Thi is a brief guide to referencing a variety of information sources, both print and electronic, according to the APA style. Referencing needs to be accurate and consistent. For a comprehensive guide, please refer to:

American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington DC: APA

[Located in the UNSW Social Sciences and Humanities Library SREF 808.06615/1 R and in the College of Fine Arts Library CFAREF 808.02/11 ]

or obtain a copy of

Perrin, R. (2004). Pocket guide to the APA style. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Why reference?

• To avoid plagiarism by acknowledging the source of your information;
• To enable the reader to verify your information, including quotations;
• To inform the reader of the source of your ideas or information which he/she may choose to locate and read more fully.

References are often cited within the text of an assignment and are listed in the References list on a separate page/pages at the end of the assignment.

Following are examples of in text citations as well as referencing formats for print and electronic sources of information to create a list of references.

In-Text Citations

In text citations are also known as parenthetical notes. Generally the format requires citing the author's surname and its year of publication.

In general, there are two forms of in-text citation accepted in the APA style of referencing.

The first format of in-text citation, includes author's surname and year, separated by a comma enclosed in brackets. (e.g., (Marieb, 1989) ).

The second format is done by mentioning the author's surname in the text, immediately followed by the year of the published work (e.g., Researches such as those presented by Marieb (1989) has...)

For more examples of in-text citations and reference entries for different information sources, explore the links on the right hand side at the top of this page.