REFERENCES
A reference list lists only the sources you refer to in your writing.
The purpose of the reference list is to allow your sources to be found by your reader. It
also gives credit to authors you have consulted for their ideas. All references cited in the
text must appear in the reference list, except for personal communications (such as
conversations or emails) which cannot be retrieved.
A bibliography is different from a reference list as it lists all the sources used during
your research and background reading, not just the ones you refer to in your writing.
APA FORMAT CITATION GUIDE
APA (American Psychological Association) has given a complete guide to in-text and
reference list citations.
That is easy-to-use, comprehensive guide makes citing any source easy.
We will discuss important points here.
CORE COMPONENTS OF AN APA REFERENCE
REFERENCE LIST
A reference list is a complete list of references used in a piece of writing including the
author name, date of publication, title and more. An APA reference list must be:
• On a new page at the end of the document.
• Centered.
• Alphabetically by name of first author (or title if the author isn’t known, in this case a, an
and the should be ignored)
• If there are multiple works by the same author these are ordered by date, if the
works are in the same year they are ordered alphabetically by the title and are
allocated a letter (a,b,c etc) after the date
• Contain full references for all in-text references used.
REFERENCE FORMATING GUIDE
Title: Include the title 'References' (one word, beginning with a capital letter, centred, and
not in italics.
Indent: Hanging indent your references (space bar in 5 - 7 spaces for the second and
subsequent lines of each reference).
Space between references: In general double-space between references.
One author, two publications: Order by year of publication, the earlier one first. Same
year of publication for both - add 'a' and 'b' after the year, inside the brackets. Include this
in the in text citation. example: Baheti, J. R. (2001a).
REFERENCE FORMATING GUIDE
URLs: Remove the underlines from URLs so that any underscores ( _ ) can be seen.
Same first author, different second author: Order alphabetically by second or
subsequent authors.
Capital letters: Journal title - use headline style; i.e. capitalize all the words, except
articles and prepositions. Book title or article title (in a journal,
magazine or newspaper) - use sentence style; i.e. capitalize the first word of the title, and
subtitle (after the colon), and any proper names
Place of publication: USA publishers give the city in full and the abbreviation for the
state.
New York, NY
Springfield, MA
Publishers outside the USA: Give the city in full and the country in full.
London, England
Auckland, New Zealand
REFERENCE FORMATING GUIDE
Page Range: Use an en dash, NOT a hyphen, for page ranges: e.g. 21–27. No gaps
between the page numbers and the en dash. How to add an en dash in Microsoft
Word, if using a full PC keyboard: Hold the Control key and type the minus sign on the
small numeric keypad.
Use of square brackets: If format, medium or description information is important for a
resource to be retrieved or identified, use square brackets after the title to include this
detail:
TWO AUTHORS
Li, S., & Seale, C. (2007). Learning to do qualitative data analysis: An observational
study of doctoral work. Qualitative Health Research, 17(10), 1442-1452.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732307306924
THREE AUTHORS
Barnard, R., de Luca, R., & Li, J. (2015). First-year undergraduate students’ perceptions
of lecturer and peer feedback: A New Zealand action research project. Studies In Higher
Education, 40(5), 933–944. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2014.881343
Use "&" before the final author.
FOUR TO SEVEN AUTHORS
Szcz Ę Sna, A., Nowak, A., Grabiec, P., Paszkuta, M., Tajstra, M., & Wojciechowska, M.
(2017). Survey of wearable multi-modal vital parameters measurement
systems. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 526.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47154-9_37
List all authors in the reference entry
MORE THAN SEVEN AUTHORS
Kasabov, N., Scott, N. M., Tu, E., Marks, S., Sengupta, N., Capecci, E., . . . Yang, J.
(2016). Evolving spatio-temporal data machines based on
the NeuCube neuromorphic framework: Design methodology and selected
applications. Neural Networks, 78, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neunet.2015.09.011
First 6 authors ... last author. and follow by date and other information.
HOW TO CITE DIFFERENT SOURCES?
BOOK
Mitchell, J.A., Thomson, M., & Coyne, R.P. (2017). A guide to citation. London,
England: My Publisher
Jones, A.F & Wang, L. (2011). Spectacular creatures: The Amazon rainforest (2nd ed.).
San Jose, Costa Rica: My Publisher
HOW TO CITE DIFFERENT SOURCES?
EDITED BOOK
Williams, S.T. (Ed.). (2015). Referencing: A guide to citation rules (3rd ed.). New York,
NY: My Publisher
HOW TO CITE DIFFERENT SOURCES?
CHAPTER IN AN EDITED BOOK
In the following example, B.N. Troy is the author of the chapter and S.T. Williams is the
editor.
Troy, B.N. (2015). APA citation rules. In S.T, Williams (Ed.). A guide to citation rules
(2nd ed., pp. 50-95). New York, NY: Publishers.
HOW TO CITE DIFFERENT SOURCES?
AN E-BOOK
An E-Book reference is the same as a book reference expect the publisher is swapped for
a URL. The basic structure is as follows:
Author surname, initial(s) (Ed(s).*). (Year). Title (ed.*). Retrieved from URL
*optional.
Mitchell, J.A., Thomson, M., & Coyne, R.P. (2017). A guide to citation. Retrieved from
https://www.mendeley.com/reference-management/reference-manager
HOW TO CITE MAGAZINE ARTICLE?
Author surname, initial(s). (Year, month day). Title. Title of the Magazine, pp.
Mitchell, J.A. (2017). How citation changed the research world. The Mendeley, pp. 26-28
HOW TO CITE AN IMAGE?
Millais, J.E. (1851-1852). Ophelia [painting]. Retrieved from
www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais-ophelia-n01506
HOW TO CITE A WEBSITE?
When citing a website, the basic structure is as follows:
Author surname, initial(s). (Year, month day). Title. Retrieved from URL
Mitchell, J.A. (2020, December 23). How and when to reference. Retrieved from
https://www.howandwhentoreference.com.
DOI = DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER
• A DOI commonly identifies a journal article but it can also be found on other publication
types including books.
• All DOIs start with 10. and includes numbers and letters.
• Example: doi:10.1016/j.addbeh.2009.08.001
• The DOI provides a permanent internet address for the item making it easy to locate.
• You may search by DOI numbers in Library Search to locate articles.
Doi in your reference list entry:
• Always use the DOI if available (for print or online articles and books).
• No full stop at the end of a DOI.
A new citing format for DOI was introduced by APA in March 2017. The new format
includes https and the prefix doi.org: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asw.2016.11.001
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