by Judy DeLisle of Valencia Community College

APA style dictates that personal communication, including e-mail and non-scholarly messages from newsgroups, listservs and online forums or discussion groups, be cited in the text of the report rather than in the references list. The format to follow is:

K. Borglum (personal communication, March 28, 1997) stated that. . .

Any message you receive from a newsgroup, online forum or discussion group, or listserv which has scholarly value and has been archived, ie., is retrievable should be included in the Reference List and cited as follows.

Message posted to a newsgroup

Snider, B. (2001, July 22). Internet addiction and teenagers [Msg 22].

Message posted to news://sci/psychology.consciousness

Message posted to an online forum or discussion group

Byrnes, T. (2001, July 14). International tension in Bosnia [Msg 12].

Message posted to http://valencia.collegis.com/courses/forums/POS1041-04Byrf.nsf

Message posted to a listserv

DeLisle, J. (2001, August 1). Information literacy and library instruction. Message

posted to Ref-Links electronic mailing list, archived at http://www.doi.org/

mail-archive/ref-link/msg00088.html