Authors in APA Format
Authors are formatted the same in all material formats.
- List only the first (and middle if available) initials of all authors
- Use Anonymous in place of the author, only if it is used in the source.
- Use commas to separate initials and suffixes such as Jr. and III.
- Example: Author, A. A., Jr.
- List all authors with the last name first
- Two authors are separated with a comma and an ampersand ( & )
- Example: Smith, J. D., & Jones, R. L.
- Three to 20 authors are formatted with commas and an ampersand ( & )
- Example: Smith, J. D., Jones, R. L., & Harper, S. G.
- More than 20 authors: List up to nineteen (19) authors; then ellipses (...) and then last author.
- Example: Smith, J. D., Jones, R. L., Harper, S. G., Harris, K., Thompson, L. C., Nelson, G. A., Brown, G., Hernandez, A. P., Young, P., Jr., Yu, C., Xu, A.-J., Gutierrez, J., Purple, R., Lady Gaga, Johnson, E. T., Lanners, E., Ames, C., Webster, G. T., Dell, R. N.,…Smythe, R.D.
Authors that are organizations, corporations, government entities, etc.
- Do not invert or use abbreviations.
- Examples:
- United States Department of Commerce.
- General Motors Corporation.
- American Civil Liberties Union.
In-text citations:
- Only list two authors (Brown & Smith, 2011);
- More than two authors use the first author and et al. (Brown, et al., 2010)