How to format your references using the Transactions of the American Philological Association citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Transactions of the American Philological Association (TAPA). For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Find the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

Zeki, S. 2000. “Abstraction and Idealism.” Nature 404 (6778) (April 6): 547.

A journal article with 2 authors

Thibault, P., and Menzel, A. 2013. “Reconstructing State Mixtures from Diffraction Measurements.” Nature 494 (7435) (February 7): 68–71.

A journal article with 3 authors

Husale, S., Persson, H.H.J., and Sahin, O. 2009. “DNA Nanomechanics Allows Direct Digital Detection of Complementary DNA and MicroRNA Targets.” Nature 462 (7276) (December 24): 1075–78.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Paz-Y-Miño C, G., Bond, A.B., Kamil, A.C., and Balda, R.P. 2004. “Pinyon Jays Use Transitive Inference to Predict Social Dominance.” Nature 430 (7001) (August 12): 778–81.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

German Geotechnical Society. 2013. Recommendations on Excavations EAB. D-69451 Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH.

An edited book

Awange, J.L. 2010. Algebraic Geodesy and Geoinformatics. Edited by Erik W. Grafarend, Béla Paláncz, and Piroska Zaletnyik. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Child, I.G., and Ehiri, J.E. 2009. “Maternal and Child Health in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Countries.” In Ehiri, J. ed. Maternal and Child Health: Global Challenges, Programs, and Policies. Boston, MA: Springer US. 53–81.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for Transactions of the American Philological Association.

Blog post

Luntz, S. 2014. “Milky Way Placed Within a ‘Council of Giant Galaxies.’” IFLScience. IFLScience. March 12. https://www.iflscience.com/space/milky-way-placed-within-“council-giant-galaxies”/.

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

Government Accountability Office. 2010. “Information Technology: HUD Needs to Better Define Commitments and Disclose Risks for Modernization Projects in Future Expenditure Plans.” GAO-11-72. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Proser, M. 2015. “Ingredients for Optimal Care: Exploring Factors Associated with Patient Quality Outcomes among Federally-Qualified Health Centers.” Doctoral dissertation, Washington, DC: George Washington University.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

Poniewozik, J. 2016. “White Guys, Grappling With a New Reality.” New York Times, September 13.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text

About the journal

Full journal title	Transactions of the American Philological Association
ISSN (print)	0360-5949
ISSN (online)	1533-0699
Scope	Language and Linguistics Classics Literature and Literary Theory Linguistics and Language