Titles in APA References Sections

Is is fast approaching that time in the semester when students are asking questions about providing references in APA format and they are confused by the capitalization rules.

I have made this set of flow charts available to my students for a few years… perhaps others can use them as well.

You can see there are two aspects of the titles that can be used to differentiate three types of titles:

  • Titles that are not in italics are short pieces in larger collections (articles or chapters);
  • Titles in italics but only the first word in capitalized are books (including compilations);
  • Titles in Italics with All Words Capitalized are periodicals.
Flow chart showing two methods of differentiating the three types of title by the style of the font and capitalization rules followed.
Flow chart showing two methods of differentiating the three types of title by the style of the font and capitalization rules followed.