When citing articles in APA style, your citation should follow one of the basic formats below.
Article with a DOI
A DOI, or digital object identifier, is a unique string of numbers and letters associated with an online publication. You can use DOIs to easily find a journal article. You can learn more in our guide to finding a DOI.
As is common in APA format, write the title of the article in “sentence case.” In other words, capitalize only the first letter, any proper nouns, and the first letter of a subtitle (after a colon).
Author Last Name, First Initial. Middle Initial. (Year). Title of article. Title of periodical, volume(issue), pages #-#. DOI
Nemenzo, F. (2016). Misadventures in political science. Philippine Political Science Journal, 37(1), 63-66. https://doi.org/10.1080/01154451.2016.1149918
Article without a DOI, from an academic research database or print version
If you are accessing an article from a database, do not include the database name or URL as URLs from databases usually require a login, meaning that they will not be accessible to most readers. Instead, leave out the URL from the reference. Examples from different types of periodicals are shown below.
Author, A. A. (Date). Title of article. Title of periodical, volume(issue), #-#.
Denmead, T. (2019). The rise of the creative underclass. Educational Theory, 69(2), 225-240.
Bartels, M. (2017, December 19). When does winter start? The shortest day of the year is approaching. Newsweek.
Wong-Shing, K. (2019, December 16). Waking up early doesn’t have to be miserable. Reno Gazette-Journal, C 5.
Article without a DOI, with a non-database URL
An article retrieved from a website that is not a database does not usually require a login, so you can include the URL as most readers will be able to access it.
Author, A. A., Author, B. B., Author, C. C., & Author, D. D. (Year). Title of article. Title of periodical, volume(issue), #-#. URL
Ahmann, E., Tuttle, L. J., Saviet, M., & Wright, S. D. (2018). A descriptive review of ADHD coaching research: Implications for college students. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 31(1), 17-39. https://www.ahead.org/professional-resources/publications/jped/archived-jped/jped-volume-31
More information
To see more examples and other situations of citing sources in APA style, see the library's online APA Citation guide. You can also find the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition) in the Knowledge Center’s reference collection and the Book Stacks. Purdue’s Online Writing Lab has a comprehensive guide to APA style.