omit the page number.
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APA references generally include information about the author , publication date , title , and source . Depending on the type of source, you may have to include extra information that helps your reader locate the source.
Reference examples
Citing a source starts with choosing the correct reference format. Use Scribbr’s Citation Example Generator to learn more about the format for the most common source types. Pay close attention to punctuation, capitalization, and italicization.
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It is not uncommon for certain information to be unknown or missing, especially with sources found online. In these cases, the reference is slightly adjusted.
Missing element | What to do | Reference format |
Author | Start the reference entry with the source title. | Title. (Date). Source. |
Date | Write “n.d.” for “no date”. | Author. (n.d.). Title. Source. |
Title | Describe the work in square brackets. | Author. (Date). [Description]. Source. |
On the first line of the page, write the section label “References” (in bold and centered). On the second line, start listing your references in alphabetical order .
Apply these formatting guidelines to the APA reference page:
- Double spacing (within and between references)
- Hanging indent of ½ inch
- Legible font (e.g. Times New Roman 12 or Arial 11)
- Page number in the top right header
Which sources to include
On the reference page, you only include sources that you have cited in the text (with an in-text citation ). You should not include references to personal communications that your reader can’t access (e.g. emails, phone conversations or private online material).
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When no individual author name is listed, but the source can clearly be attributed to a specific organization—e.g., a press release by a charity, a report by an agency, or a page from a company’s website—use the organization’s name as the author in the reference entry and APA in-text citations .
When no author at all can be determined—e.g. a collaboratively edited wiki or an online article published anonymously—use the title in place of the author. In the in-text citation, put the title in quotation marks if it appears in plain text in the reference list, and in italics if it appears in italics in the reference list. Shorten it if necessary.
When you quote or paraphrase a specific passage from a source, you need to indicate the location of the passage in your APA in-text citation . If there are no page numbers (e.g. when citing a website ) but the text is long, you can instead use section headings, paragraph numbers, or a combination of the two:
(Caulfield, 2019, Linking section, para. 1).
Section headings can be shortened if necessary. Kindle location numbers should not be used in ebook citations , as they are unreliable.
If you are referring to the source as a whole, it’s not necessary to include a page number or other marker.
The abbreviation “ et al. ” (meaning “and others”) is used to shorten APA in-text citations with three or more authors . Here’s how it works:
Only include the first author’s last name, followed by “et al.”, a comma and the year of publication, for example (Taylor et al., 2018).
APA Style usually does not require an access date. You never need to include one when citing journal articles , e-books , or other stable online sources.
However, if you are citing a website or online article that’s designed to change over time, it’s a good idea to include an access date. In this case, write it in the following format at the end of the reference: Retrieved October 19, 2020, from https://www.uva.nl/en/about-the-uva/about-the-university/about-the-university.html
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Citation Styles
- Chicago Style
- Annotated Bibliographies
What is a Lit Review?
How to write a lit review.
- Video Introduction to Lit Reviews
Main Objectives
Examples of lit reviews, additional resources.
- Zotero (Citation Management)
What is a literature review?
- Either a complete piece of writing unto itself or a section of a larger piece of writing like a book or article
- A thorough and critical look at the information and perspectives that other experts and scholars have written about a specific topic
- A way to give historical perspective on an issue and show how other researchers have addressed a problem
- An analysis of sources based on your own perspective on the topic
- Based on the most pertinent and significant research conducted in the field, both new and old
- A descriptive list or collection of summaries of other research without synthesis or analysis
- An annotated bibliography
- A literary review (a brief, critical discussion about the merits and weaknesses of a literary work such as a play, novel or a book of poems)
- Exhaustive; the objective is not to list as many relevant books, articles, reports as possible
- To convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic
- To explain what the strengths and weaknesses of that knowledge and those ideas might be
- To learn how others have defined and measured key concepts
- To keep the writer/reader up to date with current developments and historical trends in a particular field or discipline
- To establish context for the argument explored in the rest of a paper
- To provide evidence that may be used to support your own findings
- To demonstrate your understanding and your ability to critically evaluate research in the field
- To suggest previously unused or underused methodologies, designs, and quantitative and qualitative strategies
- To identify gaps in previous studies and flawed methodologies and/or theoretical approaches in order to avoid replication of mistakes
- To help the researcher avoid repetition of earlier research
- To suggest unexplored populations
- To determine whether past studies agree or disagree and identify strengths and weaknesses on both sides of a controversy in the literature
- Choose a topic that is interesting to you; this makes the research and writing process more enjoyable and rewarding.
- For a literature review, you'll also want to make sure that the topic you choose is one that other researchers have explored before so that you'll be able to find plenty of relevant sources to review.
- Your research doesn't need to be exhaustive. Pay careful attention to bibliographies. Focus on the most frequently cited literature about your topic and literature from the best known scholars in your field. Ask yourself: "Does this source make a significant contribution to the understanding of my topic?"
- Reading other literature reviews from your field may help you get ideas for themes to look for in your research. You can usually find some of these through the library databases by adding literature review as a keyword in your search.
- Start with the most recent publications and work backwards. This way, you ensure you have the most current information, and it becomes easier to identify the most seminal earlier sources by reviewing the material that current researchers are citing.
The organization of your lit review should be determined based on what you'd like to highlight from your research. Here are a few suggestions:
- Chronology : Discuss literature in chronological order of its writing/publication to demonstrate a change in trends over time or to detail a history of controversy in the field or of developments in the understanding of your topic.
- Theme: Group your sources by subject or theme to show the variety of angles from which your topic has been studied. This works well if, for example, your goal is to identify an angle or subtopic that has so far been overlooked by researchers.
- Methodology: Grouping your sources by methodology (for example, dividing the literature into qualitative vs. quantitative studies or grouping sources according to the populations studied) is useful for illustrating an overlooked population, an unused or underused methodology, or a flawed experimental technique.
- Be selective. Highlight only the most important and relevant points from a source in your review.
- Use quotes sparingly. Short quotes can help to emphasize a point, but thorough analysis of language from each source is generally unnecessary in a literature review.
- Synthesize your sources. Your goal is not to make a list of summaries of each source but to show how the sources relate to one another and to your own work.
- Make sure that your own voice and perspective remains front and center. Don't rely too heavily on summary or paraphrasing. For each source, draw a conclusion about how it relates to your own work or to the other literature on your topic.
- Be objective. When you identify a disagreement in the literature, be sure to represent both sides. Don't exclude a source simply on the basis that it does not support your own research hypothesis.
- At the end of your lit review, make suggestions for future research. What subjects, populations, methodologies, or theoretical lenses warrant further exploration? What common flaws or biases did you identify that could be corrected in future studies?
- Double check that you've correctly cited each of the sources you've used in the citation style requested by your professor (APA, MLA, etc.) and that your lit review is formatted according to the guidelines for that style.
Your literature review should:
- Be focused on and organized around your topic.
- Synthesize your research into a summary of what is and is not known about your topic.
- Identify any gaps or areas of controversy in the literature related to your topic.
- Suggest questions that require further research.
- Have your voice and perspective at the forefront rather than merely summarizing others' work.
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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts
APA Formatting and Style Guide (7th Edition)
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In-Text Citations
Resources on using in-text citations in APA style
Reference List
Resources on writing an APA style reference list, including citation formats
Other APA Resources
APA (7th ed.), Citation Style: Reviews and Commentary
- Introduction to APA
- General Guidelines
- Who (Author)
- When (Publication Date)
- What (Title)
- Where (Publication Information)
- Formatting Author Information
- Citing Personal Communications
- Citing Indirect Sources (secondary sources)
- Citing Sources with Missing Information (author, date, or page numbers)
There will be times when a review of a work is necessary to provide. Section 10.7 in the 7th edition APA manual provides examples of the types of works that usually have reviews. All of the examples can be found on p. 334.
The basic citation format is as follows: Reviewer, A.A. (date). Review title. [Details of reviewed work.] Periodical/Source Information. DOI or URL.
The examples of a film review, book review, and TV series episode review can be found on p. 335.
Subject Guide
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Literature Review: Conducting & Writing
- Sample Literature Reviews
- Steps for Conducting a Lit Review
- Finding "The Literature"
- Organizing/Writing
- APA Style This link opens in a new window
- Chicago: Notes Bibliography This link opens in a new window
- MLA Style This link opens in a new window
Sample Lit Reviews from Communication Arts
Have an exemplary literature review.
Note: These are sample literature reviews from a class that were given to us by an instructor when APA 6th edition was still in effect. These were excellent papers from her class, but it does not mean they are perfect or contain no errors. Thanks to the students who let us post!
- Literature Review Sample 1
- Literature Review Sample 2
- Literature Review Sample 3
Have you written a stellar literature review you care to share for teaching purposes?
Are you an instructor who has received an exemplary literature review and have permission from the student to post?
Please contact Britt McGowan at [email protected] for inclusion in this guide. All disciplines welcome and encouraged.
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Secondary Sources
In scholarly work, a primary source reports original content; a secondary source refers to content first reported in another source.
- Cite secondary sources sparingly—for instance, when the original work is out of print, unavailable, or available only in a language that you do not understand.
- If possible, as a matter of good scholarly practice, find the primary source, read it, and cite it directly rather than citing a secondary source. For example, rather than citing an instructor’s lecture or a textbook or encyclopedia that in turn cites original research, find, read, and cite the original research directly (unless an instructor has directed you to do otherwise).
Secondary sources are covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Section 8.6 and the Concise Guide Section 8.6
Follow these directions when citing a secondary source:
- In the reference list, provide an entry for the secondary source that you used.
- In the text, identify the primary source and write “as cited in” the secondary source that you used.
If the year of publication of the primary source is known, also include it in the text citation.
For example, if you read a work by Lyon et al. (2014) in which Rabbitt (1982) was cited, and you were unable to read Rabbitt’s work yourself, cite Rabbitt’s work as the original source, followed by Lyon et al.’s work as the secondary source. Only Lyon et al.’s work appears in the reference list.
(Rabbitt, 1982, as cited in Lyon et al., 2014)
If the year of the primary source is unknown, omit it from the in-text citation.
Allport’s diary (as cited in Nicholson, 2003)
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How to Cite a Review in APA Referencing
- 2-minute read
- 8th November 2020
Reviews of books, films, and other media can be great sources in academic writing. But how do you cite a review using APA referencing ? In this post, we explain the basics of citations and the reference list entry.
In-Text Citations for a Review in APA Style
Citations for a review in APA referencing are similar to those for other sources. This means you cite the reviewer’s surname and year of publication:
One review was especially scathing (Smith, 2001).
In addition, if you quote a print source, make sure to cite a page number:
Smith (2001) dismisses the argument as ‘puerile’ (p. 16).
For more on APA citations, see our blog post on the topic .
Reviews in an APA Reference List
The format for a review in an APA reference list will depend on where it was published. For instance, for a review published in a newspaper, you would cite it as a newspaper article . But for a review published on a blog or website, you would cite it as a blog post or website instead.
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In all cases, though, you will need to adapt the format by adding details of the thing being reviewed in square brackets after the review title.
You can see APA-style references for reviews from an academic journal and a website below, complete with this extra information:
Smith, G. (2001). A backward step for applied ethics [Review of the book Righteous Thought, Righteous Action , by X. Morrison]. Journal of Applied Philosophy , 18(1), 16–24.
Bert, E. (2018). Neil Breen outdoes himself again [Review of the film Twisted Pair , by N. Breen, Dir.]. BadMovieCentral. http://www.badmoviecentral.com/reviews/twisted-pair/
This ensures the reader can identify both the review you’re citing and the thing being reviewed from the reference list entry alone.
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To make sure your references are all in order, as well as the rest of your academic writing, you might want to get your work proofread by one of our APA experts. Submit a free trial document today to find out more.
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IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
Writing a Literature Review. A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and ...
"a narrative summary and evaluation of the findings or theories within a literature base. Also known as 'narrative literature review'. Key takeaways from the Psi Chi webinar So You Need to Write a Literature Review via APA Style.org
Citations for a review in APA referencing are similar to those for other sources. This means you cite the reviewer's surname and year of publication: One review was especially scathing (Smith, 2001). In addition, if you quote a print source, make sure to cite a page number: Smith (2001) dismisses the argument as "puerile" (p. 16).
This page is designed to assist you in writing an annotated bibliography
A literature review provides a thorough background of the topic by giving your reader a guided overview of major findings and current gaps in what is known so far about the topic. The literature review is not a list (like an annotated bibliography) -- it is a narrative helping your reader understand the topic and where you will "stand" in the ...
Start by Downloading the APA 7th Edition Reference Quick Guide to help you visualize how you cite your references.. The Quick Guide is missing on how to cite a webpage. A webpage will never be the home page of the URL. It is part of a greater whole that is the website.
For more information on how to cite Book Reviews in APA 7, refer to pages 334-335 of the Publication Manual of the APA located at the circulation desk. Book Review from a Website (with Title) Author of Review's Last Name, First Initial.
A literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending on the assignment. ... Seventh Edition is the official source for APA Style. APA Style Blog - for those harder to find answers . 1. Choose a topic. ... Use a citation manager, such as EndNote as the repository for your citations.
This guide provides the rules for the APA 7th Edition Reference style and its application across a range of source material, including print, online, audio/visual, images and graphs, social media and personal communication. Each source has its own page within the guide, with in-text citation and reference listing examples.
Organizing Your Literature Review. An APA style paper is organized in the author-date style. This means you cite the author's name and year of publication within the text with an in-text citation. You also include the page number, if appropriate. You then include the full information of that source in a reference list at the end of your paper.
Examples of literature reviews. Step 1 - Search for relevant literature. Step 2 - Evaluate and select sources. Step 3 - Identify themes, debates, and gaps. Step 4 - Outline your literature review's structure. Step 5 - Write your literature review.
On the first line of the page, write the section label "References" (in bold and centered). On the second line, start listing your references in alphabetical order. Apply these formatting guidelines to the APA reference page: Double spacing (within and between references) Hanging indent of ½ inch.
Step 4: Write. Be selective. Highlight only the most important and relevant points from a source in your review. Use quotes sparingly. Short quotes can help to emphasize a point, but thorough analysis of language from each source is generally unnecessary in a literature review. Synthesize your sources.
Basic guidelines for formatting the reference list at the end of a standard APA research paper Author/Authors Rules for handling works by a single author or multiple authors that apply to all APA-style references in your reference list, regardless of the type of work (book, article, electronic resource, etc.)
There will be times when a review of a work is necessary to provide. Section 10.7 in the 7th edition APA manual provides examples of the types of works that usually have reviews. All of the examples can be found on p. 334. The basic citation format is as follows: Reviewer, A.A. (date). Review title. [Details of reviewed work.]
For most papers, cite one or two of the most representative sources for each key point. Literature review papers, however, typically include a more exhaustive list of references. Provide appropriate credit to the source (e.g., by using an in-text citation) whenever you do the following: paraphrase (i.e., state in your own words) the ideas of others
The citation that includes the author and year would then come at the end of the statement in parentheses. These in-text citations refer the reader to the bibliography page for the full citation. Footnotes are useful when you want to insert a citation without interrupting the flow of the sentence or paragraph. Footnotes include a superscript ...
Note: These are sample literature reviews from a class that were given to us by an instructor when APA 6th edition was still in effect. These were excellent papers from her class, but it does not mean they are perfect or contain no errors. Thanks to the students who let us post!
Use these APA citation examples for peer-reviewed journal articles to add authority to your APA 7 research paper. Reviewing research by peers in the same field helps to validate the findings presented in the report. Usually, two or more researchers review each article before submitting it to the editor for a final review and acceptance.
ISBN: 9781433832161. Publication Date: 2019-10-01. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition is the official source for APA Style. This book is in PRINT only. However, students may request book pages using InterLibrary Loan. APA Citation Style 7th edition Quick Reference. APA Citation Style 7th Ed.
In scholarly work, a primary source reports original content; a secondary source refers to content first reported in another source. Cite secondary sources sparingly—for instance, when the original work is out of print, unavailable, or available only in a language that you do not understand. If possible, as a matter of good scholarly practice ...
Citations for a review in APA referencing are similar to those for other sources. This means you cite the reviewer's surname and year of publication: One review was especially scathing (Smith, 2001). In addition, if you quote a print source, make sure to cite a page number: Smith (2001) dismisses the argument as 'puerile' (p. 16).
Do not page # indent DISORDERED EATING: A REVIEW 2 Abstract Literature review abstracts and research article abstracts share the same basic format but differ in content. Abstracts of literature review articles should include the topic, the purpose of the article, and how the information sources were chosen.
The potential harm caused by Residential Care Settings (RCSs) on children's development is well documented. However, there appears to be a paucity of published research on RCSs across mainland Southeast Asia. This scoping review focuses on available research articles that directly, or indirectly, engage with children to explore their experiences of living in RCSs in the region.
Servant leadership is a form of moral-based leadership where leaders tend to prioritize the fulfillment of the needs of followers, namely employees, customers and other stakeholders, rather than satisfying their personal needs. Although the concept is not new among both academics and practitioners, it has received growing consideration in the last decade, due to the fact that it can positively ...
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is common among justice-involved persons, creating substantial health and economic burdens owing to its association with a range of adverse psychosocial outcomes. No study to date has synthesised extant knowledge about TBI across the whole criminal justice pathway. We aimed to conduct a systematic review of the literature on TBI across this pathway, from arrest ...
Given the dynamic nature of digital technologies, understanding why users intend to continue to use them or not is important for practitioners and academics alike. This paper presents an up-to-date Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of Continuance Intention (CI) for online technologies. The SLR classifies and analyses 147 relevant articles on CI in the field of online technology.