see below.

Articles

Articles can be from scholarly journals and popular magazines and their titles must always be in quotation marks. The name of journals and magazines must be in italics. For journal articles, apart from author’s names, date, and title, add volume, issue, and page range.

For articles from magazines, the rules are similar, only you have to add a more exact date of when article was published.

Electronic Websites

Here, add link to site and date when you accessed it.

YouTube Video

Everything is identical here: simply take name of person who uploaded video, its date and title, and mention date of access.

Movie

APSA reference machine will need all information about your movie, so mention directors, date of release, movie title (which should be in italics), and studio.

Case Citations

Mention plaintiff, appellant, volume number, collection title, page number of court’s decision, as well as date.

Twitter

Point out author’s name, type of message, date, time, and link to the tweet.