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APA Referencing Style: Home

This is a guide to using the APA 7th referencing style from the American Psychological Association. It is based on the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.

About APA Style

The “APA style” is an author-date style for citing and referencing information in assignments and publications. The citation in the text consists of the author(s) and year of publication given wholly or partly in round brackets. Use only the surname of the author(s) followed by a comma and the year of publication. Include page, chapter or section numbers if you need to be specific, for example, if you are quoting, paraphrasing or summarizing. 

Important information Always check with your lecturer or tutor about the referencing style preferred by the Faculty or Department. There may be differences.

Acknowledgement

This guide has been adapted from Murdoch University APA Style guide by Jean Coleman. This referencing guide follows the principles and examples given in the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2020).

Important Information

Significant changes in the new edition include:

  • Multiple authors - in-text citations for three or more authors should include the name of the first author only, followed by et al. Reference list entries for works by up to and including 20 authors should include all authors names. For works by more than 20 authors, including the names of the first 19 authors followed by an ellipsis (...) and then the final author's name.
  • Place of publication is no longer included in references.
  • Include the issue number in parentheses immediately after the volume number, for all journals that have an issue number.
  • DOIs are now given in the following format: https://doi.org/xxxxx
  • It is not necessary to include the words "Retrieved from" before a URL.
  • Database names and URLs for items in academic research databases should not be included in references, except for databases such as Cochrane, ERIC and Factiva that include works of limited circulation - for these items include the name of the database and the URL for the specific work.
  • For electronic works that do not have a DOI or a directly linking URL, the reference should be the same as the reference for a printed version of the work.

What is referencing?

Referencing, also called citing, is a formal way to acknowledge the sources you have used for your research assignment. Referencing is an essential part of university writing and academic integrity. Using other's work, data, or ideas without due referencing will put you at risk of serious academic misconduct---plagiarism.

No distinction is made between books, journal articles, internet documents or other formats except for electronic documents that do not provide page numbers. In this case use the paragraph number, if available, with the abbreviation para.

The full details of the source are given in a reference list at the end of the document. Reference list entries contain all the information that is required to follow up your source. Reference lists in APA are arranged alphabetically by author. See Reference List Entries or All Examples for details on how to construct references for specific resources such as books, journals and web pages.

Why reference?

Good referencing enables you to

  • demonstrate your research and support your argument
  • credit the authors for their contribution and research impact
  • provide further resources for your readers
  • practice with academic integrity to avoid plagiarism

How to reference?

To reference properly, you must follow the referencing styles required by your discipline or course coordinators and include all the elements of a reference required for each source.

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