Citing articles from online databases

EBSCO databases

Most of Trinity's databases are from Ebsco, including Academic Search Premier, ATLA, PsycInfo, ERIC, Business Source Elite, and Communication & Mass Media Complete. See full list of Ebsco databases.

Rozen, L. (2003, November 10). Strange bedfellows. Nation, 277, 6-7. Retrieved from the Academic Search Premier database.

Gibbs, W. W. (2005). Nanobodies. Scientific American, 293 (2), 75-83. Retrieved from the Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition database.

Stanley, M. A. (2002). Imiquimod and the imidazoquinolones: Mechanism of action and therapeutic potential. Clinical & Experimental Dermatology, 27, 571-576. Retrieved from the Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition database.

DOI

Stanley, M. A. (2002). Imiquimod and the imidazoquinolones: Mechanism of action and therapeutic potential. Clinical & Experimental Dermatology, 27, 571-576. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2230.2002.01151.x.

JSTOR database:

Pearson, G. A. (1920). Factors controlling the distribution of forest types. Ecology, 1, 139-159. Retrieved from the JSTOR database.

LexisNexis database:

Smith, R. (2000, June 8). A new dog in town, steel and sprouting. New York Times, p. E1. Retrieved from the LexisNexis Academic database.

OCLC FirstSearch databases

Includes ArticleFirst, MedLine, GPO, etc.:

Yablon, M. (2000, December 18). Campus police. New Republic, 223, 14-15. Retrieved from the Periodical Abstracts database.

Solvason, H. B., Harris, B., Zeifert, P., Flores, B. H., & Hayward, C. (2002). Psychological versus biological clinical interpretation: A patient with prion disease. American Journal of Psychiatry, 159, 528-537. Retrieved from the ArticleFirst database.

Nylander, L. (2001). Literature in and out of time: Temporality in theory, narrative, and authorship. Literature and Psychology, 47 (4), 1-37. Retrieved from the WilsonSelectPlus database.

ERIC Documents

(not for a journal cited in the ERIC database)
Compare the citation below with the actual document, viewable via http://tinyurl.com/ay2fe

Epstein, J. L., Sanders, M. G., & Clark, L. A. (1999, February). Preparing educators for school- family-community partnerships. Results of a national survey of colleges and universities (Report No. CRESPAR-R-34). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, Center for Social Organization of Schools. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED429045)

See more examples at: APA Reference Style: ERIC Documents (Brigham Young U)

Gale databases

Available at Northwestern University and other libraries.

Burri, C., Nkunku, S., Merolle, A., Smith, T., Blum, J., & Brun, R. (2000). Efficacy of new, concise schedule for melarsoprol in treatment of sleeping sickness caused by Trypanosoma brucei gambiense: A randomised trial. Lancet, 355, 1419-1425. Retrieved from the Expanded Academic Index ASAP database.

Ovid Full Text

Available at other libraries.

This example shows an article citation from a journal paginated by volume with 7 or more authors:

Hoza, B., Mrug, S., Gerdes, A. C., Hinshaw, S. P., Bukowski, W. M., Gold, J. A., et al. (2005). What aspects of peer relationships are impaired in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder? Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73, 411-423. Retrieved from the PsycARTICLES database.

This shows the same article citation with a DOI:

Article from a Journal's website:

This example shows a citation for a PDF version of an article:

Mellars, P. (2004). Neanderthals and the modern human colonization of Europe [Electronic version]. Nature, 432, 461-465.

This example shows a citation for the same version of the article with a DOI:

Mellars, P. (2004). Neanderthals and the modern human colonization of Europe. Nature, 432, 461-465. doi:10.1038/nature03103

This example shows a citation for an HTML version of an article —see the note below on in-text citatons for articles without permanent page numbers:

Irion, R. (2006). Astrophysics: A very good year for explosions. Science, 311, 30-32. Retrieved from http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/ full/311/5757/30.

This example shows a citation for the same version of the article with a DOI:

Irion, R. (2006). Astrophysics: A very good year for explosions. Science, 311, 30-32. doi:10.1126/science.311.5757.30

Online Encyclopedia:

Electronic music. (n. d.). In Wikipedia: The Free Online Encyclopedia. Retrieved July 14, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_music

Online periodicals

Articles from online journals that do NOT have a print equivalent (Salon, Slate, Chicago Wilderness, etc.)

Wiggers, R. (2000, Summer). Classic prairie restorations. Chicago Wilderness Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.chicagowildernessmag .org/issues/summer2000/restorations.html

Hester, E.N. (2000, September 8). The flight attendant from hell. Salon. Retrieved from http://dir.salon.com/business/col/hest/2000/09/ 08/hell/index.html

Goodman, Tim. (2006, October 6). It's not too late to jump aboard 'Battlestar Galactica.' [Review of the television series Battlestar Galactica]. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved from http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article .cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/06/DDGQHLIDD91.DTL

Websites and web pages

Krain, B. (n. d.) Krainium Homepage. Retrieved August 1, 2005 from http://krainium .com/4436.html

Berardinelli, J. (1995). Batman forever. [Review of the movie Batman Forever]. Retrieved from http://www.reelviews.net/movies/b/batman3.html

Library of Congress - Federal Research Division. (2005, November 9). Human rights. In A Country Study: Saudi Arabia. Retrieved from http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/satoc.html#sa0139

Tennant, R. (2005). Web4Lib electronic discussion. Web4Lib: Web Systems in Libraries Mailing List. Retrieved from the WebJunction website: http://lists .webjunction.org/web4lib/

Images

Giving the address of the image without the address of the page on which it appeared is usually insufficient information.

A web address without a page title is rarely enough information to locate an item on a redesigned website.

Images used in professional journals are typically the work of the authors, and so need no citation.
Directly below is an example of a References list citation for an image found online and used in a student's research paper or presentation.

Figure 1. B. pertussis¹

Carson, J. L. (c. 2003). "B. pertussis." [Online image]. Retrieved from the J. Craig Venter Institute Genome News Network website: http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/09_03/whooping_cough.php

Below is an explanatory footnote used to cite the same image.

The form is not specifically described in the 5th edition of the APA Publication Manual. This example uses the elements of a footnote of acknowlegement and also the elements of a citation for an online source.

¹ "B. Pertussis" [Online photograph], by J. L. Carson (c. 2003). Retrieved from http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/ gnn_images/news_content/09_03/whooping/pertusis.jpg at the Genome News Network website, GNN: Three genomes and whooping cough. Copyright 2000 - 2004 by the J. Craig Venter Institute. Available from http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/ articles/09_03/whooping_cough.php

Frequently the figure caption includes all the necessary data:

Figure 2. "Water lily [Nymphaeaceae] blooming in Saint Petersburg's Botanical Gardens, September 2005," by A. L. Olsen. Click image for larger version. Retrieved from the NBII (National Biological Information Infrastructure) Digital Image Library website, maintained by the Center for Biological Informatics of the U.S. Geological Survey: http://images.nbii.gov/details.php?id=55510

General guidelines for APA citation style of online sources

Web pages

Include the following information when citing a website in APA style:

Author's last name and any initials (if available)
Date of Internet publication or last revision (if known), in parentheses
Title of document
Title of complete work (if relevant), in italics or underlined
Other relevant information (volume number, page numbers, etc.)
Source statement (only include the retrieval date if the publication does not have a date)
URL; do not follow url with a period

A website without an author or date:

Title of the web page. (n.d.). Retrieved Month d, yyyy, from http://website.address.net

A website with a corporate author and a date:

Name of Organization. (yyyy, Month d). Title of web page. Retrieved from http://website.address.org

Special consideration when using APA style to cite web pages:

When citing an entire website, and not a specific document on that site, no Reference List entry is required if the address for the site is cited in the text of your paper.

Example:

The Association for Women in Mathematics site offers information on professional organizations and conferences (http://www.awm-math.org).

Online Articles

New: The DOI

The APA Style Guide to Electronic References (2007) introduces the use of the digital object identifier (DOI). The DOI is a permanent alphanumeric reference assigned to the final, archived version of a journal article. When preceded by "http://dx.doi.org/" it becomes a permanent address to the article. Because of the nature of the DOI, when used in a reference and preceded by "doi:" this number now takes the place of both the "Retrieved on" date and the database name. However, the Internet page linked to the DOI may not give access to the full text of the article, whereas the full text may be available via a subscription database. Therefore, you should follow the citation convention preferred by your instructor.

DOI look-up from crossref.org.

Full-text databases reproduce articles that orginally appeared in print elsewhere.
To cite such articles, include the following:

Author's last name and any initials (if available)
Date of article, in parentheses
Title of article (only capitalize the first letter of the first word, proper nouns, and the first word of the subtitle after a colon)
Title of journal/publication in which the article originally appeared, in italics or underlined
Volume, in italics
Issue number (in parentheses) and page number(s) of original article (if available)
Retrieval from name of database (e.g., Academic Universe) statement. Only include the retrieval date if there is no date for the article.
or:
Digital object identifier (DOI) statement

An article from a journal, paginated by issue, volume 3, issue 12, pages 9-29:

Author_last_name, F. M. (yyyy). Document title: Subtitle. Title of Journal, 3 (12), 9-29. Retrieved from the Database Name database.

Or, using a digital object identifier number in place of the retrieval information:

Author_last_name, F. M. (yyyy). Document title: Subtitle. Title of Journal, 3 (12), 9-29. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2230.2002.01151.x

In-text citations

Page numbers for online articles

Use only fixed page numbers from a PDF; do not cite page numbers of an HTML printout.
If you cannot determine the number of the page on which your cited text appeared, you may designate the heading of the section and the number of the paragraph instead.

Use the abbreviation para. or the ¶ symbol (i.e. pilcrow or paragraph sign).
The keystroke to make this symbol is Option+7 in MSWord for Macintosh and Alt+0182 in MSWord for Windows.

Example for a reference to an online article titled Reading, writing, and numeracy
for which the PDF version is not available, and which has a section heading of "Numeracy in everyday events:"

Numeracy is required to understand daily news reports such as the stock market, the weather, medical risk factors, sports scores, and statistical data related to politics, law, and society (Steen, 2005, Numeracy in everyday events, ¶2 - 7).

Or:

Multiple Authors

If there are 6 or more authors for a source, use the first author's name followed by "et al." for the in-text citation.
However, in the References list, only use et al. if there are 7 or more authors.

For example, in the body of the paper:

Cukrowicz et al. (2006) found a tendency toward suicidal ideation among those who experienced nightmares or other disturbing dreams.

But then in the Reference list:

Cukrowicz, K. C., Otamendi, A., Pinto, J. V., Bernert, R. A., Krakow, B., & Joiner, T. E., Jr. The impact of insomnia and sleep disturbances on depression and suicidality. Dreaming, 16, 1-10.

Read more about in-text citations:
Duke University, Owl at Purdue, Owl: about multiple authors, and The Everyday Writer

APA style guides in the Library:

Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. 6th ed. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2010.
Available at the Library Reference Desk (Ref Desk BF 76.7 .P83 2010)

Hacker, Diana. A pocket manual of style. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2008.
Available at the Library Reference Desk (Ref Desk PE 1408.H26 2008)

Information on this page was borrowed by permission from:

Lake Forest College Library. (n. d.). Citation guide: APA. Retrieved August 22, 2008 from
http://library.lakeforest.edu/help/citation_apa.html