Finding Primary Articles in PubMed: APA Citations

Here is the basic APA form you should replicate when citing an article from PubMed, or any article database.

Author, A.A., & Author, B.B. (Date of publication). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume

          number(issue number), pages. Retrieved from PubMed Database.

And here is an example of how an actual PubMed article should be cited on your References page.

Misselwitz, B. (2014). Lactose intolerance: new insights due to blinded testing? Digestion, 90(1),

          72-3. Retrieved from PubMed database.

Notice that in the article title, only the first word is capitalized. In APA style, only the first word of article titles and proper nouns are capitalized. The Journal title is always capitalized, as it is a proper noun. Journal titles are also italicized. Also note that the volume number in the example above (the number 90) is italicized, but the issue number is not italicized.

For additional APA help, visit the SCC Library APA Style site, or go to the Purdue OWL APA site.

Your in-text citation should contain the author's last name and the date of publication. If you are citing a direct quote, you need to include a page number, if available. Here are some examples:

The study concluded that a majority of participants would have benefited from a daily calcium supplement (Smith, 2009).

The study concluded that "students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time" (Jones & Rogers, 1998, p. 199).

You may also inlcude the author's name in the text of your paper, and immediately follow it with the publication date in parentheses. Here's an example:

According to Johnson (1998), "the use of APA style was made easier for students when they consulted an APA reference manual" (p. 199).

For additional help with APA in-text citations, go to the Purdue OWL APA site.