This guide will assist you in understanding how to reference for your assignment. It contains examples to help you format your in-text citations and reference list.

The American Psychological Association 7th edition (APA 7) is an author-date style, meaning in-text citations (author, year) are used to acknowledge the author(s) of ideas and quotes you have included in the body of your assignment. The details of these citations are then included in a reference list, organised alphabetically, at the end of your assignment.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools

Check your assessment or course details to determine if you are permitted to use generative AI tools to complete your assessment. Further information is available on the Why Academic integrity matters web page.

When citing content produced by these tools follow the examples in the AI section of the referencing guide.

Using generative AI ethically and responsibly module

This advice updated April 14th, 2023 based on the official APA style blog.

APA 7 examples

In-text

Format

(Author, Year)

Author (Year) stated...

Paraphrase

Australia's higher education sector is known for providing students with training that is relevant to their future profession (Bohm, 2000).

Quote

Bohm and Chaudhri (2010) claim that Australia has a "reputation for delivering industry-focused education and training" (p. 171).

Quick author summary

Authors Reference list Parenthetical in-text citation Narrative in-text citation
1

Fetherston, T. (2007). Title...

World Health Organization. (2021). Title...

(Fetherston, 2007)

1st citation: (World Health Organization [WHO], 2021)

Subsequent citations: (WHO, 2021)

Fetherston (2007)

1st citation: World Health Organization (WHO, 2021)

Subsequent citations: WHO (2021)

2 Crossman, J., & Mills, C. (2011). Title... (Crossman & Mills, 2011) Crossman and Mills (2011)
3+ Carter, R., Brown, S., Murphy, C., Harris, M., & Griffiths, R. (2009). Title...

(Carter et al., 2020)

(Carter, Brown, Murphy, et al., 2020)

(Carter, Brown, Murphy, Harris, et al., 2020)

Carter et al. (2020) states...

Carter, Brown, Murphy, et al. (2020) state...

Carter, Brown, Murphy, Harris, et al. (2020) state....

Notes on et al.

  • For a work with three or more authors, include the name of only the first author plus "et al." in every citation, including the first citation, unless doing so would create ambiguity.
  • To avoid ambiguity in citations with similar authors, include as many authors as necessary before abbreviating the remaining authors with et al.

Author, editor, translator

One author

Two authors

Three to twenty authors

Twenty-one or more authors

Corporate/government authors

Editors

Translators and Classics

No author

Abbreviations

Quote, cite, missing details

Quoting from sources

Citing parts of a source - page number, paragraph, time stamp, section

Sources citing other sources

Multiple works by the same author published in the same year

Multiple references in one citation

No author

No date

No title

First Peoples materials

We respectfully advise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this guide may contain images or names of people who have passed away.

You are encouraged to use this guide when working with sources created by First Peoples. Refer to the notes for further guidance on how to appropriately reference and acknowledge the creator(s) Nation, Country and/or language group.

First Peoples Intro Notes

Notes for using this guide

Author treatment in the reference list

Author treatment in the reference list

First Peoples author treatment

One author

Two authors

First Peoples author(s) and non-Indigenous author(s)

No authors

Materials

Materials

First Peoples materials

Artwork, designs, objects or images - viewed online

Artwork, designs, objects or images - viewed in person

Oral history/Personal communication with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

Book, chapter, encyclopedia

Book – electronic

Book – print

Book chapter

Book with editor

Book review

Encyclopedia

Dictionary

Journal, newspaper article

Journal article – electronic

Journal article – advance online publication and in press

Journal article – print

Newspaper article

News webpage

Report, government, thesis

Government publication

Report

Conference paper

Thesis or dissertation – from a database

Thesis or dissertation – from a university or institutional repository

Video, audio, music, scripts

Video stream – database

Video stream – YouTube or Vimeo

Video physical – DVD or Blu-ray

Audio stream or podcast

Audio physical – LP, CD, Tape

Music scores

Music scores - unpublished

Music encyclopedias and dictionaries

Playscripts

Data, statistics, standard

Dataset

Statistics

Standard

Patent

Website, social media, software, AI

Web page

Web document

Blog post

Social media

Computer software

Generative AI tools

Image, table, lecture, unpublished

Figure

Table

Image

Lecture notes

Personal communication

Unpublished material

Archive material

In-text citations

Acknowledge authors using the following formats:

Paraphrase:
Author (Year) expresses the idea....
....paraphrased idea sentence (Author, Year)
....paraphrased idea sentence (Author & Author, Year).

Examples:

Fetherston (2007) expresses the idea...
Teachers help each student with their individual interpretation of understanding (Fetherston, 2007).
Australia's higher education sector is known for providing students with training that is relevant to their future profession (Bohm & Chaudhri, 2000).
Quote
Author (Year) "text of direct quote" (Page).
"text of direct quote" (Author & Author, Year, Page).

Examples:

Fetherston (2007) claims that teachers "suggest ways of looking at the new material" (p. 61).
Australia has a "reputation for delivering industry-focused education and training" (Bohm & Chaudhri, 2010, p. 171).

Notes:

  • When acknowledging multiple authors in the text of a sentence precede the final name with the word "and"
  • When acknowledging multiple authors in the parentheses and reference list precede the final name with an ampersand "&"

Reference list

Place the reference list on a new page at the end of your assignment and centre and bold the heading "References".

In your reference list:

  • add a reference for every source cited in your work.
  • sort references alphabetically (A-Z) by surname of the first author of the work, if no author sort under the first significant word of the title
  • use a hanging indent the second line and subsequent lines of a reference are indented tabbed space or 1.27cm
  • double space references throughout the list
  • write titles using sentence case - capitalise the first word of the title, the first word after a colon or dash, and proper names.
  • italicise titles of books, journals, films, videos, and web sites but not book chapters and journal article titles.
  • write journal titles and corporate authors' names out in full, no abbreviations

Sample referencing list

Official manual and style blog

Consult the official manual and style blog for more information.

Chrome

Firefox

Safari

Edge

iPhone

Android

Disclaimer

Referencing information is provided as a guide only and is based on the official manual or other authoritative sources where available. You should confirm referencing requirements for your course and consult the manual directly for more information.

First Peoples materials information has been adapted from the University of Technology Sydney library APA Interactive Guide and work originally developed by Danièle Hromek and Sophie Herbert and TAFE Queensland Library Network guide to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Resources and Materials and the University of Queensland's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander referencing guide under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons License

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