APA Style Electronic Formats

by Dr. Mary Ellen Guffey

[Print version published in Business Communication Quarterly, March 1997, pp. 59-76. Latest online revision, August 22, 1998]

The following formats and examples are offered as models for references that might appear in the "References" section (bibliography) of a business writer's research paper. These formats are based primarily on the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Fourth Edition (1994). The APA publication, however, was compiled before many of today's most widely used Internet protocols (http, telnet, and news) had become universally established.
For citation formats more current than those featured in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, I consulted Xia Li and Nancy Crane, "Electronic Sources: APA Style of Citation" <http://www.uvm.edu/~xli/reference/apa.html>. I also examined Li and Crane's Electronic Styles: A Handbook for Citing Electronic Information (Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc., 1996).
In the recommended basic formats and the examples that follow, every effort was made to maintain consistency with published APA formats. When no model format for an electronic source appeared in the APA Manual, I extrapolated a logical APA-style format. Below are additional considerations for business writers citing electronic sources.

In-text citations should be shown in parentheses. They should consist of the author's name, if given, or identifying initial words from the title of the electronic reference. Also include the date of publication, if given. For further clarity, you may want to indicate the Internet protocol or name the source medium. Examples: (Goizueta, 1996, http), (Sommer, news), (Clark, 1994, CD-ROM). To avoid confusion when citing more than one Web page by a single author, you may wish to indicate the final element of each relevant URL. Example: (Hansen, 1995, michalos.html). Your goal is always, however, to interrupt the flow of the text as little as possible while unambiguously and precisely pointing readers to complete entries in the References.

Bibliographic citation forms and examples in the APA style
are shown for the following:
1. World Wide Web Home Page, Professional Site 8. Journal Article, Online
2. World Wide Web Home Page, Personal Site 9. Magazine Article, Online
3. World Wide Web, Secondary Page 10. Newspaper Article, Online
4. Book, Online 11. Newsgroup Article
5. Book Review, Online 12. Discussion List Message, Archived
6. Encyclopedia Article, Online 13. Personal E-mail
7. Encyclopedia Article, CD-ROM


1. WORLD WIDE WEB HOME PAGE, PROFESSIONAL SITE

Basic Form
    Title of page. (Revision or copyright date, if available). 
[Publication medium]. Page Publisher. <URL> [Access date].

Example
    Nordstrom personal touch America. [Online]. Nordstrom, Inc.
<http://www.npta.com/> [1996, Nov. 14].


2. WORLD WIDE WEB HOME PAGE, PERSONAL SITE

Basic Form
    Name of site owner. (Revision or copyright date, if available). 
Title of site, if available; for a site with no title, description of 
site (such as "Home page"). [Publication medium]. Page Publisher. 
<URL> [Access date].

Example
   Robertson, Richard E. (1997, Mar. 4). Home page. [Online]. University 
of Michigan. <http://msewww.engin.umich.edu/mse/robertson.html> [1998, 
Aug. 18]. 


3. WORLD WIDE WEB, SECONDARY PAGE

Basic Form
    Author/editor (if known). (Revision or copyright date, if 
available). Title of page. [Publication medium]. Page Publisher. 
<URL> [Access date].

Example
   Goizueta, R. C. (1996, Feb. 26). Annual report to share owners. 
[Online]. Coca-Cola Company. <http://www.cocacola.com/co/chairman.html> 
[1996, Nov. 14]. 


4. BOOK, ONLINE

Basic Form
    Author. (Date--indicate "No date" if none is known). Title of book
(Edition or other available information). [Publication medium]. Producer 
(optional). <URL> [Access date].

Example
    Strunk, W., Jr. (1918). The elements of style. [Online]. 
<http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/strunk/strunk/html#11> 
[1998, Aug. 20].


5. BOOK REVIEW, ONLINE

Basic Form
    Author of review. (Date). [Review of Book title by Author] 
[Publication medium]. Journal or Magazine Title. Volume(issue) (if
given), paging or n. pag. indicating no pagination. <URL> [Access date].

Example
    Hansen, R. (1995). [Review of A pragmatic approach to business ethics 
by A. Michalos] [Online]. The Online Journal of Ethics. 1(1), n. pag.
<http://condor.depaul.edu/ethics/michalos.html> [1996, May 5].


6. ENCYLOPEDIA ARTICLE, ONLINE

Basic Form
    Author/editor (if given). Title of material accessed. (Date). In 
Source (edition) (if given). [Publication medium]. Producer (optional).
<URL> ["search term" (if necessary for retrieval)] [Access date].

Example
    Stock market crash of 1929. (1995). In Britannica Online. [Online].
Encyclopaedia Britannica. <http://www.eb.com/> ["stock market"] 
[1998, July 11].


7. ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLE, CD-ROM

Basic Form
    Author/editor (if given). Title of material accessed. (Date). In 
Source (edition, release, or version, if relevant). [Publication 
medium]. Location: Name of Producer.

Example
    Genetic engineering. (1994). In Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia 
(Version 2.0). [CD-ROM]. Carlsbad, CA: Compton's NewMedia, Inc.


8. JOURNAL ARTICLE, ONLINE

Basic Form
    Author. (Date). Title. Journal Title [Publication medium],
volume:issue (if given), paging. <URL> [Access date].

Examples
    Koehn, D. (1995). The ethics of handwriting analysis in pre-employment 
screening. The Online Journal of Ethics [Online], 1:1, n. pag. 
<http://condor.depaul.edu/ethics/hand.html> [1996, June 2].

    Nakata, C. and Sivakumar, K. (1996, January). National culture and 
new product development: An integrative review. Journal of Marketing 
[Online], 60:1, 12 pages. <telnet://melvyl.ucop.edu> [1996, May 13].


9. MAGAZINE ARTICLE, ONLINE

Basic Form
    Author. (Date). Title. Magazine Title [Publication medium], volume 
(if given), paging (if given). <URL> [Access date].

Example
    Murphy, H. Lee. (1997, March 4). Saturn's orbit still high with 
consumers. Marketing News Online [Online]. <http://www.ama.org/pubs/mn/
0818/n1.htm> [1996, May 13].


10. NEWSPAPER ARTICLE, ONLINE

Basic Form
    Author. (Date). Title. Newspaper Title [Publication medium], paging 
(if available). <URL> [Access date].

Example

    Markoff, J. (1996, June 5). Voluntary rules proposed to help insure 
privacy for Internet users. The New York Times [Online].
<http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/y05dat.html> [1996, June 5].


11. NEWSGROUP ARTICLE

Basic Form
    Author (if given). Article title. (Date). Newsgroup focus. <URL> 
[Access date].

Example
    Japan sends confusing signal on U.S. chip dispute. (1996, June 3). 
News on world, Asia, and Japan business. <news:clari.world.asia.
japan.biz> [1996, June 5].

    Sommer, E. MetaphoricQuotes related to law. (1996, June 2). 
Quotations. <news:alt.quotations> [1996, June 3].


12. DISCUSSION LIST MESSAGE, ARCHIVED

Basic Form
    Author. (Date). Subject of message. Discussion List [Publication
medium]. <LISTSERV@E-mail address/GET> [Access date].

Example
    Sandwen, J. (1995, Aug. 8). GSA's airline city-pair contracts. 
Travel [Online]. <LISTSERV@financenet.gov/Get travel 950809> [1996,
Dec. 11].


13. PERSONAL E-MAIL

Basic Form
    Sender. (sender's e-mail address). (Date). Subject of message. E-mail 
to Recipient (recipient's e-mail address).

Example
    Omar, B. W. (bomar@aol.com). (1996, June 5). Excellent Web sites for 
job seekers. E-mail to M. E. Guffey (meguffey@rain.org).



Webmaster: George R. Guffey
Copyright © 1998 by Mary Ellen Guffey

Home    Back