I'm working on my final paper for grad school and I'm completely stuck on how to cite a dissertation apa style. I've found a couple of really useful dissertations for my literature review, but they're from different sources—one from ProQuest, one from my university's institutional repository, and one that's only available in print from the library archives. And apparently, APA 7th edition treats each of these differently?
From what I've gathered, if a dissertation is unpublished (like the print one from the library), you cite it with the institution name as the source: Author, A. (Year). Title [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Name of Institution .
But if it's published in a database like ProQuest, you include the publication number and database name: Author, A. (Year). Title (Publication No. #) [Doctoral dissertation, Institution]. Database Name . And if it's from an institutional repository, you include the archive name and URL .
I'm also confused about in-text citations—do I just use the author and year like normal? And if I'm quoting directly, do I need page numbers even if the dissertation is only available online? The APA manual says to include page numbers for direct quotes, but some PDFs don't have stable page numbers .
Has anyone figured out a reliable way to handle this? I don't want to lose points on formatting after all the work I've put into this paper. Also, does the same format apply to master's theses, or are they different? Any examples from people who've successfully cited dissertations would be incredibly helpful.
From what I've gathered, if a dissertation is unpublished (like the print one from the library), you cite it with the institution name as the source: Author, A. (Year). Title [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Name of Institution .
But if it's published in a database like ProQuest, you include the publication number and database name: Author, A. (Year). Title (Publication No. #) [Doctoral dissertation, Institution]. Database Name . And if it's from an institutional repository, you include the archive name and URL .
I'm also confused about in-text citations—do I just use the author and year like normal? And if I'm quoting directly, do I need page numbers even if the dissertation is only available online? The APA manual says to include page numbers for direct quotes, but some PDFs don't have stable page numbers .
Has anyone figured out a reliable way to handle this? I don't want to lose points on formatting after all the work I've put into this paper. Also, does the same format apply to master's theses, or are they different? Any examples from people who've successfully cited dissertations would be incredibly helpful.
