# Article type and APA style

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/article-type-and-apa-style/1576>\
**Category:** CSL Usage\
**Created:** [November 8, 2019, 7:00pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/article-type-and-apa-style/1576 "2019-11-08T19:00:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![johanneswilm](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/johanneswilm/32/205_2.png) [@johanneswilm](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/johanneswilm)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2019, 7:00pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/article-type-and-apa-style/1576/1 "2019-11-08T19:00:05Z")

</div>

Hey, I have a user who complained that an entry of the article type didn’t render the way he expected using the APA 6th Edition style.

I checked the style file [1] and indeed, in several places it mentions “article-journal”, “article-newspaper” and “article-magazine” but not “article”. Yet “article” is still on the list of valid types [2].

So my question: is all of this as it should be, or is something out of date?

[1] [https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/blob/master/apa.csl](https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/blob/master/apa.csl)

[2] [https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/blob/master/csl-types.rnc](https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/blob/master/csl-types.rnc)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Sebastian\_Karcher](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/sebastian_karcher/32/176_2.png) [@Sebastian\_Karcher](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Sebastian_Karcher)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2019, 7:20pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/article-type-and-apa-style/1576/2 "2019-11-08T19:20:38Z")

</div>

See [https://github.com/citation-style-language/csl-evolution/issues/11](https://github.com/citation-style-language/csl-evolution/issues/11) for context and details. `article` is technically valid (still) but it has no clear meaning (i.e. it doesn’t correspond to anything in the APA guide) and thus no clearly defined expected output. You should avoid mapping to it for most purposes (Mendeley uses it as a generic fallback, which is fine)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![johanneswilm](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/johanneswilm/32/205_2.png) [@johanneswilm](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/johanneswilm)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2019, 8:35pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/article-type-and-apa-style/1576/3 "2019-11-08T20:35:32Z")

</div>

@Sebastian_Karcher thanks for that, I’ll make the needed changes to the biblatex-csl-converter package.

However, it sounds like our user knows APA better than me and he claims that APA doesn’t allow extra words in the bibliography which is why he complained about it saying “Vol.” (for “volume”). So if that is a general rule that applies to all citation types in APA, then it would to me seem to make sense to have a catch-all somewhere that makes sure that even non-supported types, such as “article”, are rendered in a way that is generally in line with what APA style looks like.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Sebastian\_Karcher](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/sebastian_karcher/32/176_2.png) [@Sebastian\_Karcher](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Sebastian_Karcher)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2019, 9:38pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/article-type-and-apa-style/1576/4 "2019-11-08T21:38:33Z")

</div>

It’s not a general rule – your user is (correctly) talking about journal volumes, for which APA never uses Vol. but it does for e.g. book volumes:

> **[LibGuides: APA Style Guide: Multi-Volume Works](https://irsc.libguides.com/apa/multivolumeworkreferenceexample)**
>
> American Psychological Association rules for formatting papers, in-text citations, and end references. Examples based on the sixth edition of the Publication Manual from the APA. By Alexis Carlson

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![johanneswilm](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/johanneswilm/32/205_2.png) [@johanneswilm](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/johanneswilm)\
**Post date:** [November 8, 2019, 10:48pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/article-type-and-apa-style/1576/5 "2019-11-08T22:48:29Z")

</div>

Ok, `biblatex-csl-converter` has now been updated to behave the same way as `pandoc-citeproc` in relation to newspaper, magazine, journal and generic articles.