Hello Lisa: You are correct in that since the publication of the sixth edition of the Publication Manual, CrossRef changed the DOI format so that DOIs are now displayed as permanent URLs (the new DOI format is http://dx.doi.org/xxxx). Per the recent APA Style Guide to Electronic References, it’s fine to include whichever format appears on the source you’re citing. Tyler

Hi Pamela: Per APA Style, the word data is plural and should be followed by a plural verb (see pp. 79 and 96 in the sixth edition of the Publication Manual). No exceptions to this rule are provided for this term, and therefore “data” should be used with a plural verb in the examples you provided. Tyler

Hi Harrie: Although these terms are not mentioned in the sixth edition of the Publication Manual, you are correct that media is the plural of medium and should be used with a plural verb. Remember to consult a dictionary (APA prefers Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 2005) when in doubt about the plural forms of nouns. Tyler

Hi Adriane: Although this example is not listed in the sixth edition of the Publication Manual, you can follow the same “nothing precedes something” guidance that the Publication Manual gives regarding alphabetizing author surnames in the reference list (see p. 181). Using this logic, “no date” should precede “some date,” and therefore the “n.d.” work by the corporate author should be listed before the “2006” work in the reference list. If you have additional APA Style questions for which you cannot find answers to in the Publication Manual or on the blog, feel free to e-mail Style Expert (styleexpert@apastyle.org), and an APA Style expert will respond to your question in the near future. Tyler

Hi Moelib: As stated in the supplemental materials to the Publication Manual (see http://supp.apa.org/style/pubman-ch03.19.pdf), the term “none” does not represent “not one.” Per APA Style, if you mean “not one,” use not one instead of none and use a singular verb. The pronoun none can be singular or plural. When the noun that follows it is singular, use a singular verb; when the noun is plural, use a plural verb: Plural in context: None of the children were finished in the time allotted. but Not one of the children was finished in the time allotted. Hope this helps. Tyler

Hi Paul, Thanks for your comment. It’s a great example of the difference between your job (linguist) and mine (APA Style expert). It’s true that people often use that and which interchangeably in casual speech. However, formal writing has different standards. The distinctions outlined above have proved useful, particularly in scientific writing, and that’s why they’re prescribed in APA Style.

Hello Tim: The guidance in the sixth edition of the APA Publication Manual supplants that offered in the 2007 APA Style Guide to Electronic References, which is no longer being distributed. As in the fifth edition of the APA Publication Manual, the issue number is deemed necessary only if the journal is paginated by issue. The rule was reinstated in a collective decision made by the individuals who oversaw the APA Publication Manual revision, including journal editors, electronic referencing specialists, students, and writing instructors. You state the case to remove the rule very strongly and persuasively. We are making a note of this and will pass along your strong preference to be weighed the next time the manual is revised. Thanks for taking the time to give us your thoughts.

Hi Tim: The benefit of including an issue number in your reference when a periodical is paginated by issue is to aid the reader in retrieving the article (both online and in print). If you do not include the issue number when a periodical is paginated by issue, the reader may have to check several issues in the volume to locate the article, as the page ranges of the articles contained within the volume will be similar because each issue begins on page 1.

Hi Laran: Although there have been different points of view concerning the inclusion of issue numbers in periodical references, the 6th edition of the APA Publication Manual recommends not including the issue number when the volume of a periodical is paginated continuously. If you are in doubt as to whether the volume of the periodical is paginated continuously or by issue, follow the steps in the Blog post to determine the answer.

Greetings Dr. Who: When citing electronic sources that do not provide page numbers, the main objective is to ensure that the reader is able to find the material being cited (see the 6th edition of the APA Publication Manual, pp. 171–172). Most research articles that follow APA style will contain Method, Results, and Discussion sections, so these are the most common headings that will be cited. If you are citing material from an electronic source that has multiple sections that use the same heading structure, then provide additional information to identify which section you are referring to (e.g., Experiment 2, Method section, para. 3). However, many articles do not contain Method, Results, and Discussion sections, and in these cases it is fine to use the headings that are provided in the article (e.g., Future Research section, para. 4). The final example listed in Section 6.05 (see p. 172) refers to headings that are too long and unwieldy to cite in full. In these cases, use an abbreviated heading title in quotation marks to refer to the section (e.g., “Mandatory Labeling Has Targeted,” para. 4). The quotation marks are only needed when you are using a short title rather than the full heading. In response to your last question, because the goal is to direct the reader to the location of the quoted material, if the material being cited does not appear in the first paragraph of the section, then you would provide the exact paragraph number that the quote appears in. If the section only contains one paragraph, listing the section name without a paragraph number is fine. Hope this helps to clear things up for you.

Hi John: Although there is no official list of classical works, I believe that St. John’s Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew fall into this category. Therefore, per the 6th edition of the Publication Manual, a reference list entry would not be required, and you should follow the guidelines mentioned in the blog post when referring to the homilies in the text of your article. When you need to cite a specific work of a single author that is contained in a collection, you can follow Example 21 on p. 203 of the Publication Manual. Hope this helps!