APA Citation Style

The American Psychological Association (2020) defines the title of a work as, "...the title of the work being cited" (p. 291).

The title element¹ falls within two categories: 

• Works that stand alone
  • whole books, gray literature, dissertations and theses, informally published works, data sets, videos, films, podcasts, data sets, etc.
• Works that are a part of a greater whole
  • periodical articles, edited book chapters, TV and podcast episodes. 

1. See p. 291 in APA Seventh Edition

For works that stand alone:

• Do italicize the title
• Use sentence casing 
• For Book and report references that include additional information such as edition or volume number, enclose the information within parentheses. There is no period between the Title element and this information. The additional information should not be italicized. 
• The title element is ended with a period unless the title of the work ends in alternative punctuation (i.e. exclamation or question marks). For these instances use the work's title punctuation at the end of the Title element. 

See pp. 291-293 in APA Seventh Edition

For works that are part of a whole:

• Do not italicize the title
• Use sentence casing 
• The title element is ended with a period unless the title of the work ends in alternative punctuation (i.e. exclamation or question marks). For these instances use the work's title punctuation at the end of the Title element.

See pp. 291-293 in APA Seventh Edition

Include bracketed descriptions proceeding the Title element when:

• There isn't a title of the work.
  • Include the work's medium and other information to help identify the work. 
• Untitled comments  
  • Within periodicals include up to the first 20 words 
  • Within social media posts include up to the first 20 words. Italicize the words and follow with a bracketed description of the comment.
• The work being cited is a particular medium

See pp. 292-293, 320, 348-350 in APA Seventh Edition

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/000165-000