Guidelines for Referencing

Guidelines for Referencing (APA 7th edition) 

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Ensure the reference list and the in-text citation conform strictly to the style 

Tip: Refer to the APA manual 7th Edition or "guide for authors" of a specific journal

Basic formatting rules

It is important to use the same font throughout the text of the research paper, thesis or dissertation.

Contact your IRB / University for the acceptable format (from the APA 7th referencing style) for your thesis / dissertations.

• Font

  • a sans serif font such as 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial or 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode

  • a serif font such as 12-point Times New Roman, 11-point Georgia, or normal (10-point) Computer Modern

• Double spaced

  • the entire paper, including the title page, abstract, text, headings, block quotations, reference list, table and figure notes, and appendices

• 1-inch margins all around (top, bottom, left, right). Dissertation to be bound may need 1.5 inch left margin

• Reference list entries should have a hanging indent of 0.5 inch

End-of text referencing

• Arrange alphabetically

• Indented 5 spaces (or ½ inch) if the referencing goes to more than 1 line

• should be on a separate page titled "Referencing" or "Bibliography"

• List all types of sources together (for example, do not split research papers from books or websites).

Example

Sankaran, R., & Chakraborty, S. (2021). Why customers make mobile payments? Applying a means-end chain approach. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 39(1), 109–124. https://doi.org/10.1108/MIP-12-2019-0622

Parenthetical citations

• Cite the last name(s) of the author

• The author and date should be separated by a comma

• The author and date appear in parentheses for a parenthetical citation

• The citation can appear within or at the end of a sentence.

Example

(Sankaran & Chakraborty, 2021)

Narrative citations

• The surname of the author appears in running text, and the year of publication appears in parentheses immediately after the author’s name for a narrative citation. 

• The author’s name can be included in the beginning or in the middle of a sentence.

Example

Sankaran and Chakraborty (2021)

(Note: In a narrative citation, ampersand "&" is spelt out as "and")

For citing multiple works,

Example

Two or more articles by the same authors by year of publication

(Sankaran & Chakraborty, 2020, 2021)

Two or more articles by the same authors with the same year of publication

(Sankaran & Chakraborty, 2021a, 2021b)

For 3 or more authors,

(Sankaran et al., 2021)

Source: APA Publication Manual, 7e

Tip: Always refer to APA Publication Manual, 7e for correct citations

Basic In-text citation styles

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Author Type Parenthetical Citation Narrative Citation

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One author (Sankaran, 2022) Sankaran (2022)

Two authors (Sankaran & Chakraborty, 2022) Sankaran and Chakraborty (2022)

Three or more authors (Sankaran et al., 2022) Sankaran et al. (2022)

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Note: (few changes in APA 7th edition style)

1. The name of the journal is in Italics

2. The DOIs are formatted as URLs

Stay tuned for the forthcoming article on "Cite References Strategically"