Authors
AN AUTHOR CAN BE
- one or more persons
- an entity, such as a company, a government agency, an association or a nonprofit organization, etc. Such authors are often referred to as corporate authors.
ONE INDIVIDUAL AUTHOR
- Use last name, initials
- Example: Brown, J. M.
MULTIPLE AUTHORS
All authors and their initials need to be listed in the References entry, unless there are 21 or more authors, in which case, include the first 19 authors and then an ellipsis (...) and then the last author's name (APA, 2020, p. 286).
In in-text citations, include only the authors' last names. For multiple authors not all authors may be required to list - see below (and p. 266 of the Manual).
In-text multiple authors:
- For up to 2 authors, separate the names with a comma, put an & before the second author.
- Example: Chen, Y. & Hu, M.
- For 3 or more authors, list the first author, then add et al., following the author's name
- Example: Gilbert et al.
AN ENTITY AS AUTHOR (also known as Corporate Authors)
- Use full official names, but avoid A, An or The
- Example: The American Psychological Association would be entered as: American Psychological Association
NO AUTHOR (a rare situation)
- start the citation with the Title, followed by the remaining elements (date, retrieval info).
TWO OR MORE WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR IN DIFFERENT YEARS
- arrange the entries by year, the earliest first, e.g.
Blitzer, R. (2007). ... Blitzer, R. (2009). ...
TWO OR MORE WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR IN THE SAME YEAR
- arrange the entries alphabetically by title. Add the letters “a,” “b,” etc. after the year:
Baheti, J. R. (2001a). ... Baheti, J. R. (2001b). …
in-text include the letters, e.g.: (Baheti, 2001a)
AUTHORS WITH THE SAME LAST NAME AND SAME INITIALS
- you may include the full first names in brackets, e.g.:
Robinson, A. [Adam]. (2012). … Robinson, A. [Andrew]. (2012). ...
in-text include the full first name, e.g.: ....(Adam Robinson, 2012)
For more information on the author element in the reference list, see Chapter 9, pp. 285-289 and for in-text citation, see Chapter 8, pp. 264-268. CORPORATE AUTHOR
-Do not include Inc., Co. or unnecessary parts of the name of the corporate author, e.g.: ....(Simply Analytics, 2017)