APA 7 Style Guide

Dissertation/Thesis – APA Reference List

General tips

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'.

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 Title of dissertation/thesis (Unpublished doctoral dissertation [OR] Unpublished master's thesis).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

Examples

Unpublished Dissertations or Thesis

Harris, L. (2014). Instructional leadership perceptions and practices of elementary school leaders [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Virginia.

Dissertation or thesis from a database

Hollander, M. M. (2017). Resistance to authority: Methodological innovations and new lessons from the Milgram experiment (Publication No. 10289373) [Doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.

Dissertation or thesis published online (not in a database)

Hutcheson, V. H. (2012). Dealing with dual differences: Social coping strategies of gifted and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer adolescents [Master's thesis, The College of William and Mary]. William & Mary Digital Archive. https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/bitstream/handle/10288/16594/HutchesonVirginia2012.pdf