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APA – Citing Sources

The order of the reference list entries

The references in the reference list are ordered in alphabetical order by their entries, i.e., the author(s) or the organization. Examples:

  • Anderson, D., Wall, B., & James, S. (2010). 
  • Phillips, H., & Anderson, T. (2015).
  • World Health Organization. (2012).

Note: 

Two-party surnames with for example "de" or "von" is in the reference list alphabetized by the first letter: de Beauvoir goes under D.   

The non-significant words "a", "an" and "the" are ignored at the beginning of an author name for the purposes of alphabetizing: The Center for Autism is for example alphabetized under C in the reference list.