The Abstracts (AB) field includes abstracts written or edited by the American Psychological Association (APA) for journal articles. APA abstracts contain information specifically targeted to be of use with various forms of literature.

For example, experimental and empirical articles will always contain the purpose of the study, the hypothesis, the subject population, methodology, results and significant conclusions. Names and genres of instruments used are included wherever possible, as well as names, dosage and route of administration of drugs.

The abstract index contains all searchable words from the abstract.

Historical Note: From 1995, dissertation records contain abstracts as well. Journal-provided abstracts have been used with little modification, whenever possible, since 2003. Older APA PsycInfo® records have a higher percentage of staff-written and modified journal abstracts.

All Fields (AF) is an alias for all of the fields which occur in the source documents, including value-added fields such as Subject Headings (SH).

The Age Group (AG) field contains a standardized description of specific population age groups related to the content of the document. The results are displayed as part of the Population Group (PO) field. A record may contain multiple Age Groups:

Both the code and the term are searchable, e.g., 100.ag. or childhood birth 12 yrs.ag. Age Groups are also available as limits.

Historical Note: The present list of Age Groups has existed from 1996 to present. The three broad Age Groups (Childhood, Adolescence, and Adulthood) have been assigned by indexers since 1984 and are also applied to all records in which a narrower Age Group appears. However, Age Group values have been mapped back in the database to 1967, based on the records indexing. Most of the records from the earliest to 1966 do not have Age Groups.

The Author ID (AI) will help users locate publications by authors with variant name spellings and will group that author’s publications.

The Accession Number (AN) field appears in every record, and uniquely identifies the record. You can retrieve any specific record in the database with its accession number. It contains 12 numeric characters with hyphens, structured as follows:

Examples:

The Author (AU) field contains the names of individual persons responsible for creation of the work represented by the record. If all authors are not included, the last name listed is followed by "et al."

The author names are entered into the index as they appeared in the original document, in the format of last name followed by first and middle names or up to two initials. Thus, a person named "James C. Smith" may appear as "Smith James C," "Smith J Charles," "Smith, JC" or "Smith J" Enter the last name, or if it is a common name, enter the last name, a space, and the first initial.

Patronymic suffixes, such as Jr., Sr., III, and so on, are included for display, but are not indexed, as are non-author roles, which include:

Historical Note: The number of authors cited varies by entry year.
1996-present: All author names.
1987-1995: First four authors, followed by et al. if there were more than four authors. In 2009 et al. was replaced with the actual author's names.
1967-1986: Up to four authors entered; but for publications with more than four authors, the first author ONLY was entered followed by et al. (See note above regarding et al.)
Earliest-1966: Variable due to editorial differences among the printed source material.

The Chapters (BA) field displays the Accession number(s) and Chapter Titles of different chapter(s) in a Book Record. Chapter accession numbers are searchable in Chapters (BA) and Accession Number (AN) indexes, they consist of 12 numeric characters with hyphens. While the Chapter Title(s) are searchable in the Title (TI) field.

Display Example:

Chapters: 2014-07760-003 [Stigma and LGBT aging: Negative and positive marginality]

The Book Edition (BE) field contains the edition information of book records. This information displays as part of the Title (TI) field.

The Back Matter (BM) field displays the information on where to search the back matter pdf of a Book Record.

The Parent Book Title (BT) field contains the full name of the Book in which a Chapter appears.
Parent Book titles are indexed as phrases. To view book titles in the index, enter as many of the words or letters in a book title name as are needed to distinguish it from other journals: "the interpret" for "The Interpretation of Dreams."

To search by a Parent Book Title word, use the Parent Book Title Word (BW) index. This field displays as part of the Source (SO) field.

The Book Volume (BV) field contains the volume information of book records. This information displays as part of the Title (TI) field.

The Parent Book Title Word (BW) field contains individual words from every title of the parent book in which the chapter appears.

The parent book information, combined with the publisher and ISBN fields, enables users to obtain complete book bibliographic data from chapter records. This field displays as part of the Source (SO) field.

The Type of Book (BY) field identifies the description or type of book. Type of Book is also available as a limit. Type of Book (BY) include:

The Corporate/Institutional Author (CA) field contains the corporation or institution of the authors or editors as well as the department, sub-departments and location.

If all corporate authors are not included, "et al." will appear after the last one.

The APA Classification Code (CC) field includes 4-digit numbers representing broad subject categories, such as "Learning and Motivation" or "Linguistics, Language and Speech." Searching with Classification Codes is a convenient way to limit an existing subject search to a particular setting (e.g., treatment, education, etc.) or area.

The numerical Classification Codes are stored in the index. To view and select from the hierarchical list of codes and their scope notes, use the option "Tools/Classification Codes."

Historical Note: Classification System History
1992: The system expanded from 17 to 22 categories. All categories and subcategories are searchable for records entered and were mapped back to relevant records. The classification codes were mapped back to all records.
1989: Classifications corresponding to the current changes were mapped back to relevant records.
1976: Four-digit subcategories were used for the first time. Before 1976, the classification system consisted of broad, two-digit codes only. For records entered prior to 1976, concepts represented by subcategories in the current system can be searched at the broad level only.

The Cited Reference DOI (CD) field contains the Digital Object Identifier of the electronic document cited in a record. These DOIs may contain full text access. The Cited Reference DOI displays in the Cited References (RF) field.

The Cited Reference Publisher (CE) field contains the publisher of the publication. The Cited Reference Publisher displays in the Cited References (RF) field.

The Conference Information (CF) field contains the name, number, date and location of a conference at which the content of the document was presented.

The Corrected Date (CH) field appears in corrected records and contains the date the record was revised. When available, it displays in the Update Code (UP) field.

The Cited Reference Pagination (CG) contains pages appears on the Cited Reference field.

The Cited Reference Issue (CI) field contains the issue information of the journal in which the citation appears.

It displays in the Cited References (RF) field.

The Cited Reference Volume (CL) field contains the particular volume of the Cited Reference Source (CS).

It displays in the Cited References (RF) field.

This field is indexed and displayed as part of the Conference Information (CF) field.

Historical Note: From 2002 forward, the correspondence author’s name and address have been displayed in a separate field. Beginning in 2006, the correspondence address can be for an organization as well as an individual.

The Cited Reference Source (CS) field contains the title of the publication. For Book references, title information will be found in the Cited Reference Cited Reference Title (CV) field. The Cited Reference Source displays in the Cited References (RF) field.

The Cited Reference Author Last Name (CT) field contains the author for the source document. Authors may be Anonymous, Individual Authors, or Institutional Authors. The Cited Reference Author displays in the Cited References (RF) field.

The Cited Reference Title (CV) field contains the title of the source document. The field may contain additional information including, but not limited to, the following: the edition number, volume number, or revision number, special issue title or designation, technical report number or government document number, and/or an online document designation.

The Cited Reference Title displays in the Cited References (RF) field.

The Cited Reference Identifier (CZ) field contains the reference of the source citation.

It displays in the Cited References (RF) field.

The Publication Date (DP) may be a month and year; a season and year; a month, day, and year; or just a year.

The Document Type (DT) field identifies the specific kind of document; what a document is as opposed to what it is about. Document Types are also available as limits. Document Types (DT) include:

Historical Note: In 2009, the value Dissertation [2900] was added to the Document Type list. This change enables users to quickly either search for only dissertations or to quickly exclude them from a search strategy.

You can also view every Subject Heading which contains a particular word by using the option "Tools/Permuted Index."

Book and chapter records added since 1987 are indexed with the work's intended general audience, something which is often explicitly stated by authors or publishers. The American Psychological Association (APA) selects audience types from a standard list which can be quickly browsed in the Intended Audience (IA) index. Intended Audience is also available as a limit.

Intended Audience terms include:

The ISBN (IB) field contains the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) since 1987, and any qualifying text in parentheses. The qualifying text denotes binding type, volume number(s), publisher and/or the publisher location for which the ISBN was assigned.

The ISBN appears as a number separated by hyphens. Its purpose is to identify uniquely a book title, an edition of a book, or a monograph produced by a specific publisher. Each ISBN number consists of ten to thirteen digits separated into the following parts: Group identifier (national, geographic, language, or other type of group) Publisher or producer identifier, Title identifier, Check digit However, despite this standard format, ISBNs vary enormously on the source documents, e.g.:

Consequently, they have been indexed without spaces or dashes.

You may search the ISBN with or without hyphens.

The Keywords (ID) field concisely summarizes a document's subject content. Indexers use keywords to describe a document in ways that are not accounted for by Subject Headings.

For experimental literature, Keywords typically contain the independent variable, the dependent variable, and the subject population.

For non-experimental literature, the Keywords consist of major concepts, time lines, populations, implications, or genre -- whatever information the indexer thinks will supplement other indexing information.

Individual words from the Keywords are entered into the index.

Historical Note: For records processed from 1967-1995, the field for experimental records contains the independent variable, the dependent variable, and the population. These data are generally presented in this order in a structured phrase format.

Although Author names display in this field, only the institution can be searched. Search for the most descriptive word in the institution's name, such as "harvard," rather than "university."

Standard abbreviations are used in this field; the most critical ones include:

Institutions which are commonly known by initials (IBM, NIMH, WHO, INSERM) may be listed in initialed form in some records and are spelled out in others.

State and Province names must be searched by both spelled-out name and postal abbreviation. Country names (except USA and USSR) are spelled out.

Historical Note: Up to 2002, only the first author's affiliation was entered into the document. Since then, affiliations are entered and displayed for all authors.

The ISSN Print (IS) field contains the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) for the print journal in which an article was published. It appears as a number separated by a hyphen. ISSNs have been included in APA PsycInfo® since 1979.

To search the index, include hyphens, such as 1000-958X.

Historical Note: For records prior to 1967, the language choices were English or NonEnglish. However, an ongoing project is retrospectively replacing the NonEnglish entry with the appropriate language.

Historical Note: From 2001 to present, author email became a standard field for all authors and all author emails in the source document are entered. Before that, the author email was only input for the first or corresponding author.

The Book Record Links (MB) field contains 12 numeric characters with hyphens, structured as follows:

YYYY-NNNNN-LLL

YYYY = year record was processed

NNNNN = sequence of processing within a particular year; includes leading zeros

LLL = number given to the Chapter within a book ; will consist of zeros for Book records

Example:

Book: 2005-06048-000

Book Record Links (MB) are also searchable in Accession Number (AN) index.

The Methodology (MD) field contains the specific kind of methodology used in a research study. Both the code and the term are searchable. Methodology terms are also available as limits.

Methodology terms include:

The MeSH (MH) field contains the Medical Subject Headings as assigned by PubMed. The MeSH headings that appear in MEDLINE database records are also provided in the APA PsycInfo records.

The Mapping (MP) alias is the "basic index" for APA PsycBooks®. An unqualified search (that is, a search that has not been qualified with the dot-dot syntax) is searched in the subject bearing fields of the database. The MP Alias includes Title (TI), Abstract (AB), Heading Word (HW), Table of Contents (TC), and Keywords (ID).

The NLM Title Abbreviation (NL) field contains the official PubMed abbreviation for a journal title.

The Translated Book Series Title (OS) field appears in Book or Chapter records only. It contains the English language translation of the series title of a document written in a non-English language. This field displays as part of the Source (SO) field.

The Parent Book Author (PA) field appears in Chapter records only. It contains up to the first two authors of the "parent" book in which the chapter appears. If a third or subsequent author exists for the parent book, "et al." appears.

The author names are entered into the index as they appeared in the original document, in the format of last name followed by first and middle names or up to two initials. Thus, a person named "James C. Smith" may appear as "Smith James C," "Smith J Charles," "Smith, JC" or "Smith J" Enter the last name, or if it is a common name, enter the last name, a space, and the first initial.

Patronymic suffixes, such as Jr., Sr., III, and so on, are included for display, but are not indexed, as are non-author roles, which include:

If no role is present, the role may be assumed to be "author". 

Data in the author field may also comprise one or more of the following special cases:

The Parent Book Author ID (PD) contains unique identifiers which may be supplied by the publisher for records added or updated. The most common is Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID).

The Parent Book Author ID (PD) displays in the Source (SO) field following its associated Book Author.

The Pagination (PG) field consists of the initial page of a document as well as the total number of pages of the document. This field displays as part of the Source (SO) field.

The Parent Book Institutional Author (PI) field appears in Chapter records only, and contains up to the first two institutional authors of the book in which the chapter appears. If a third or subsequent institutional author exists for the parent book, "et al." appears. This field displays as part of the Source (SO) field.

Only the first component of the institution name is included in the field (other name components and geographic information do not appear).

Standard abbreviations, listed in the User Manual, are used in the institution field; the most critical ones include:

Institutions which are commonly known by initials (IBM, NIMH, WHO, INSERM) may be listed in initialed form for some records and are spelled out for others.

State and Province names must be searched by both spelled-out name and postal abbreviation. Country names (except USA and USSR) are spelled out.

The Parent Book Edition (PN) field contains the edition information of book chapter records. This information displays as part of the Source (SO) field.

The Population Group (PO) field contains terms describing the subject population of the document. Population codes and terms include:

Both the code and the term are searchable. Population groups are also available as limits.

For records added to the database prior to 1997, a document which includes both animal and human subjects are specified as "animal." From 1997 on, both "animal" and "human" is specified when both subjects are included. Age group terms also display in this field and are searchable in the Age Groups (AG) index.

Both the code and the term are searchable, e.g., 100.ag. or childhood birth 12 yrs.ag.

The Publication Type (PT) field identifies the general type of document. Publication Types are also available as limits. Publication Types (PT) include:

The Parent Book Volume (PV) field contains the edition information of book chapter records. This information displays as part of the Source (SO) field.

The Reviewed Item ISBN (RI) field contains the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) and binding type for the material being reviewed. ISBNs have been included in APA PsycInfo since 1987.

The ISBN appears as a number separated by hyphens. Its purpose is to identify uniquely a book title, an edition of a book, or a monograph produced by a specific publisher. Each ISBN number contains the following parts:
group identifier (national, geographic, language, or other type of group)
publisher or producer identifier
title identifier
check digit

However, despite this standard format, ISBNs vary enormously on the source documents. Consequently, they have also been put into the index without spaces or dashes.
Originals examples Indexed with
with hyphens
972-95460-0-2
92-9078-023-1
4-13-067101-4
1-4020-7012-8
3-85630-552-1

with removed hyphens
9729546002
9290780231
4130671014
1402070128
3856305521

You may search the ISBN with or without hyphens. You may search the Reviewed Item ISBN field on its own, or use the Reviewed Item (RV) field.

The Reviewed Item Other Info (RO) index contains other relevant information about the item being reviewed, such as publisher information and price.
You may search the Reviewed Item Other Info index on its own, or use the Reviewed Item (RV) field.

The Reviewed Item Translated Title (RL) index contains non-English titles in the original document language. If the original title was in a non-Roman alphabet, the original title is transliterated or it is not present.

You may search the Reviewed Item Translated Title field on its own, or use the Reviewed Item (RV) field.

The Reviewed Item Other Info (RO) index contains other relevant information about the item being reviewed, such as publisher information and price.
You may search the Reviewed Item Other Info index on its own, or use the Reviewed Item (RV) field.

The Reviewed Item Year (RR) field contains the year in which the item being reviewed was published. The year may be searched using four digits, such as "2010."

This field displays on the Reviewed Item (RV) field.

The Reviewed Item Title (RT) field contains the English language version of a title.

The following abbreviations are used in titles: Vol, Vols, No, Nos, Ed, Rev (revised), Exp (expanded) and Enl (enlarged).

For documents which were not written in English, the original or transliterated title appears in a separate field, Original Title (OT).

You may search the Reviewed Item Title (RT) or Reviewed Item (RV) indexes and is displayed in the Reviewed Item (RV) field.

The Reviewed Item Author (RU) field contains the names of individual persons responsible for creation of the work being reviewed. If all authors are not included, the last name listed is followed by "et al."

The author names are entered into the index as they appeared in the original document, in the format of last name followed by first and middle names or up to two initials. Thus, a person named "James C. Smith" may appear as "Smith James C," "Smith J Charles," "Smith, JC" or "Smith J" Enter the last name, or if it is a common name, enter the last name, a space, and the first initial. If you are unsure of the spelling of the last name, enter one version and you will be able to scroll through the list of names to find other versions.

You may search the Reviewed Item Author (RU) or Reviewed Item (RV) indexes and is displayed in the Reviewed Item (RV) field.

The Reprint Year is available for book and chapter records added since 1987, and displays as part of the Source (SO) field.

The Reviewed Item (RV) field contains information about a book review found in the source document. This field appears most commonly in Peer-Reviewed Journal and Electronic Collection publication types. This field is made up of the Reviewed Item Author (RU), Reviewed Item Title (RT), Reviewed Item Translated Title (RL), Reviewed Item Year (RR), Reviewed Item ISBN (RI), and Reviewed Item Other Info (RO) fields. Each of these fields can be searched individually, or the RV field can be searched with any term.

The Cited Reference PMID (RZ) field contains the PubMed Identification number of the source citation reference.

It displays in the Cited References (RF) field.

The Subject Headings (SH) field contains the Subject Headings (also known as "descriptors" or "index terms") used by indexers at the American Psychological Association (APA) to describe the content of a document.

The Subject Headings are taken from APA's Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms. You can look up any of these terms by using the option "Tools/Thesaurus."

Subject Headings are entered into the index as phrases and should be searched exactly as they appear in the Thesaurus.

Subject headings which describe the major point (focus) of a document will be preceded with an asterisk (*).

The Supplemental Material DOI (SM) for supplemental material in the APA PsycBooks® record can be used to link to the full text of the supplemental material associated with an article, book, or chapter.

The Source (SO) field includes a display of all the basic information needed to locate a citation, monograph publisher, pagination and year of publication. The fields which comprise the Source field are
Parent Book Title (BT), Year of Publication (YR), Translated Parent Book Title (OP), Translated Book Series Title (OS), Parent Book Author (PA), Parent Book Author ID (PD), Parent Book Edition (PN), Pagination (PG), Parent Book Institutional Author (PI), Publisher Location (PL), Publisher Information (PU), Parent Book Volume (PV), Reprint Year (RY),and Book Series Title (ST).

The Book Series (ST) field contains the full name of the series title (and volume or number, if applicable) of the book or of the chapter's "parent" book.

Book Series titles are indexed as phrases. To view book titles in the index, enter as many of the words or letters in a book title name as are needed to distinguish it from other journals: "the century" for "The Century Psychology Series."

To search by a Book Series Title word, use the Parent Book Title Word index (WS).

The Supplemental Material (SV) field contains additional information not found in the print version of the source document, e.g., 3-D modeling images, video clips, and data sets.

Supplemental Material types include:

The Table of Contents (TC) field exists in book records added since 1987, and lists "front matter" such as preface, foreword and introduction, section headings and subheadings, chapter titles, substantive headings and subheadings of sections within chapters, and "back matter" such as appendices, conclusions, afterwords, glossaries, indexes, etc. If a Table of Contents is abbreviated, it contains the indication "abbreviated". The author names follow the chapter titles.

The Test DOI (TD) field contains the active link from APA PsycBooks® to APA PsycTests®. The link will only work with access to the APA PsycTests® database.

The Title (TI) field contains the English language version of a title. The following abbreviations are used in titles:

Historical Note: For non-Roman-alphabet titles, and for many non-English records added to the database during the 1970s, the original title field is left blank and only the English translation is provided.
From 1967-1977, records with non-Roman alphabet titles will only display the English translated title:[The egocentrism of children.]

The Update Code (UP) field appears in all records and contains the date the record was released into the database. It is sometimes referred to as "Entry Month."

The field consists of 8 digits, in YYYYMMDD format, where YYYY is the release year, MM is the release month, and DD is the release day.

The Year of Publication (YR) field contains the year in which a document was published. The year must be searched using four digits, e.g., "1994".

Only individual years may be searched. Use the "Limit to Publication Year" to restrict sets to a range of years.

The Year of Publication is displayed in the Year of Publication (YR) field as well as in the Source (SO) field.

Historical Note: With the 2009 APA PsycInfo® Reload, Publication Year was replaced with the new field Publication Date, which includes the day, month, season, and year of publication.

Quotation marks can be used to retrieve records that contain literal strings, when the string includes special characters, such as a forward slash (/).

Quotation marks can also be used to retrieve records that contain numbers that may otherwise be confused for earlier searches. In the example, a search for 3.vo would limit the string from your third search in your search history to the volume field. By including the number in quotation marks, the search will retrieve documents with a 3 in the volume number.

The Test DOI will restrict retrieval to a DOI that will link from APA PsycBooks® to APA PsycTests® database.

The APA PsycBooks® database is produced, trademarked, and copyrighted by the American Psychological Association (APA).

Search results received by the user in machine-readable form remain the property of the American Psychological Association. No part of the database may be duplicated in hard-copy or machine-readable form without written authorization from APA.  APA permits reproduction of up to 25 print copies of search output for use within the customer's organization; in addition, that search output may be stored temporarily in electronic media for editing or reformatting for the user's internal use or for one-time delivery to a single client for the client's own internal use.

APA takes care to provide accurate representation of the behavioral literature, but assumes no liability for errors or omissions and makes no warranties, express or implied, including, but not limited to, any implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.  APA assumes no responsibility for the customer's use of the information.

Under no circumstances can any files be electronically stored, altered, or distributed further without the explicit permission of the American Psychological Association.  To request permission for use other than authorized by this statement, please see APA Copyright and Permissions.  For more information about educational use, please see the APA Policy on Coursepacks and Electronic Reserves.