Apa reference format specification format mainly includes two parts: the reference in the text and the reference list at the end of the text.
References in the text
1. Single author
The format should be "(author's surname (not initials), year of publication)". If the author's name is mentioned in the article, just indicate the year (add pages if necessary) and still use parentheses. So do many authors. For example:
A recent study found a possible genetic cause of alcoholism (Pauling, 2005). Pauling (2005) discovered a possible genetic cause of alcoholism.
2. Two authors
Authors' surnames must be arranged in the order of their first names in their published articles. If both authors are quoted in parentheses, you need to quote them in&. Symbol; If it is not in parentheses, use "and". For example:
A recent study found a possible genetic cause of alcoholism (Pauling & Liu, 2005). Pauling and Liu (2005) discovered a possible genetic cause of alcoholism.
3. Three to five authors
All authors should be listed in the first citation. If the same literature is cited in the future, only the main authors should be listed, plus "et al". However, in the references section, the names of all authors must be listed. For example:
A recent study found a possible genetic cause of alcoholism. Guo, 2005). Pauling, Liu and Guo (2005) conducted a study and found a possible genetic cause of alcoholism. Pauling et al. (2005) discovered a possible genetic cause of alcoholism. A recent study found a possible genetic cause of alcoholism (Pauling et al., 2005).
4. More than six authors
Name the first author, and the format should be "(author? And others, year) ". In the references section, the names of all authors must be listed. For example:
Pauling et al. (2005) discovered a possible genetic cause of alcoholism.
5. Multiple documents, same author
If an author has many documents you want to cite, just separate the publication years of the works with commas (from the earliest to the latest). If more than one document has been published in the same year, please add A, B, C, etc. Years later. (Press: the use of abc should correspond to references, and the arrangement of these documents is determined by the letters of the title. ) for example:
A recent study found a possible genetic cause of alcoholism (Pauling, 2004, 2005a, 2005b). Pauling (2004, 2005a, 2005b) conducted a study and found a possible genetic cause of alcoholism.
6. Many documents and authors.
According to the previous rules, they are separated by semicolons. Sort by author's surname alphabetically first, and then by publication year. For example:
A recent study found a possible genetic cause of alcoholism (Alford,1995; Pauling, 2004, 2005; Sirkis, 2003)
direct quotation
The format is the same as above, which is "(author, year, number of pages)". For example:
When asked why his behavior has changed so dramatically, Max just said "I think it's reinforcement" (Pauling, 2004, p. 69).