Using parentheses and brackets in APA Style references

In the seventh edition of the Publication Manual, we standardized the way to present descriptive information in references. This blog post explains how to use parentheses and square brackets in APA Style references.

APA Style uses parentheses in references to present supporting information important for a work’s identification and retrieval. Examples of information presented in parentheses in references include the following:

• report numbers
• edition information for books
• editor and/or translator names for authored books
• volume numbers for books when the book does not have a separate volume title
• page numbers for edited book chapters
• season and episode information for TV show episodes
• version numbers for data sets and software

Information in parentheses appears either on the work itself or on closely related material (e.g., in the database record for the work). The information is presented in parentheses because it is not a part of the actual title of the work. Do not italicize parenthetical information, even if the title of the work is italicized.

The following example report reference contains a parenthetical report number:

APA Style uses square brackets to describe works. The descriptions serve various purposes, including the following:

• identifying the context in which a work was published or presented (e.g., dissertations and theses, conference presentations)
• identifying when a source is outside the typical peer-reviewed literature (e.g., fact sheets, brochures, PowerPoint slides, artwork, social media posts, YouTube videos)
• indicating that the source may not consist of text on a page (e.g., films, data sets, computer software, and mobile apps)
• providing translations of titles for references that are in a different language than that of the paper (e.g., books in a different language; see also Section 9.38).

Square brackets indicate that the writer has provided the information and that it may not appear on the actual work. You can create your own wording for the bracketed description (see Section 9.21). Do not italicize bracketed information, even if the title of the work is italicized.

The following example YouTube video reference contains a bracketed description of form (i.e., video).

In general, to determine whether to use parentheses or brackets in a reference, look at the template and reference example in the Publication Manual for the type of work you want to cite. When both parentheses and brackets are present, place the parenthetical information first and the bracketed description second.

The following dissertation example reference contains both parentheses and brackets (corresponding to the publication number in parentheses and the description of the context of the work in brackets).

We hope this post will help you use parentheses and brackets correctly in APA Style.