5 Simple Rules of APA Bibliography Format

5 Simple Rules of APA Bibliography Format

Every research paper must include a bibliography at the end. Bibliography provides information about the sources that have been used in composing the paper. Writing a bibliography in one particular format makes it easy to read and understand. The two common styles used for writing a bibliography include the MLA style and the APA style. This article presents information about the APA bibliography format.

Papers related to social sciences use APA style for presenting the bibliography.

List of APA citation rules to be followed:

APA Rule 1:

Start the bibliography after completing the entire research paper. Always start the bibliography in new page. Before giving the list of references, include a title “References” and center it.

APA Rule 2:

APA bibliography format demands you to alphabetize all the listings. Alphabetical listing is done on the basis of the author’s last name. Each and every letter is used during the ordering. For example, if you have two authors with last name as Martin and Marsh then Marsh would come first followed by Martin. If the author name is missing for any particular entry then order it using the title. However, ignore common words such as An, A and The.

APA Rule 3:

If any listing is more than one line, indent the second line about half inch from the first line. Remember to start the first line at the beginning of the left border. General order used for giving any listing in the APA bibliography is the author last name, initial, date of publication, title of the work, any additional information, place of publication and lastly the name of the publishing company.

APA  Rule 4:

While using APA bibliography format, one has to be very careful about capitalization of letters. Only the first word of a title and subtitle should be capitalized as per the APA style rules. The title should be given in italics. If you are writing with hand, the title should be underlined.

APA Rule 5:

Punctuations should be used very carefully in APA style. It is strictly prohibited to use quotations for quoting smaller works within the larger works. If more than one author is associated with a particular work, they have to be separated by a comma and an ampersand sign (&) have to be used before giving the last name. In case of more than six authors, only the first author name is stated and the word et al. is used for rest of the authors. In APA bibliography format date of publication of the work should be given in parenthesis and a period should be placed after closing the parenthesis.

Here is a very simple example that presents all the five rules stated above.

Nicholas, P.T., & Mary, D. (2006). A simple diet guide. Washington, DC: American Press.

Here Nicholas is the last name of the author; P and T are the initials. It can be seen that the last name and initials are separated by comma. Mary is the second author separated from the first author with &. The author name is immediately followed by year of publication and is enclosed in parenthesis. The name of the work “A simple diet guide” is given in italics with only the first word capitalized. The place of publication and the publishing company are separated by a colon.

The above five rules are used for quoting books in APA bibliography format.