MLA Style to APA Style References (6th Edition)

Creating References
Transitioning from MLA Style (Handbook, 8th ed., 2016)
to
APA Style (Publication Manual, 6th Edition, 2010, second printing or later; 
APA Guide to Electronic References, 2012; official APA style blog) 

Created by Prof. Mike Strahan
Updated 8/24/2019

Found the following work while searching ERIC, and retrieved online after clicking
Get this for me [NMU Olson Library]

Floor Effects Associated With Universal Screening and Their Impact on the Early Identification of Reading Disabilities
Hugh W. Catts, Yaacov Petscher, Christopher Schatschneider, Mindy Sittner Bridges and Katherin Mendoza
Journal of Learning Disabilities, Vol. 42, No. 2, 163-176 (2009)

MLA Works Cited entry (retrieved from publisher web site):

Catts, Hugh W., Yaacov Petscher, Christopher Schatschneider, Mindy Sittner Bridges 

          and Katherin Mendoza. "Floor Effects Associated With Universal Screening and

          Their Impact on the Early Identification of Reading Disabilities." Journal of Learning

          Disabilities, vol. 42, no. 2, March/April 2009, pp. 163-176. doi:10.1177/0022219408326219. 

[Note that if we had found the full-text of this article in an online database, the name of the database
in italics would be inserted between the page numbers and DOI.]

APA Reference entry, DOI assigned:

Catts, H. W., Petscher, Y., Schatschneider, C., Bridges, M. S., & Mendoza, K. (2009).

          Floor effects associated with universal screening and their impact on the early

          identification of reading disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 42(2), 163-176. 

          https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219408326219

 

Explanation of APA reference components

 

Reference
Section
APA format & notes
Author Use last name, first and middle initials. Separate two or last two authors by an ampersand (&). If work has more than 7 authors, list first 6, then three dots ... then last author. This is a major change from previous APA guidelines.
Publication Year For journal articles, only provide the year. For magazine articles, include year followed by month. For example: (2008, June).
Article Title Only capitalize first letter of first word for title and subtitle. Also capitalize proper names, acronyms, & abbreviations. Unlike MLA, no quotation marks.
Journal Title Capitalize all words except articles. Entire title in italics.
Volume Number Italics
Issue Number

Most scholarly/research journals use continuous pagination; that is, the first issue of a volume begins with page 1, and the page numbers continue until the end of the last issue in the volume.

However, in the online environment, many researchers are not familiar enough with the journal to know whether each issue is separately paginated; that is, each issue begins with page 1.

Therefore, it is recommended researchers include the issue number within parentheses (not italics) immediately following the volume number: 55(6)

Page Numbers

Include all page numbers where article appears. Do not use sloppy format, such as 163-76; instead write complete range: 163-176.

If journal is published online-only and articles are numbered, use pagination indicated in PDF form of article. Example: 1-12.

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

Unique number assigned to primarily journal articles, and some 
e-books and e-book chapters.

Note that not all articles are assigned a DOI, especially popular magazine and newspaper articles. The DOI always begins with 10 followed by a period and four digits and a slash. Example: 10.1177/

Remaining part of identifier may be all numbers, all letters, or combination of letters and numbers.

Beginning March 1, 2017, APA changed the format of the DOI to begin with https://doi.org/ 
followed by the assigned DOI. 

Even though some databases and journals may not use the current format, researchers & students are expected to follow the current standard format in their APA references.

 

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