Knowing how to cite an interview in APA Style is essential for maintaining academic integrity and ensuring your work is verifiable. Unlike sources such as books or journal articles, interviews present unique challenges regarding authorship, publication dates, and retrieval information. This guide provides a detailed, practical walkthrough of the citation process, covering both personal and published interviews to help you format references and in-text citations accurately.
Understanding the Core Components of an APA Interview Citation
Before diving into specific formats, it is important to understand the foundational elements required for any interview citation in the 7th edition of the American Psychological Association (APA) style. The structure depends entirely on the type of interview you are citing. Generally, you will need the interviewee's name, the date of the interview, the format (e.g., Personal interview, Telephone interview), and the location or retrieval information. Grasping these components is the first step toward creating a correct reference entry.
Personal Interviews: Citing Conversations You Conducted
Personal interviews, which include face-to-face conversations, email exchanges, or phone calls you have directly with someone, are considered "personal communication" in APA style. Because these materials are not recoverable by other readers—they exist only in your personal notes—they are cited only in the text of your paper. You should never include them in your reference list. The standard in-text citation format is the interviewee's last name, followed by the specific year and, if available, the date.
In-text citation example: (D. Garcia, personal communication, October 15, 2023)
Full text example: According to D. Garcia (personal communication, October 15, 2023), the preliminary results were inconclusive.
Citing Published or Broadcast Interviews
When you use an interview that has been published in a magazine, newspaper, book, television broadcast, or a legitimate online platform, you are citing a recoverable source. This means the interview must appear in your reference list. The general format requires the interviewee's last name and initials for the author element, the publication year in parentheses, the title of the interview in sentence case and italics, the designation "Interview" in square brackets, the interviewer's name (if relevant), the source medium (e.g., Print, Video), and the retrieval details if applicable.
Examples of Print and Video Interview Citations
For a print interview, such as one found in a newspaper, the citation includes the newspaper's name in italics. For a video interview, like one found on YouTube, the citation includes the URL. In both cases, the title of the interview is formatted in sentence case, meaning only the first word of the title and subtitle, and any proper nouns, are capitalized. Remember to use the ampersand symbol (&) before the final author name in the reference list if there are multiple contributors listed.
