This seems like a silly question, but I can't find a clear answer online. If Dr. Brainiac's Big Book of Science was first published in 1974, but I have the second edition, published in 1996, should I cite it as (Brainiac, 1974) or (Brainiac, 1996)?
I realise that this is the sort of thing that might come down to the policy of the journal, but it happens that the journal I'm submitting to doesn't offer any specific guidelines on this particular topic, so I was wondering what the standard practice is, if there is one.
edit: for clarity, of course I would mention in the references section that I was referring to the second edition. I guess it would look something like this:
Brainiac, Q. Big Book of Science. Aperture publishing, 1974. (2nd edition 1996.)
or
Brainiac, Q. Big Book of Science, 2nd edition. Aperture publishing, 1996. (First published 1974.)
Where in the first case the in-text citation should be (Brainiac, 1974), and in the second it would be (Brainiac, 1996). The question is which of these is considered the best, or at least the most usual, way of doing it. In my particular case I'm citing a specific fact that is almost certainly in both editions, but of course I can't be sure.
Answer
If the journal uses the American Psychological Association (APA) style, then you cite the year of the edition and you do not mention earlier editions.
For example, if you are using the 4th edition (published in 1994) of the APA publication manual, you would cite it as (American Psychological Association, 1994) and its bibliographic entry would be:
American Psychological Association. (1994). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
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