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APA Guide

This guide contains information to help you cite your sources in APA format.

Citing an Online Video (APA)

Format:  Author(s). (Year, Month Day). Title of video [Video]. Website Name. URL

Example: Green, B. (2015, March 18). Biology: Cell structure [Video]. YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URUJD5NEXC8 

Example: Smith, M. [Grammar Guru]. (2020, March 8). Comma mistakes [Video]. Vimeo. http://www.vimeo.com/235978645 

Group Author: University of Chicago [UofChicago]. (2020, January 15). New research update from department of nursing [Video]. YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/23654645 

Citing a Recording (Video, Film, Audio, etc.) - In-Text Citation

When citing a direct quotation or paraphrasing specific section or idea in a recording (video, film, audio, etc.), put the author’s last name or user name, the year, a time stamp for the relevant section in parenthesis. Each number section (hours:minutes:seconds) in time stamp should separated by a colon, without space on either side. If not citing a direct quote or paraphrasing specific section or idea in a recording, you do not include the timestamp.

Example: One Author  "That yearning for justice that I feel" (Ferriss, 2018, 18:23).

Example: Group or Organization or User Name  Not knowing how to cook means, "you are hostage to the food industry" (Stanford Health Library, 2015, 1:01:29).

Example: User Name and not using a direct quote or paraphrasing  This source gives a real life example of some of the pit falls to dumpster diving when the the police show up to stop the person in the video from recovering the trash (Freakin Frugal, 2021).

Helpful Information

Title:

For the video title, capitalize only proper nouns and the first word of the article title and subtitle. Also italicize the video title.

For the website name, capitalize all the significant words in the title. Do not use italics or quotation marks.

Note: If you mention an online video title in your paper, all major words should be capitalized and it should be in italics.

Author:

The person or group who uploaded the video is credited as the author.  

Usernames can be included in place of author’s real name if real name is not known. If both real name and username are known, include both with username listed second, in brackets.  

Format:

It is not necessary to specify how you watched a video (e.g., streaming on iTunes etc.), but the format or other descriptive information may be included in brackets following the title. Example: How to diagram a sentence [Video]

Location:

Present URL’s as hyperlinks beginning with http:// or https:// taking the reader directly to the source.

Formatting:

Double space entries. If an entry runs more than one line, use a hanging indent to indent any additional lines beyond the first.

Capitalize proper nouns and the first words of title and subtitle.

Acceptable abbreviations can be found on pp. 306-7 of the APA manual.

If what you are citing is not listed in APA manual, choose the example in the manual most like your source.