Education Subject Guide: Basic Rules

Authors

One to Twenty Authors

Core Elements:

Last name, then comma, and then first and middle initials with a space between said initials. Put an ampersand (i.e., &) before the very last author's name.

Example:

Molina, J. R., Wilkinson, S., Spalding, E. E., Lu, K., & Sumney, M. F.

Twenty-One or More Authors

Core Elements:

List the first nineteen authors followed by an ellipsis (i.e., ...) and finish with the final author's name (don't use an ampersand).

Example:

Ndegeocello, M., Knowles, S. P., Stevens, S., Nascimento, M., Duplaix, V., Haughton, A. D., Cunningham, D. J., Kraft, S., Marshall, A., Russell, C. A., Gibbons, W., Smooth, C. L., Ciani, S., Fujimoto, Y., Coltrane, A. M., Tengo, Y. T., Greffel, N., Oh, L. M. H., Shashidhar, S., ... Eno, B.

Organization as Author

Core Elements:

For a corporation, university, or any organization that takes authorship responsibility, simply list their name in full. Unless they're a government agency with multiple layers of other agencies and/or departments, instead list only the most specific agency or department.

Examples:

American Red Cross
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
National Institute of Nursing Research

No Author

Core Elements:

Begin the citation with the title of the resource.

Example:

Could you be a pizza addict? (2015, November 9). Modern Healthcare, 45(45), 40.

Publication Dates

Date Is Available

For journals and books, include year only. For all other sources, include as specific a date as possible.

Core Elements:

(Year)
(Year, Month)
(Year, Month Day)
(Year, Season)

Examples:

(2017)
(2020, February)
(2016, November 29)
(2019, Spring/Summer)

No Date

Core Elements:

(n.d.)

Example:

The History Teaching Institute. (n.d.). Loyalists and loyalism in the American Revolution. The History Teaching Institute @ The Ohio State University. https://hti.osu.edu/history-lesson-plans/united-states-history/loyalists

Titles

Articles

Core Elements:

Type article titles in lowercase except the first letter of the first word, proper nouns (e.g., China, Abraham Lincoln), and the very first letter following a colon (i.e., the start of a subtitle).

Examples:

Cognition and the assessment of interaction episodes in jazz improvisation
Gaming behavior and addiction among Hong Kong adolescents
Out in the classroom: Transgender student experiences at a large public university

Journals, Magazines, and Newspapers

Core Elements:

Type journal, magazine, and newspaper titles in title case (the first letter of each word is capitalized--except for conjunctions, articles, and prepositions that are not the first words in either the title and/or subtitle) and italicize them.

Examples:

The New England Journal of Medicine
Music and the Moving Image
Queer Studies in Media & Pop Culture

Books

Core Elements:

Type book titles in lower case except the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. Also, italicize them (with the exception of any parenthetical indication of a revised edition).

Examples:

Black women in sequence: Re-inking comics, graphic novels, and anime
The new Harvard guide to women's health
The international handbook of suicide prevention
(2nd ed.)

Volume & Issue Numbers

Core Elements:

Italicize the volume number of journals or magazines. Do not italicize the issue number; put it in parenthesis. There is no space between them.

Example:

Queer Studies in Media & Pop Culture, 1(3)

Page Numbers

Core Elements:

Unlike in-text and parenthetical citations, do not preface page numbers with a p. for single pages or pp. for a page range--simply list the page numbers.

Examples:

101
78-83

DOIs, URLs, & Names of Databases

DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers)

DOIs, when available, should always be included. Put "https://doi.org/" before a DOI.


URLs (Web Addresses)
  • URLs should only be included for resources from the public Internet (i.e., not library databases), or for resources that are published exclusively within a library database (e.g., overview articles from Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints).
  • Don't preface the URL with "Retrieved from."
  • Don't put a period after the URL.
  • You can substitute a shortened URL from a service such as Bitly.
  • If the resource is likely to change and be updated, include "Retrieved," the date of retrieval, "from," and then the URL.

Names of Databases

Names of databases should only be included, along with URLs, for resources that are published exclusively within a database (e.g., overview articles from Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints).