APA Style Refresh: Using Multiple Sources with the Same Author and No Date

As you read our APA Style Refresh series, you’ll start to wonder (if you haven’t already) how in the world anyone remembers all of these rules. The dirty little secret? We don’t! Even Writing Instructors, who help students with APA Style every day, have to look up the finer points of APA with some regularity. 

One rule that I’ve had to look up more than once is what to do when you have multiple sources that have the same author and no date. The answer comes out of the rule for referencing multiple sources with the same author and year of publication. In that case, lowercase letters are placed immediately after the year and within the parentheses in both citations and reference entries: (2018a), (2018b), (2018c), etc. 

If multiple sources have the same author and no date available, the formatting is just a little different. In this case, follow “n.d.” for “no date” with a hyphen and lowercase letter. 

Here are the example references entries for these types of sources:

Walden University. (n.d.-a). Citations: Citation variations. Retrieved from https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/apa/citations/variations

Walden University. (n.d.-b). Reference list: Common reference list examples. Retrieved from https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/apa/references/examples

How do you choose which source is letter “a” and which source is letter “b”? Simply place the sources in alphabetical order by title, disregarding any initial articles like “A,” “An,” or “The.”

Be sure to use these letters in not only the reference entries, but also the citations so that your reader knows where to find each piece of information. 

I have to say, I’m glad that this blog post is now published so I can go back to it the next time I forget this rule—which I surely will! What new APA rules have you learned lately?

Cheryl Read is a Writing Instructor in the Walden University Writing Center who seems to learn something new about APA Style just about every week. 

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