Skip to Main Content

APA Reference Formatting: Title

Title Element

The title of a publication comes after the date, and can be formatted in different ways, depending on the type of work (check out our APA Referencing Guide for more examples).

Sentence case vs Title case

APA requires the titles of your sources to be italicised and formatted in what is called 'sentence case'.

 

Sentence case:  means that there should be only capital letters for the first word of the title, subtitle, and any proper nouns (names). Even if you find the title with all capital letters, you need to change it per APA rules. Sentence case is used for:

  • Book and chapter titles
  • Journal article titles
  • Webpage titles

 

Title case: Means the Main Words in the Title Must be Capitalised. Title case is used for:

  • Proper nouns (names of people and places and things that would be capitalised in a regular sentence)
  • The names of Journals
  • The names of websites and blogs

 

When to use italics

Use italics in your reference list for:

  • Book titles
  • Journal names and volume numbers
  • Webpage titles
  • Blog, newspaper and magazine names

Use our APA Referencing Guide for sample formats of each resource.

 

Subtitles

The title and subtitle (if there is one) needs to be separated by a colon (even if there isn't a colon in the original title) and the subtitle starts with a capital letter.

For example, say we were using the following source, and the title looked like this:

A People's History of The Second World War - Resistance Versus Empire

When you put it in your reference list, it should look like this:

A people's history of the Second World War: Resistance versus empire.

Additional Information - Editions, Report Information, Volume Numbers

Information such as edition numbers (excluding 1st edition) or a report number, goes in brackets ( ), unitalicised, immediately after the title with a full-stop after the bracket.

e.g. (3rd ed.).

       (Vol. 2).

       (No. NZG-1567).

 

Book Editions

New editions of books can be changed or updated since the previously published version. Usually, they keep their original titles and are often published as new editions called second, third editions and so on. Sometimes there is no new edition, it is just stated as a revised edition and may have the same author or a different author. Editions of books can also be published for a particular region, for example a New Zealand or International edition.

  • Book that has been published as a 2nd (or subsequent) edition: use the copyright date of that revised or new edition and add information about the edition after the title in parentheses.
    • Page, S. (2015). Tourism management (5th ed.). Routledge.
  • Book with revised edition and the same author: 
    • Bernadot, D. (2006). Advanced sports nutrition (Rev. ed.). Human Kinetics.
  • Book with revised edition and a different author: 
    • Reed, A. W. (2004). Reed book of Māori mythology (R. Calman, Ed.; Rev. ed.). Reed Books.  
  • Book with a regional edition: 
    • Keegan, W. J., Brill, E. A., & Puri, S. (2014). Global marketing management (8th International ed.). Pearson.

Additional Information - Description of the Work

To identify works other than articles, books, or reports, provide a description of the work in square brackets after the title and edition/volume information. Capitalise the first word and end with a full-stop.

Euronews. (2019, July 27). Greta Thunberg urges French MPs to 'listen to scientists’ and act to reduce global warming [Video]. Dailymotion. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7e0yu6   

American Psychological Association. (2012). APA concise dictionary of psychology (Version 1.0) [Mobile app]. App Store. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apa-concise-dictionary-of-psychology-free/id502733860

No Title

Some items do not have a title, provide as much information as you can e.g. author, date, with a brief, appropriate description of the work in square brackets, not in italics, and then provide the source.

For example:

The University of Queensland. (n.d.). [Photograph of baby koala in a tree]. https://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2020/01/new-umbrella%E2%80%99-species-would-massively-improve-conservation