APA Reference Formatting: Author

In the reference list, the author should be listed with their surname first, followed by their initials (including listed middle names), only the surname is needed in text.

If there are two authors, use an ampersand '&' instead of the word 'and' in the reference list with a comma after the last initial. 

Note the different formatting for the in-text citations.

When there are three or more authors, cite only the first author followed by et al.  Do not italicise et al. (et al. is a Latin abbreviation, which basically means 'and the rest').

 

3 - 20 authors

If there are three or more authors (but less than 21) you must list all of their names in the reference list.

 

21+ authors

If there are more than 21 authors of your source, list the first 19, put three dots and then the last author's name.

Some sources like webpages do not always have individual authors listed. In that case you list the company/organisation that the webpage belongs to. This is what is known as a 'Group Author'.

Group authors need capital letters for the main words of their name, and they still need a full stop at the end of the name before the date.

Note: Link to how to use acronyms for group author names for in-text citations.

Hyphenated name 

If an author's first name is hyphenated, keep the hyphen and add a full stop after each initial, for example Jean-Baptiste Lamour would be:

 

If an author's surname is hyphenated, include both names and the hyphen in the reference list, e.g. Diego J. Rivera-Gutierrez would be:

 

Surname prefix 

If the surname of an author has a prefix, include it before the surname in the reference list and in-text citation i.e. de, de la, der, van, von.  If it is spelt with a lower-case letter, retain the lower-case in your citation and reference list. For example, Ludwig van Beethoven would be:

 

Author Titles and suffixes 

Remove any titles for reference list entries and in-text citations e.g. Dr, Professor, Sir, etc.

For a suffix, include it in the reference list entry but not in the in-text citation e.g. H.W. Jones Senior and H. W. Jones Junior would be:

 

If you cannot find the author of a particular source, shift the title of the work to the author's position.

If the title would usually appear italicised in the reference list, i.e. because it is a resource that stands alone, such as books, brochures and reports, then retain the italics in the author position.

Therefore, you would not italicise the title for journal/newspaper articles or edited book chapters as they would not be italicised in the reference list.

• If the title is italicised in the reference list, then italicise it in-text.
• If the title is not italicised in the reference list use "double quotation marks" around the title in-text instead.
• Capitalise the titles (i.e. use Title Case) in-text, for both cases, even though they're not capitalised in the reference list.
• It is acceptable to shorten the title for in-text citations, just ensure it is easily matched to the reference list.

If the work explicitly states that the author is Anonymous, use the word Anonymous as if it was a real name, and then follow the relevant format for the type of resource being referenced.