Reference Guide

Q. What is the Reference section?

A. The Reference section is roughly equivalent to a Bibliography or a Works Cited, although
different rules apply. The Reference section contains all the information from all of the articles,
book chapters, books, etc. that you have cited in your paper.
Q. How do I format my Reference section?
A. The Reference section starts on a new page, after the end of the discussion. The font is in 12
point Times New Roman, double-spaced, and margins are 1 on all sides (this is true for the
entire document). Center the word Reference, with no formatting (no italics, bold, underline,
quotation marks, etc.) on the first line. Everything is double-spaced, and there are no double
double spaces.
The first reference starts on the next line at the very left of the page. All subsequent lines have a
hanging indent of 1/2. This means that the first line is left-justified, but the second (and third)
lines should be indented by 5 spaces. You can do this easily in MS Word by dragging the bottom
triangle on the ruler over to 1/2.
See the appendix at the back of your textbook for an example APA style paper, which includes a
full Reference section.
Q. What order do the references go in?
A. The references are listed alphabetically by the first authors last name.
Q. What if I have more than one article by the same first author?
A. If there is one author for each, list the earliest first. If there are multiple authors, list
alphabetically by the second authors last name. Remember that nothing comes before
something. If there is no second author for one of the sources, but multiple authors for another,
list the single-authored paper first. For example, Brown (2003) would come before Brown &
King (1999). If there are multiple sources with the exact same authors, list chronologically,
earliest first. For example, Brown & King (1999) would come before Brown & King (2004).
Q. What information do I need to write my Reference section?
A. For a journal article, you need the authors last names and initials; the year of publication; the
full title and subtitle (if applicable) of the article; the title of the journal; the volume number of
the journal, and the page numbers of the article.
For a book chapter, you need the authors last names and initials; the title of the chapter; the
pages of the chapter within the book; the editors last names and initials; the title of the book; the
publisher of the book; the place of publication; and the year of publication.

Q. Where do I find this information?

A. For journal articles, most of the information can be found on the first page of the article. You
may have to look at the page numbers at the end of the article to get the range. Pages from the
Reference section count.
For chapters, you can find the information in the chapter itself (authors, title, pages) and at the
front of the book. The title page will tell you the editors and the title of the book. The copyright
page will tell you the publisher and location. If multiple locations are listed, use the first.
Q. How do I format a journal article reference?
Example of a journal article:
References
Wegner, D. T., & Petty, R. E. (1994). Mood management across affective states: The hedonic
contingency hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 10341048.

Q. Okay, so what does all that mean?

D.T. Wegner and R.E. Petty are the authors. Notice that even though there are only two names,
they are separated by a comma. This is done whenever you have more than one author. If you
have three or more, an ampersand (&) separates the second-to-last and last authors. For example,
Wegner, D.T., Petty, R.E., & Jones, P.L. (2000).
The title of the article comes next. Notice that only the first word of the title and the first word
after the colon are capitalized. You only capitalize the first words of the title and subtitle, and any
proper nouns. Next comes the journal title, in italics. All important words are capitalized. After
the comma comes the volume number, also in italics. Notice that the number of the volume is not
included. You may see this on the title page of the article: 66(2). Ignore the number in
parentheses; it is not included in the references.
Finally, after the volume number comes another comma and the pages, un-italicized. The whole
range is included, not just the starting page. It all ends with a period.

Q. What about a book chapter in an edited volume?

Example of a book chapter:

Author, A. A., & Author, B.B. (Year of publication). Title of chapter: Subtitle. In A. Editor & B.
Editor (Eds.), Title of Book (pp. 102-110). Location: Publisher.

The authors who wrote the chapter are listed first, along with the year that the book was
published. The title and subtitle of the chapter follow, similar to journal article references. Then
you write the word In to signify that it came from an edited volume, and list the editor or
editors, first initials and then last name. This is followed by (Ed.) if there is one or (Eds.) if there
are multiple, to signify that they are editors. After the parentheses, put a comma, and then the
title of the book, in italics, with only the title and subtitle and proper nouns capitalized. No
punctuation goes between this and the page numbers, which appear in parentheses with a pp.,
which stands for pages, and the range of the chapter, including references. Finally, after a period,
you list the location of the publishing company, and the publisher, separated by a colon.
Q. What if I found my source on a website?
A. If your source is a peer-reviewed article that you found through PsycINFO or Google Scholar,
and you have downloaded the pdf, you do not need to include the retrieval information (date or
website). These articles have been published and follow the standard citation format.
Q. What if I used another source that was not a journal article or book chapter?
A. Most of your sources should consist of these two types. You are not likely to read a whole
book for this project, or use a dissertation. Popular press articles can be used, but only to
illustrate trends in the culture or for anecdotal support. If this is the case, see the APA manual or
online sources for more information. Of course, you can always talk to your lab instructor, who
would be happy to help.

References Section Guidelines

References
Author, P. I. (2006). Title of article: Only first words are capitalized. Journal in Italics, 66,
102-119.
Author, P. I., & Author, S. I. (2006). Title of chapter. In W. L. Bookeditor & A. J. Bookeditor,
(Eds.), Book Title (pp. 453-467). Location: Publisher.

* the number after the journal name is the volume number. You do not include issue number.
Followed by that are the page numbers, ending with a period.
List alphabetically according to the last name of the first author. List all authors in the order
in which they appear on the title page.
When you have articles that are by the same author, list older articles first:
o Smith, J. K. (1980) comes before
o Smith, J. K. (1990)
When you have an article by the first author only and an article by the first author and other
authors, list the single-authored article first. The general rule is nothing comes before
something. Note that this may mean that you are listing newer articles first.
o Smith, J. K. (1980) comes before
o Smith, J. K. (1990).which comes before
o Smith, J. K., & Jones, A. B. (1972).
When you have several multiple-authored articles with the same first author, list them
alphabetically by second author. Again, you may be listing newer articles first:
o Smith, J. K., & Jones, A. B., & Yeti, A. K. (1942) comes before
o Smith, J. K., & Mandelbaum, E. D., & Christensen, E. (1922).
When you have two multiple-authored articles with the same authors, list them by
publication date, with the earliest year first.
o Smith, J.K., Jones, A. B., & Yeti, A. K. (1942) comes before
o Smith, J. K., & Jones, A. B., & Yeti, A. K. (1992).

Checklist (Mitchell, Jolley, & OShea, 2004)

Margins and spacing
The reference section starts on a separate page.
The centered heading References is at the top of the page (without quotation
marks).
I used one-inch margins on all four sides of the paper.
Everything is double-spaced.
The first line of each reference is not indented and starts at the left margin.
References that take up more than one line are hang-indented for the additional lines.
References are listed in alphabetical order according to the last name of the first author.
(Also see below for more information on ordering.)
Each reference begins with the authors last names and initials, followed by year of
publication (in parentheses), and then a period. If a middle name or initial is provided on the
first page of the article I am citing, I included that initial in my reference.
Every reference ends with a period, except those ending with a URL
For sources with multiple authors (two or more), I separated authors last names and initials
with commas, and used & to connect the last authors name and initials to the list.
I italicized only book titles, names of journals, journal volume numbers, and any words that
were italicized in the original title.
I capitalized only the following parts of the article and book titles: the first word of the title,
the first word following a colon, and proper nouns.
If a book was published in the U.S., I used the state abbreviation in the reference if the city is
not well-known.* If a book was published outside of the U.S., I named the city and the
country in which it was published, unless the city is well-known for publishing.*
I used 12 point, Times New Roman font.
Periods are followed by 1 space, not 2 spaces.
* well-known cities include:
U.S.: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco
International: Amsterdam, Jerusalem, London, Milan, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Tokyo, Vienna

An example reference page is on the next page:

References
Abbe, A., Tkach, C., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2003). The art of living by dispositionally happy
people. Journal of Happiness Studies, 4, 385-404.
Averill, J.R. (1980). A constructionist view of emotion. Emotion, Theory, Research, and
Experience, 1, 305-339.
Averill, J.R. (1999). Individual differences in emotional creativity: Structure and correlates.
Journal of Personality, 67, 331-371.
Barrett, L.F. (1998). Discrete emotions or dimensions? The role of valence focus and arousal
focus. Cognition and Emotion, 12, 579-599.
Barrett, L.F. (2004). Feelings or words? Understanding the content in self-report ratings of
experience emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 266-281.
Barrett, L.F. (2006a). Solving the emotion paradox: Categorization and the experience of
emotion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 20-46.
Barrett, L.F. (2006b). Valence is a basic building block of emotional life. Journal of Research in
Personality, 40, 35-55.
Baumeister, R.F., Vohs, K.D., De Wall, C.N., & Zhang, L. (2007). How emotion shapes behavior:
Feedback, anticipation, and reflection, rather than direct causation. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 11, 167-203.
Buck, R. (1994). Nonverbal behavior and the theory of emotion: The facial feedback hypothesis.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 811-824.
Carroll, J.M., Yik, M.S.M., Russell, J.A., Barrett, L.F. (1999). On the psychometric principles of
affect. Review of General Psychology, 3, 14-22.