APA FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions About APA Style®

APA's Publication Manual, 6th Edition, provides complete style guidelines and should be consulted first in all matters concerning APA Style®, but these FAQs will help clarify frequent areas of confusion. You might also want to search the APA Style blog.

General

• What is APA Style®?
• Why is APA Style® needed?
• Why is there a specific APA Style®?
• Can you help with my research for my psychology paper?
• Do you have any sample papers that I can view?
• Does APA offer a workbook on APA Style®?
• I can't find the example reference I need in the Publication Manual. What should I do?
• How does the APA Style® Guide to Electronic References, Sixth Edition, differ from the chapters on references in the sixth edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association?

References

• Book review
• Newspaper article
• References within parentheses
• Book with no author or editor
• E-mail communications from individuals
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Digital object identifier, or DOI
• Retrieval dates
• Page numbers
• Bibliography
• Website
• Web page with no author
• Website material with no author, year, and page numbers
• Interview
• Source in another source
• Bible or classic works

Punctuation

• Comma
• Hyphen for compound words
• Colon
• Slash mark
• Brackets
• Semicolon
• Double quotation marks
• Parentheses

Grammar and Writing Style

• Subject and verb agreement
• Dangling modifiers
• Verbs
• Linguistic devices
• Spelling
• Redundancy
• Numbers
• Abbreviations
• Subjects and participants

Formatting