How to Cite a Review in APA Referencing

Reviews of books, films, and other media can be great sources in academic writing. But how do you cite a review using APA referencing? In this post, we explain the basics of citations and the reference list entry.

In-Text Citations for a Review in APA Style

Citations for a review in APA referencing are similar to those for other sources. This means you cite the reviewer’s surname and year of publication:

One review was especially scathing (Smith, 2001).

In addition, if you quote a print source, make sure to cite a page number:

Smith (2001) dismisses the argument as ‘puerile’ (p. 16).

For more on APA citations, see our blog post on the topic.

Reviews in an APA Reference List

The format for a review in an APA reference list will depend on where it was published. For instance, for a review published in a newspaper, you would cite it as a newspaper article. But for a review published on a blog or website, you would cite it as a blog post or website instead.

In all cases, though, you will need to adapt the format by adding details of the thing being reviewed in square brackets after the review title.

You can see APA-style references for reviews from an academic journal and a website below, complete with this extra information:

Smith, G. (2001). A backward step for applied ethics [Review of the book Righteous Thought, Righteous Action, by X. Morrison]. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 18(1), 16–24.

Bert, E. (2018). Neil Breen outdoes himself again [Review of the film Twisted Pair, by N. Breen, Dir.]. BadMovieCentral. http://www.badmoviecentral.com/reviews/twisted-pair/

This ensures the reader can identify both the review you’re citing and the thing being reviewed from the reference list entry alone.

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