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APA Reference Formatting: Date

Date Element

The date of publication comes after the author and is enclosed in brackets. The date and date format of a work can differ slightly between resource types; some examples are listed in the table below (check out our APA Referencing Guide for more examples).  

Books:   Use the copyright year (this can usually be found on one of the first few pages of the book).

Journals:  Use the publication year of that volume (even if it's different from the copyright year) which is usually somewhere on the article's first page. Usually it is just a year, but sometimes it can be (Year Month) or (Year Season) instead of volume numbers.

Webpages:

  • Don't use the copyright information unless it is obvious that that date directly refers to the information you are citing (the copyright date at the bottom of a webpage usually refers to the website as a whole, not necessarily the publication date of the information you are using).
  • If there is a date that the information you are citing was "last updated" you can use this, but not the date of "last reviewed" as the information may not have been changed.
  • Include as much date information (in the reference list) as is shown on the website (e.g. Year, Month Day).
  • If you cannot find a date for the information being used from a website, don't panic, just use (n.d.) - see below.

 

In cases when you use a date that includes more than the year, this information is only included in the reference list, not the in-text citation.

Reference List

Books, Academic Journals 

Name. (Year of copyright).

Webpages, Audio/Visual, Blogs, Newpapers and Magazines.

(Year, Month Date). Or (Year, Month). Or (2020, Season). Or (Year). Whichever is the fullest date provided on the item.

 

In-Text

... (Name, Year).

OR

Name (Year) ...

Webpage retrieval date

You don't usually need to use a retrieval date when referencing webpages.  However, there are some occasions where you will need to include this as the information on that page is likely to change, due to the inherent nature of that resource, meaning that the information your reader finds may differ from the version you used and cited.  These can include resources such as:

  • Dictionary entries
  • Google Maps
  • Social Media
  • or any site on which the information is likely be changed without being dated or archived.

In these instances, you need to put 'Retrieved Month Day, Year, from URL'.

Reference List

U.S. Census Bureau. (n.d.). U.S. and world population clock. U.S. Department of Commerce. Retrieved May 30, 2024, from www.census.gov/popclock/

In-Text

... (Name, n.d.).

OR

Name (n.d.) ...

No date

Some sources may not have a date of publication mentioned. If that is the case, put (n.d.) which means 'no date', like so:

Reference List

Name. (n.d.). Title. Source.

In-Text

... (Name, n.d.).

OR

Name (n.d.) ...

Multiple works by the same author with different dates

If you have mutiple works by the same author and they are published in different years, they would be listed chronologically in your reference list (note that n.d. comes before an actual date):

Keefe, P. R. (2019). Say nothing: A true story of murder and memory in Northern Ireland. Doubleday.

Keefe, P. R. (2021). Empire of pain: The secret history of the Sackler dynasty. Picador.

Multiple works by the same author but with the same date

If you have multiple works by the same author and they are published in the same year, list them in alphabetical order by their titles and add lower case letters (a,b,c) immediately after the year (i.e. the letters after the date are determined by the alphabetical order of the titles, not the order of use within the text). This allows your reader to determine which source by that author was used for a specific piece of information. If you found two sources by the same author but there was no date on either source, you would use the same guidelines but add a dash before the letter, like so:

(n.d.-a), (n.d.-b)

Reference List

McMillan, C. (2024a). Cricket, capitalism and class: From the village green to the cricket industry. Routledge.

McMillan, C. (2024b). Inclusivity, diversity and the absent presence of class: A logistics approach to England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) policy discourse. Sport in Society. 1-20.  https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2024.2313531.

In-Text

... (McMillan, 2024b).  ... (McMillan, 2024a).  

OR

McMillan (2024b) ... McMillan (2024a) ...