Citation Styles

Start Here: Citation in Plain Words

Why do we cite?

• To give credit to the people whose ideas and findings you used.
• To avoid plagiarism (presenting someone else's work as your own).
• To help readers find the same source and read more.
• To make your work trustworthy, because your claims are backed by real sources.

Three easy steps

1. Note the details while you read: author, year, title, where it was published, and the DOI or web link.
2. Pick the matching pattern from the tabs above (book, journal article, website, and so on).
3. Copy the pattern and swap in your details. Then check the commas, brackets and italics.

How to read a reference

Each colour below is one piece of information. Every reference is built from the same few pieces.

You cite in two places

• In your writing (in-text citation): a short tag in brackets after the idea you used, for example: Earth's continents have changed over time (Cawood et al., 2022).
• At the end (reference list): the full entry shown above, so the reader can find the source. The short tag and the full entry must match.

Words you will meet

Common mistakes to avoid

• Citing in the text but forgetting to add the source to the reference list (or the other way round).
• Writing every word of an article title with a capital letter (use sentence case).
• Leaving out the DOI when the article has one.
• Using a hyphen (-) instead of an en dash (–) in page ranges.
• Copying exact words without quotation marks and a page number.

Basics of an APA Reference

APA uses an author–date system. Every work cited in the text must appear in the reference list, and every reference-list entry must be cited somewhere in the text. The list is arranged alphabetically by the first author's surname.

Each entry answers four questions: Who (author), When (date), What (title) and Where (source: publisher, journal or URL).

Creating a hanging indent in Word

Select the whole reference list, right-click, choose Paragraph, then under Indentation → Special choose Hanging (0.5").

Handling Authors in the Reference List

Ordering entries in the list

• Same author, different years: earliest first. Works with no date (n.d.) come before dated ones.
• Single author vs. group: the one-author entry comes before entries where that person is first of several authors.
• Same first author, different co-authors: sort by the second author's surname, then the third, and so on.
• Same author(s), same year: sort by title and add lowercase letters to the year: 2018a, 2018b. Use the same letters in the text.
• No author: alphabetise by the first significant word of the title.

Books, Chapters and Reference Works

Journal, Magazine and Newspaper Articles

• When an article has a DOI, always give it, even if you read the print copy.
• When a journal has no volume number, use the full date (year, month, day) as for magazines.
• If a title contains a quotation, keep the quotation marks inside the title. Ordinary article titles do not use quotation marks.

Websites, Online Sources and Media

A basic web reference has the author, the date, the page title (italic), the site name (if different from the author) and the URL. Cite only original content from social media. If a post just links to an article or video you used, cite that article or video instead.

In-Text Citations

In the text, give the author's surname and the year. When the author is named in your sentence, put only the year in parentheses. The sentence's closing punctuation goes after the closing parenthesis.

Direct quotations

• Always give the page number: (Author, 2020, p. 45) or (Author, 2020, pp. 45–46). For sources without pages, use a paragraph number: (Author, 2020, para. 6).
• 40 words or fewer: keep the quote in your sentence inside double quotation marks.
• More than 40 words: use a free-standing block, indented 0.5" from the left, with no quotation marks. The citation goes after the final full stop, which is the one case where the full stop comes before the parenthesis.

Paraphrasing

Author and year are enough. A page number is optional, but helpful when pointing the reader to a specific section of a long work. In a long paraphrase from one source, you do not need a citation after every sentence; just cite often enough to make clear which ideas come from where.

Special cases

• Secondary source (you read B, which cites A): list only B in the references. In the text write: A's study (1995, as cited in B, 2015) or (A & C, 1995, as cited in B, 2015).
• Several sources in one bracket: order alphabetically and separate with semicolons: (Everley, 2009; Harris, 2013).
• Same author and year: use suffixes: (Berndt, 2004a), (Berndt, 2004b).
• Same shortened form for different works: add enough extra author names to tell them apart, for example (Yamashita, Bardo, et al., 2019).
• No author: use the first few words of the title in double quotation marks (or italics for a book): ("Healthy Eating," 2011).
• No date: use n.d.: (Wallach, n.d.).
• URLs appear only in the reference list, never in the running text.

Formatting an APA Paper

• General: double-space everything (title page, body and references). Use a legible 11 to 12 pt font, 1" margins, and page numbers in the top-right corner starting on the title page.
• Student title page: bold paper title, then your name, department and institution, course number and name, instructor, and due date, all centred in the upper half of the page.
• Running head: professional papers include a short title (up to 50 characters) in capitals on the left of the header. Students should follow their instructor's preference.
• Introduction: the opening of the paper does not carry a heading.

Heading levels

Use headings in order, starting from level 1. Do not leave a single subsection alone: a section is divided into at least two subsections. Do not number or letter headings.

Reference list page

• Start on a new page. Put the word References in bold at the top, centred.
• Alphabetise by the first author's surname. Do not re-order the authors within an entry.
• Use a 0.5" hanging indent and double spacing, with no extra space between entries.

Legal Sources (Court Cases)

For court decisions, the text cites the case name (in italics) and the year. The reference list gives the full legal citation.

In the text: Party v. Party (Year) as narrative, or (Party v. Party, Year) as parenthetical.

Worked Examples