APA Style
Citing Electronic Sources
In May 2012, the American Psychological Association digitally released the APA Style Guide to Electronic Resources, a PDF adaptation of Chapter 6 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition. While this guide clarifies some citation and reference formats for new media and technologies, Walden will not be enforcing the alterations the guide makes to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition--including its new rules for addressing digital object identifiers (DOIs)--until these changes are included in a full seventh edition of the APA style publication. For some helpful resources on electronic citation, explore this page and the other resources in this area of the site!
The sixth edition of the APA Publication Manual indicates the following as basic guidelines for citing electronic sources in the reference list.
1. For print or electronic journals, include the issue number only when the journal is paginated separately by issue.
2. The retrieval date and database information are not needed for articles retrieved from online sources. Instead, include the article's DOI.
3. If there is no DOI, provide the URL for the journal homepage as the second choice. The retrieval date is not required in this type of reference.
4. In the rare instances that the journal does not have its own homepage (such as for older journals no longer in print but converted to online documents), provide (a) the database homepage or (b) the name of the database and the accession number.
5. A retrieval date is only needed in the reference list for nonjournal instances where material might change at a later date.
6. For online newspaper and magazine articles you need not provide the specific page number, retrieval date, or exact article URL. You would provide only the periodical's home page.
How to Cite Sources From Electronic Periodicals/Databases
APA Style FAQ
In addition to the information provided here, refer to page 186 in the APA Manual (Sixth Edition) for how to cite and reference nonroutine information and titles.
eReader (Kindle, Nook, etc.)
Sources with the Same Author and Same Year
You may also find our table on citation variations useful to download and print!