APA 6 Style Guide

Thesis/Dissertation – APA Reference List

Capitalization

• The document title is in sentence case – Only the first word and proper nouns in the title are capitalized. Always capitalize the first word, the first word after a colon or a dash.
• The title of the thesis or dissertation is in title case – Each word in the name is capitalized, except for articles (a, an, the), prepositions (against, between, in, of, to), conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet), and the infinitive 'to'.

Thesis/Dissertation – Unpublished/Print version

For papers written in United States list City and State. For countries outside United States list City and Country.

Format:

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of dissertation/thesis (Unpublished doctoral dissertation [OR] Unpublished master's thesis). Academic Institution, City, State [OR] Country.

Example:

• Considine, M. (1986). Australian insurance politics in the 1970s: Two case studies. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
• Kassover,A. (1987). Treatment of abusive males: Voluntary vs. court-mandated referrals (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Nova University, Fort Lauderdale, FL. 

Thesis/Dissertation – From a commercial database (e.g., ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database)

Format:

Author, A (Year). Title of dissertation/thesis (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from Name of database. (Accession or Order Number)

Example:

• Cooley, T. (2009). Design, development, and implementation of a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN): The Hartford Job Corps Academy case study (Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. (UMI No. 3344745)

Thesis/Dissertation – Institutional Database (i.e. University website)

For U.S. thesis do not include university or locations. Include the university and location (City and Country) for a non-U.S. online thesis.

Format:

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of dissertation/thesis (Doctoral dissertation/Master's thesis). Retrieved from http://url.com

Examples:

• Adams, R. J. (1973). Building a foundation for evaluation of instruction in higher education and continuing education (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/
• Barua, S. (2010). Drought assessment and forecasting using a nonlinear aggregated drought index (Doctoral dissertation, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia). Retrieved from http://vuir.vu.edu.au/1598

Thesis/Dissertation – Web

For U.S. thesis do not include locations. Include the location (City and Country) for a non-U.S. online thesis.

Format:

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of dissertation/thesis (Doctoral dissertation/Master's thesis, Institution issuing degree). Retrieved from http://www.url.com

Example:

• Bruckman, A. (1997). MOOSE Crossing: Construction, community, and learning in a networked virtual world for kids (Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Retrieved from http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~asb/thesis