8.3 Referring to Authors and Titles
Writing in academic and business contexts often entails writing about or responding to the words and ideas of other authors and speakers. College writing is often a “dialogue” or conversation between students and their professors, so it is a good way to practice skills you will use in the workplace. Research conducted for courses generally builds on or reacts to the work of previous scholars. As student writers, you often use the works of published authors to support your arguments or provide a framework for your analysis. When you do this, you must cite and document your sources; you may also need to identify the author and title that you are referring to in the text. Here below are some basic conventions (rules) to follow when you refer to sources in the text. For examples of References entries, please go to Citing and Documenting Sources.
Referring to Authors
(Citing Sources with More than One Author, 2021)
The first time that you mention the author, use the full name (but no titles, such as Mr. Ms, or Dr.). If there are more than three authors, use the Latin abbreviated term “et al.” to refer to additional authors. APA Style requires that you also include the publication date:
- William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet in 1601.
- Sean Petty and Justin Trudeau (2008) argue that …
- Ross Phillips et al. (2011) recommend that….
Every time you refer to the author after the first time, use the last name only. Never refer to the author by the first name (William or Will) only. Always use the last name:
- Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most studied plays.
- Petty and Trudeau (2008) go on to describe the effects of …
- Phillips et al. (2011) suggest that….
Knowledge Check
Referring to Titles
When referring to titles, there are two distinct methods to indicate two types of works:
- APA Style requires that the titles of shorter works that are published within a larger work (an article in a newspaper, an academic article in a periodical, a chapter in a book) be noted without quotation marks or italics in a list of references, but with quotation marks or italics when mentioned in the text. A larger, stand-alone work, like a book, is italicized in both cases. Do not capitalize the titles in the list of references. Titles of webpages are italicized. See examples below:
- “The Case Against Bottled Water” is an editorial written by Justin Trudeau and Sean Petty, published in The Star, a Toronto newspaper (2008).
- “People For Sale,” a magazine article published in The Utne Reader, is written by E. Benjamin Skinner (2008).
- “Bottled Water: The Pure Commodity in the Age of Branding” is an academic journal article by Richard Wilk, published in the Journal of Consumer Culture (2006).
- Reference Examples (2020) can be found on the APA Style website.
- When referring to titles of larger works, or works that have smaller articles published within them (books, newspapers, magazines, periodicals, movies, novels, etc.), use italics* excep