The Author's Name

• You must have the author's name when citing an author in APA format. This includes the author's first initial, last name and, if applicable, middle initial. When you cite the author on your reference page (frequently called "works cited" page in other styles) at the end of your paper, you will write the author's last name first, followed by a comma and then the author's first initial with a period after it. For instance, if your author's name is Peter Johnson, it would look like "Johnson, P." in your reference list. For an in-text citation, you need to include only the author's last name. (See References 1 & 2.)
  
  

Year of Publication

• You need to know the year that the author's material was published. The date is necessary for both in-text citations and your reference page. If the book or material was published in November 2002, you need to include only the year 2002 and can omit the month of November. When citing the year of publication in the reference list, the year follows the author's name in parentheses, with a period after it. For instance, it would look like "Johnson, P. (2002)." For in-text citations, the year is placed in parentheses following the author's name. (See References 1 & 2.)
  
  

Title

• The material's title that the author wrote is pertinent to citing an author in APA format. You need to include the book title or the title of the article, etc., so that readers know where the material was taken from. On the reference page this information follows the date of publication. For APA format, capitalize only the first letter of the first word in the title, leaving the rest of the words in the title lowercase. For example, an APA titling guideline would look like: "Changing the cultural dynamics." Always close the title with a period. You can include the title of the work in your in-text citation if you wish, but it is not necessary by APA guidelines. (See References 1 & 2.)
  
  

Publisher

• When you are citing an author who wrote a book, you need to include the book's publisher and the publisher's location on the reference page. The publisher's location is situated just after the title of the book, followed by a colon, and then the publisher's name, so that it looks like "Location: Publisher." You do not need to include this information for authors who wrote articles in periodicals. (See Reference 3.)
  
  

Periodical

• If you are citing an author of an article that was published in a journal, you must include the journal's name after the title of the article on the reference page. The title of the periodical is italicized and run in title case, meaning all of the words are capitalized. A comma is set at the end of the journal name and is followed by the volume number of the periodical. The issue number is placed in parentheses and is in normal font, and the page number where the information was found is at the very end of the entry. (See Reference 4.)