Pet & Animal: How to Cite an Interview in APA

Friday, 2 January 2015

How to Cite an Interview in APA

Scholarly papers are often formatted according to the American Psychological Association style. An essay or thesis that quotes another person should be attributed properly in text and in the reference list in order to avoid plagiarism. Find out how to cite an interview in APA.

Steps

Citing a Personal Interview

Establish if the interview was conducted by you or if it was conducted by another person and published in a book or online. You will choose different citation styles for these 2 types of interviews.
- Personal interviews are only cited in the text portion of the essay and not in the works cited (reference list).

Explain the interview you are citing in the prose of your work. If you are referencing an unknown discussion or some evidence from an interview, you should lead into it with a description of the interview and how it was conducted.

Follow the interview text with a parenthetical citation. This means you should put the entire citation in parenthesis after the last sentence.
- Begin with the name of the person who was interviewed. Use the first initial, a period and the full last name. Place a comma after the name.

Add the information "personal communication," followed by a period.

Finish with the date of the interview. Close the parenthesis. Continue writing your paper.

Citing a Published Interview

Include the interview in your reference list, if it was published in a magazine or other publication. The following is how you will cite a published interview in a magazine.

Start with the last name, followed by a comma. Then, add the first initial and a period (full stop.)

Add the publication date in parenthesis. The format should be (year, full month day).
- For example, "(2012, January 14)."

Include the name of the article next. Write this exactly as it appears in the magazine. Place a period following the name.

Write the name of the publication in italics. Place a comma after the name.

Include the volume number, followed by a comma.

Finish the entry with the page numbers, separating a consecutive series with a dash. Always place your entries in alphabetical order.

Citing an Interview on Audio File

Begin with the last name of the interviewer, a comma and the first initial. Follow the initial with a period. Include the name "Interviewer" in parenthesis.
- Place an ampersand between the interviewer and interviewee names.

Add the name of the interviewee. Use the same format of last name, comma, first initial and a period. Place the word "interviewee" in parenthesis, followed by a period.

Include the year of the interview in parenthesis. Place a period after the parenthesis.

Cite the name of the audio file or transcript in italics.

Place the medium of the interview, such as "Interview transcript" or "Interview audio file" in brackets. Include a period after the end bracket.

Write where you found the interview. Use the phrase "Retrieved from" and the name of the database, project name or website. Place a bracket if you have a URL and a period if you do not.