APSR Citation Styles for Common Sources

General Rules for Listing Citations in Your Bibliography:

The first author of any work is listed last name first:  

Smith, Joe A. 1995. “The Article Title.” Journal Title 55 (February): 112-42.  

With two or more authors/editors, only the first author is listed last name first. Authors should be listed in the order found in the source material rather than alphabetically. Other names (e.g. volume editors or translators) are also listed as they appear in the source material, using the first-name last-name format: 

Smith, Joe A., Juan R. Sanchez, and Peter Spink. 1995. "Chapter Title." In Book Title in Italics, eds. Joe Smith and Robert N. King. Baltimore, MD: Publisher. Pp. 125-58.  

If the text's author is an organization or corporate author, list the author as the source and format the work according to its type:  

Economist. “The King is Dead, Long Live the King." 2004. Economist, 22 December, 15-18.

American Civil Liberties Union. 1999. Title of Publication. Austin: The American Civil Liberties Union.

If no author or editor is given, start your citation with the title of the source (Washington Post 2002, 12). Then, list the item in your bibliography according to the title's first word (not counting a, an, or the):  

“Article Title.” 2003. Washington Post, 14 July: A2, A15.

Journal Articles:

In this example, 55 is the volume number, February is the issue (sometimes, only an issue number will be available, and should be placed in parentheses in lieu of the month).  The numbers 112-42 are the page numbers the article spans:  

Smith, Joe A. 1995. “The Article Title.” Journal Title 55 (February): 112-42.  

Smith, Joe A. and Robert C. Herman. 1995. “The Article Title.” Journal Title 55 (1): 112-42.  

Books:

If the city where a text is published is well known (e.g. New York) or if the state is implicit in the publisher (e.g. The University of North Carolina), then the state initials are left out:   

Parker, Joseph A. 1995. Book Title. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press.

Parker, Joseph A. 2000a. Another Book. New York: Columbia University Press.

Parker, Joseph A. 2000b. Yet Another Book, but From the Same Year. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

If the text is a later edition:

Parker, Joseph A. 1999. Title of Publication, 3rd ed. Austin: The University of Texas Press.  

If the text is a reprinted edition:

Parker, Joseph A. [1964] 1999. Title of Publication. Austin: The University of Texas Press.

If the text is a translated edition:  

Aristotle. 1947. Rhetoric, trans. Henry Freese. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.  

Edited Books

Note that you rarely cite an edited book unless you are referring to arguments made in the whole volume (note the use of ed. and eds.):

Sanchez, Miguel A. and Sandra Roberson, eds. 1995. Book Title. New York: Cambridge University Press.  

Thames, Frank C., ed. 1995. Book Title. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Book Chapter in an Edited Volume

As in an article, a book chapter’s pages from the beginning of the article to the end (Pp.) are included in the citation (note that editors are listed first_name, last_name and in the order listed in the source rather than alphabetically):

Washington, Roberta L. 1996. “Chapter Title.” In Book Title in Italics, ed. Joe Smith. Baltimore, MD: Publisher. Pp. 125-58.    

Edited volume with multiple authors note the use of eds. instead of ed.):  

Washington, Roberta L. 1996. “Chapter Title.” In Book Title in Italics, eds. Joe Smith and Robert N. King. Baltimore, MD: Publisher. Pp. 125-58.    

If the chapter and volume editor are the same, repeat the name:  

Chang, Tse-min. 1996. “Chapter Title.” In Book Title in Italics, ed. Tse-min Chang. Baltimore, MD: Publisher. Pp. 125-58.  

Magazine Articles

References to magazines require the author, year, article title, month, day (for a weekly or bimonthly). In this example, the entire article comes from page 24 of this magazine's July 14th edition:  

McRee, Gary P. 1999. “Article Title.” Magazine Title, 14 July: 24.  

Where no author is listed:  

“Article Title, Omitting 'a,' 'an,' and the.'” 1999. Magazine Title, 14 July: 24.  

Newspapers

Where the author is known (Section A, pg. 2 is where the article began, and it continued and concluded on pg. A15):  

McRee, Gary P. 1999. “Article Title.” Newspaper, 14 July: A2, A15.  

Where no author is listed:

“Article Title.” 1999. Newspaper, 14 July: A2, A15.    

Course Packets 

Normally, you should treat and cite on-line reading assignments from a class website or materials obtained from the library reserves just like you would any original document, listing the original pagination of the cited materials. If, however, a reading assignment does not include the original authors' pagination or is missing some essential component of the citation, you will need to note your instructor as the material's compiler. For example:

Smith, Ann. 2001. "Democracy's Modern Challenges." Journal of Democracy 23 (Fall): 112-142. Electronic Reserve Reading. Comp. Mark Setzler. University of Portland, Spring Semester 2001. 

An alternative way to treat class materials obtained from class websites is listed below with the instructions on how to cite electronic materials.

Citing Indirect Sources

If you have a source/quotation that you only have access to because it is quoted or cited by another author, you need to cite both the original source of the quoted material and the secondary source, linking the two citations with the phrase "Quoted in" or "Cited in" (note that the second citation does not reverse authors):

Washington, Roberta L. 1996. “Chapter Title.” In Book Title in Italics, ed. Joe Smith. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press. Pp. 125-58.   Cited in Gary P. McRee, Albert B. Lingren, and Willard Dobbs. 2002. Title of Publication. Austin: The University of Texas Press. P. 123.

Citing Electronic Sources Using the APSR Format

Article Databases

If you are citing an article from an electronic database where both the original publication data and original pagination is available, cite the article as you would if you found it in the library. You do it this way because, as a rule, you want to cite the most widely-available source of your materials. 

If, however, you do not have the original pagination or a complete citation for a source you should give as much data about the original article as you can, followed by the appropriate name of the electronic source (Academic Elite in the example that follows) and the date you accessed the materials:

Carter, Heather A. and Robert L. Jones. 1995. “The Article Title.” Journal Title 55 (February): 112-142. EBSCOhost Academic Elite, June 31, 2002.

Websites

As with article databases, when you are citing an already-published work--that is, an electronic form of a paper-published document, you should just cite the original source, so long as the pagination is correct and you have  complete citation information. If you do not have complete information on the original source or cannot provide specific page references that accurately correspond to the paper version of the document, than you must place as much information about the source document as you can and then list the appropriate web address information. In this example, I am listing the citation for an article drawn from one of my old course web sites (it is unclear what the pagination was in the print version, so internet location information must be provided):

Economist. “The King is Dead, Long Live the King." 2002. Economist, 22 December, 15-18. <http://www.lclark.edu/ ~msetzler/PolSysLC/CPSf2002readingsbank/ econKing.html>. Accessed: April 10, 2003.

If materials are only available in electronic form (i.e., it is not clear that the document has ever been published anywhere), you should provide as much basic citation information as you can, and then provide a detailed description of the website from which the material was downloaded.

In the first example, the author of the materials cited (person or organization) is known, as is the organization sponsoring the web site (Citizens for Fair Elections).  The access date refers to the day the material was downloaded from the internet site (make sure to include this date, since specific web addresses may change over time):

Smith, Susan. 1998. The 1998 Election in Oregon. <http://www.elections.org/ articles/ susan_smith.html>. Boston: Citizens for Fair Elections. June 20, 2001.

In a second example, the author is not known and the materials referenced have no date listed on the web site (remember, the point is to include as much information as you can that will help your reader track down your source to verify your interpretation or to use the source in her/his own work):

Citizens for Fair Elections. ND. Elections Outcomes. <http://www.elections.org/artcles/no_
author.html>. Boston: Citizens for Fair Elections. June 20, 2001.