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APA Format Style Guide: Reviews, Unpublished Works, and Informally Published Works

This guide will assist you in writing research papers using the American Psychological Association (APA) Style. It will help explain formatting your paper as well as proper citation for various resources.

Basic Citation

Reviews

Author Date Title - Review Title Title - Details of Reviewed Work Source - Periodical Information Source - DOI or URL
Reviewer, A.A.

(2020).

(2020, February 3).

 Title of review.

[Review of the book Book title, by A.A. Author].

[Review of the book Book title, by E.E. Editor, Ed.].

[Review of the film Film title, by D.D. Director, Dir.].

[Review of the TV series episode "Episode title," by W.W. Writer, Writer, & D.D. Director, Dir.].

Periodical title, 34(2), 14-15.

Blog title.

https://doi.org/xxxx

https://xxxx

Unpublished Works

Author Date Title Source - University Informaiton Source - URL
Author, A.A., & Author, B.B. (2020).

Title of the work [Unpublished manuscript].

Title of work [Manuscript in preparation].

Title of work [Manuscript submitted for publication].

 Department Name, University Name. https://xxxx

Informally Published Works

Author Date Title Source - Database or Archive Information Source - DOI or URL
Author, A.A., & Author, B.B. (2020).

Title of the work.

Title of the work (Publication No. 123).

Name of Database.

Name of Archive.

https://doi.org/xxxx

https://xxxx

 

Reviews

Remember to indent the second and following lines of your reference list entries!

Film review published in a journal

Schickel, R. (2006). The power of Babel [Review of the film Babel, by A. G. Iñárritu, Dir.]. Time, 168(18), 70.

  • Parenthetical Citations: (Schnickel, 2006)
  • Narrative Citations: Schnickel (2006)

Book review published in a newspaper

Santos, F. (2019, January 11). Reframing refugee children's stories [Review of the book We are displaced: My journey and stories from refugee girls around the world, by M. Yousafzai]. The New York Times.https://nyti.ms/2HIgjk3

  • Parenthetical Citations: (Santos, 2019)
  • Narrative Citations: Santos (2019)

TV series episode review published on a website

Perkins, D. (2018, February 1). The good place ends its remarkable second season with irrational hope, unexpected gifts, and a smile [Review of the TV series episode "Somewhere else," by M. Schur, Writer & Dir.]. A.V. Club. https://www.avclub.com/the-good-place-ends-its-remarkable-second-season-with-i-1822649316

  • Parenthetical Citations: (Perkins, 2018)
  • Narrative Citations: Perkins (2018) 

Unpublished Works and Informally Published Works

Remember to indent the second and following lines when writing your reference list entries!

Unpublished manuscript

Yoo, J., Miyamoto, Y., Rigotti, A., & Ryff, C. (2016). Linking positive affect to blood lipids: A cultural perspective [Unpublished manuscript]. Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

  • Parenthetical Citation: (Yoo et al., 2016)
  • Narrative Citation: Yoo et al. (2016)

Manuscript in preparation

O'Shea, M. (2018). Understanding proactive behavior in the workplace as a function of gender [Manuscript in preparation]. Department of Management, University of Kansas.

  • Parenthetical Citations: (O'Shea, 2018)
  • Narrative Citations: O'Shea (2018)

Manuscript submitted for publication

Lippincott, T., & Poindexter, E.K. (2019). Emotion recognition as a function of facial cues: Implications for practice [Manuscript submitted for publication]. Department of Psychology, University of Washington.

  • Parenthetical Citations: (Lippincott & Poindexter, 2019)
  • Narrative Citations: Lippincott and Poindexter (2019)

Informally published work, from a preprint archive or an institutional repository

Leuker, C., Samartzidis, L., Hertwig, R., & Pleskac, T.J. (2018). When money talks: Judging risk and coercion in high-paying clinical trials. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/9P7CB

Stults-Kolehmainen, M.A., & Sinha, R. (2015). The effects of stress on physical activity and exercise. PubMed Central. https://www.ncbi.nlm.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3894304

  • Parenthetical Citations: (Leuker et al., 2018); (Stults-Kolehmainen & Sinha, 2015)
  • Narrative Citations:  Leuker et al. (2018); Stults-Kolehmainen and Sinha (2015)

Informally published work, from ERIC database

Ho, H.-K. (2014). Teacher preparation for early childhood special education in Taiwan (ED545393). ERIC. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED545393.pdf

  • Parenthetical CItations: (Ho, 2014)
  • Narrative Citations: Ho (2014)

Remember!

  • Capitalize only the first word in the document title and any proper nouns.  If there is a colon in the title (a subtitle), capitalize only the first word after the colon and any proper nouns.
  • Alphabetize your reference list by the first word of the citation, usually the author's last name.  If there is no author, alphabetize by the first main word in the title, ignoring "a," "an," or "the."
  • Double space all of the citations on your reference list.
  • Indent the second and following lines of the citation 5 to 7 spaces.