APA (7th Edition) Referencing Guide

In-Text Citations

For in-text citations, give only the year of publication:

Narrative citation: As Brown (2019) noted...

Parenthetical citation: (Brown, 2019).

If two or more works are published by the same author with the same year, add a letter after the year in accordance with the order in the reference list. See the information regarding "same author ... same year" in Setting out the Reference List.

Reference Lists

APA 7th requires complete dates where possible, for works that are frequently published or likely to be updated, but if you cannot find a complete date, give as much information as you can find.

The date format is YYYY, Month DD or YYYY, Season.

• (2019, April 12-14)
• (2014, Spring-Summer)
• (2015, January)
• (2018)

NB: Dates with months/days/seasons are only applicable for certain reference types (such as web pages, blogs, magazines and newspapers). Check the proper date format for the type of material you are using.

If there is no date use 'n.d.' (for 'no date') in both the in text citation and the reference list.

In text:

In the late 1950s, white Australians became more aware of indigenous living conditions reported in the news (National Museum Australia, n.d.).

The civil rights movements started to gain momentum in Australia as "events in the late 1950s brought the sufferings of the few into the living rooms of the many" (National Museum Australia, n.d.).

In the reference list:

Regarding reference list order:

If you have several works by the same author, and one of the works has no date but the other works are dated, (n.d.) is treated as the oldest work for ordering your references

If you have multiple citations from the same author which also do not have a date, you will follow the same instructions as you would if there was a date: order the citations in your reference list alphabetically by title, and place an "a", "b", etc after the date.

Using n.d. for open-dated sources:

In APA 7th edition, it is recommended to use n.d. for sources that are constantly changing, such as social media pages and updating services. When using n.d., for open-dated sources you will need to included a "Retrieved" date.

E.g.:

Some reference types require a retrieval date in the reference list, because the work might changed or be removed.

The retrieval date goes before the URL or the DOI and follows the pattern below:

Retrieved Month DD, YYYY, from URL/DOI

This should be the last date you checked to make sure the information was still current and accessible.

E.g.: