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References in Research – Types, Examples and Writing Guide

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References in Research

Definition:

References in research are a list of sources that a researcher has consulted or cited while conducting their study. They are an essential component of any academic work, including research papers, theses, dissertations, and other scholarly publications.

Types of References

There are several types of references used in research, and the type of reference depends on the source of information being cited. The most common types of references include:

References to books typically include the author’s name, title of the book, publisher, publication date, and place of publication.

Example: Smith, J. (2018). The Art of Writing. Penguin Books.

Journal Articles

References to journal articles usually include the author’s name, title of the article, name of the journal, volume and issue number, page numbers, and publication date.

Example: Johnson, T. (2021). The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health. Journal of Psychology, 32(4), 87-94.

Web sources

References to web sources should include the author or organization responsible for the content, the title of the page, the URL, and the date accessed.

Example: World Health Organization. (2020). Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) advice for the public. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public

Conference Proceedings

References to conference proceedings should include the author’s name, title of the paper, name of the conference, location of the conference, date of the conference, and page numbers.

Example: Chen, S., & Li, J. (2019). The Future of AI in Education. Proceedings of the International Conference on Educational Technology, Beijing, China, July 15-17, pp. 67-78.

References to reports typically include the author or organization responsible for the report, title of the report, publication date, and publisher.

Example: United Nations. (2020). The Sustainable Development Goals Report. United Nations.

Formats of References

Some common Formates of References with their examples are as follows:

APA (American Psychological Association) Style

The APA (American Psychological Association) Style has specific guidelines for formatting references used in academic papers, articles, and books. Here are the different reference formats in APA style with examples:

Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of book. Publisher.

Example : Smith, J. K. (2005). The psychology of social interaction. Wiley-Blackwell.

Journal Article

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year of publication). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number(issue number), page numbers.

Example : Brown, L. M., Keating, J. G., & Jones, S. M. (2012). The role of social support in coping with stress among African American adolescents. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 22(1), 218-233.

Author, A. A. (Year of publication or last update). Title of page. Website name. URL.

Example : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020, December 11). COVID-19: How to protect yourself and others. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html

Magazine article

Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day of publication). Title of article. Title of Magazine, volume number(issue number), page numbers.

Example : Smith, M. (2019, March 11). The power of positive thinking. Psychology Today, 52(3), 60-65.

Newspaper article:

Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day of publication). Title of article. Title of Newspaper, page numbers.

Example: Johnson, B. (2021, February 15). New study shows benefits of exercise on mental health. The New York Times, A8.

Edited book

Editor, E. E. (Ed.). (Year of publication). Title of book. Publisher.

Example : Thompson, J. P. (Ed.). (2014). Social work in the 21st century. Sage Publications.

Chapter in an edited book:

Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of chapter. In E. E. Editor (Ed.), Title of book (pp. page numbers). Publisher.

Example : Johnson, K. S. (2018). The future of social work: Challenges and opportunities. In J. P. Thompson (Ed.), Social work in the 21st century (pp. 105-118). Sage Publications.

MLA (Modern Language Association) Style

The MLA (Modern Language Association) Style is a widely used style for writing academic papers and essays in the humanities. Here are the different reference formats in MLA style:

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Book. Publisher, Publication year.

Example : Smith, John. The Psychology of Social Interaction. Wiley-Blackwell, 2005.

Journal article

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal, volume number, issue number, Publication year, page numbers.

Example : Brown, Laura M., et al. “The Role of Social Support in Coping with Stress among African American Adolescents.” Journal of Research on Adolescence, vol. 22, no. 1, 2012, pp. 218-233.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Webpage.” Website Name, Publication date, URL.

Example : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “COVID-19: How to Protect Yourself and Others.” CDC, 11 Dec. 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Magazine, Publication date, page numbers.

Example : Smith, Mary. “The Power of Positive Thinking.” Psychology Today, Mar. 2019, pp. 60-65.

Newspaper article

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Newspaper, Publication date, page numbers.

Example : Johnson, Bob. “New Study Shows Benefits of Exercise on Mental Health.” The New York Times, 15 Feb. 2021, p. A8.

Editor’s Last name, First name, editor. Title of Book. Publisher, Publication year.

Example : Thompson, John P., editor. Social Work in the 21st Century. Sage Publications, 2014.

Chapter in an edited book

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Chapter.” Title of Book, edited by Editor’s First Name Last name, Publisher, Publication year, page numbers.

Example : Johnson, Karen S. “The Future of Social Work: Challenges and Opportunities.” Social Work in the 21st Century, edited by John P. Thompson, Sage Publications, 2014, pp. 105-118.

Chicago Manual of Style

The Chicago Manual of Style is a widely used style for writing academic papers, dissertations, and books in the humanities and social sciences. Here are the different reference formats in Chicago style:

Example : Smith, John K. The Psychology of Social Interaction. Wiley-Blackwell, 2005.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal volume number, no. issue number (Publication year): page numbers.

Example : Brown, Laura M., John G. Keating, and Sarah M. Jones. “The Role of Social Support in Coping with Stress among African American Adolescents.” Journal of Research on Adolescence 22, no. 1 (2012): 218-233.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Webpage.” Website Name. Publication date. URL.

Example : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “COVID-19: How to Protect Yourself and Others.” CDC. December 11, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Magazine, Publication date.

Example : Smith, Mary. “The Power of Positive Thinking.” Psychology Today, March 2019.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Newspaper, Publication date.

Example : Johnson, Bob. “New Study Shows Benefits of Exercise on Mental Health.” The New York Times, February 15, 2021.

Example : Thompson, John P., ed. Social Work in the 21st Century. Sage Publications, 2014.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Chapter.” In Title of Book, edited by Editor’s First Name Last Name, page numbers. Publisher, Publication year.

Example : Johnson, Karen S. “The Future of Social Work: Challenges and Opportunities.” In Social Work in the 21st Century, edited by John P. Thompson, 105-118. Sage Publications, 2014.

Harvard Style

The Harvard Style, also known as the Author-Date System, is a widely used style for writing academic papers and essays in the social sciences. Here are the different reference formats in Harvard Style:

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of publication. Title of Book. Place of publication: Publisher.

Example : Smith, John. 2005. The Psychology of Social Interaction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of publication. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal volume number (issue number): page numbers.

Example: Brown, Laura M., John G. Keating, and Sarah M. Jones. 2012. “The Role of Social Support in Coping with Stress among African American Adolescents.” Journal of Research on Adolescence 22 (1): 218-233.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of publication. “Title of Webpage.” Website Name. URL. Accessed date.

Example : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2020. “COVID-19: How to Protect Yourself and Others.” CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html. Accessed April 1, 2023.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of publication. “Title of Article.” Title of Magazine, month and date of publication.

Example : Smith, Mary. 2019. “The Power of Positive Thinking.” Psychology Today, March 2019.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of publication. “Title of Article.” Title of Newspaper, month and date of publication.

Example : Johnson, Bob. 2021. “New Study Shows Benefits of Exercise on Mental Health.” The New York Times, February 15, 2021.

Editor’s Last name, First name, ed. Year of publication. Title of Book. Place of publication: Publisher.

Example : Thompson, John P., ed. 2014. Social Work in the 21st Century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of publication. “Title of Chapter.” In Title of Book, edited by Editor’s First Name Last Name, page numbers. Place of publication: Publisher.

Example : Johnson, Karen S. 2014. “The Future of Social Work: Challenges and Opportunities.” In Social Work in the 21st Century, edited by John P. Thompson, 105-118. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Vancouver Style

The Vancouver Style, also known as the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, is a widely used style for writing academic papers in the biomedical sciences. Here are the different reference formats in Vancouver Style:

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Book. Edition number. Place of publication: Publisher; Year of publication.

Example : Smith, John K. The Psychology of Social Interaction. 2nd ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell; 2005.

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Article. Abbreviated Journal Title. Year of publication; volume number(issue number):page numbers.

Example : Brown LM, Keating JG, Jones SM. The Role of Social Support in Coping with Stress among African American Adolescents. J Res Adolesc. 2012;22(1):218-233.

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Webpage. Website Name [Internet]. Publication date. [cited date]. Available from: URL.

Example : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. COVID-19: How to Protect Yourself and Others [Internet]. 2020 Dec 11. [cited 2023 Apr 1]. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html.

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Article. Title of Magazine. Year of publication; month and day of publication:page numbers.

Example : Smith M. The Power of Positive Thinking. Psychology Today. 2019 Mar 1:32-35.

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Article. Title of Newspaper. Year of publication; month and day of publication:page numbers.

Example : Johnson B. New Study Shows Benefits of Exercise on Mental Health. The New York Times. 2021 Feb 15:A4.

Editor’s Last name, First name, editor. Title of Book. Edition number. Place of publication: Publisher; Year of publication.

Example: Thompson JP, editor. Social Work in the 21st Century. 1st ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications; 2014.

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Chapter. In: Editor’s Last name, First name, editor. Title of Book. Edition number. Place of publication: Publisher; Year of publication. page numbers.

Example : Johnson KS. The Future of Social Work: Challenges and Opportunities. In: Thompson JP, editor. Social Work in the 21st Century. 1st ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications; 2014. p. 105-118.

Turabian Style

Turabian style is a variation of the Chicago style used in academic writing, particularly in the fields of history and humanities. Here are the different reference formats in Turabian style:

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Book. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication.

Example : Smith, John K. The Psychology of Social Interaction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal volume number, no. issue number (Year of publication): page numbers.

Example : Brown, LM, Keating, JG, Jones, SM. “The Role of Social Support in Coping with Stress among African American Adolescents.” J Res Adolesc 22, no. 1 (2012): 218-233.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Webpage.” Name of Website. Publication date. Accessed date. URL.

Example : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “COVID-19: How to Protect Yourself and Others.” CDC. December 11, 2020. Accessed April 1, 2023. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Magazine, Month Day, Year of publication, page numbers.

Example : Smith, M. “The Power of Positive Thinking.” Psychology Today, March 1, 2019, 32-35.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Newspaper, Month Day, Year of publication.

Example : Johnson, B. “New Study Shows Benefits of Exercise on Mental Health.” The New York Times, February 15, 2021.

Editor’s Last name, First name, ed. Title of Book. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication.

Example : Thompson, JP, ed. Social Work in the 21st Century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2014.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Chapter.” In Title of Book, edited by Editor’s Last name, First name, page numbers. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication.

Example : Johnson, KS. “The Future of Social Work: Challenges and Opportunities.” In Social Work in the 21st Century, edited by Thompson, JP, 105-118. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2014.

IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Style

IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) style is commonly used in engineering, computer science, and other technical fields. Here are the different reference formats in IEEE style:

Author’s Last name, First name. Book Title. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of publication.

Example : Oppenheim, A. V., & Schafer, R. W. Discrete-Time Signal Processing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2010.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Abbreviated Journal Title, vol. number, no. issue number, pp. page numbers, Month year of publication.

Example: Shannon, C. E. “A Mathematical Theory of Communication.” Bell System Technical Journal, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 379-423, July 1948.

Conference paper

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Paper.” In Title of Conference Proceedings, Place of Conference, Date of Conference, pp. page numbers, Year of publication.

Example: Gupta, S., & Kumar, P. “An Improved System of Linear Discriminant Analysis for Face Recognition.” In Proceedings of the 2011 International Conference on Computer Science and Network Technology, Harbin, China, Dec. 2011, pp. 144-147.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Webpage.” Name of Website. Date of publication or last update. Accessed date. URL.

Example : National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “Apollo 11.” NASA. July 20, 1969. Accessed April 1, 2023. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo11.html.

Technical report

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Report.” Name of Institution or Organization, Report number, Year of publication.

Example : Smith, J. R. “Development of a New Solar Panel Technology.” National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL/TP-6A20-51645, 2011.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Patent.” Patent number, Issue date.

Example : Suzuki, H. “Method of Producing Carbon Nanotubes.” US Patent 7,151,019, December 19, 2006.

Standard Title. Standard number, Publication date.

Example : IEEE Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic. IEEE Std 754-2008, August 29, 2008

ACS (American Chemical Society) Style

ACS (American Chemical Society) style is commonly used in chemistry and related fields. Here are the different reference formats in ACS style:

Author’s Last name, First name; Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Article. Abbreviated Journal Title Year, Volume, Page Numbers.

Example : Wang, Y.; Zhao, X.; Cui, Y.; Ma, Y. Facile Preparation of Fe3O4/graphene Composites Using a Hydrothermal Method for High-Performance Lithium Ion Batteries. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2012, 4, 2715-2721.

Author’s Last name, First name. Book Title; Publisher: Place of Publication, Year of Publication.

Example : Carey, F. A. Organic Chemistry; McGraw-Hill: New York, 2008.

Author’s Last name, First name. Chapter Title. In Book Title; Editor’s Last name, First name, Ed.; Publisher: Place of Publication, Year of Publication; Volume number, Chapter number, Page Numbers.

Example : Grossman, R. B. Analytical Chemistry of Aerosols. In Aerosol Measurement: Principles, Techniques, and Applications; Baron, P. A.; Willeke, K., Eds.; Wiley-Interscience: New York, 2001; Chapter 10, pp 395-424.

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Webpage. Website Name, URL (accessed date).

Example : National Institute of Standards and Technology. Atomic Spectra Database. https://www.nist.gov/pml/atomic-spectra-database (accessed April 1, 2023).

Author’s Last name, First name. Patent Number. Patent Date.

Example : Liu, Y.; Huang, H.; Chen, H.; Zhang, W. US Patent 9,999,999, December 31, 2022.

Author’s Last name, First name; Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Article. In Title of Conference Proceedings, Publisher: Place of Publication, Year of Publication; Volume Number, Page Numbers.

Example : Jia, H.; Xu, S.; Wu, Y.; Wu, Z.; Tang, Y.; Huang, X. Fast Adsorption of Organic Pollutants by Graphene Oxide. In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology, American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017; Volume 1, pp 223-228.

AMA (American Medical Association) Style

AMA (American Medical Association) style is commonly used in medical and scientific fields. Here are the different reference formats in AMA style:

Author’s Last name, First name. Article Title. Journal Abbreviation. Year; Volume(Issue):Page Numbers.

Example : Jones, R. A.; Smith, B. C. The Role of Vitamin D in Maintaining Bone Health. JAMA. 2019;321(17):1765-1773.

Author’s Last name, First name. Book Title. Edition number. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year.

Example : Guyton, A. C.; Hall, J. E. Textbook of Medical Physiology. 13th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders; 2015.

Author’s Last name, First name. Chapter Title. In: Editor’s Last name, First name, ed. Book Title. Edition number. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year: Page Numbers.

Example: Rajakumar, K. Vitamin D and Bone Health. In: Holick, M. F., ed. Vitamin D: Physiology, Molecular Biology, and Clinical Applications. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Springer; 2010:211-222.

Author’s Last name, First name. Webpage Title. Website Name. URL. Published date. Updated date. Accessed date.

Example : National Cancer Institute. Breast Cancer Prevention (PDQ®)–Patient Version. National Cancer Institute. https://www.cancer.gov/types/breast/patient/breast-prevention-pdq. Published October 11, 2022. Accessed April 1, 2023.

Author’s Last name, First name. Conference presentation title. In: Conference Title; Conference Date; Place of Conference.

Example : Smith, J. R. Vitamin D and Bone Health: A Meta-Analysis. In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research; September 20-23, 2022; San Diego, CA.

Thesis or dissertation

Author’s Last name, First name. Title of Thesis or Dissertation. Degree level [Doctoral dissertation or Master’s thesis]. University Name; Year.

Example : Wilson, S. A. The Effects of Vitamin D Supplementation on Bone Health in Postmenopausal Women [Doctoral dissertation]. University of California, Los Angeles; 2018.

ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) Style

The ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) style is commonly used in civil engineering fields. Here are the different reference formats in ASCE style:

Author’s Last name, First name. “Article Title.” Journal Title, volume number, issue number (year): page numbers. DOI or URL (if available).

Example : Smith, J. R. “Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Sustainable Drainage Systems in Urban Areas.” Journal of Environmental Engineering, vol. 146, no. 3 (2020): 04020010. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)EE.1943-7870.0001668.

Example : McCuen, R. H. Hydrologic Analysis and Design. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education; 2013.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Chapter Title.” In: Editor’s Last name, First name, ed. Book Title. Edition number. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year: page numbers.

Example : Maidment, D. R. “Floodplain Management in the United States.” In: Shroder, J. F., ed. Treatise on Geomorphology. San Diego, CA: Academic Press; 2013: 447-460.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Paper Title.” In: Conference Title; Conference Date; Location. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year: page numbers.

Example: Smith, J. R. “Sustainable Drainage Systems for Urban Areas.” In: Proceedings of the ASCE International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure; November 6-9, 2019; Los Angeles, CA. Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers; 2019: 156-163.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Report Title.” Report number. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year.

Example : U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “Hurricane Sandy Coastal Risk Reduction Program, New York and New Jersey.” Report No. P-15-001. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; 2015.

CSE (Council of Science Editors) Style

The CSE (Council of Science Editors) style is commonly used in the scientific and medical fields. Here are the different reference formats in CSE style:

Author’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial. “Article Title.” Journal Title. Year;Volume(Issue):Page numbers.

Example : Smith, J.R. “Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Sustainable Drainage Systems in Urban Areas.” Journal of Environmental Engineering. 2020;146(3):04020010.

Author’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial. Book Title. Edition number. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year.

Author’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial. “Chapter Title.” In: Editor’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial., ed. Book Title. Edition number. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year:Page numbers.

Author’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial. “Paper Title.” In: Conference Title; Conference Date; Location. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year.

Example : Smith, J.R. “Sustainable Drainage Systems for Urban Areas.” In: Proceedings of the ASCE International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure; November 6-9, 2019; Los Angeles, CA. Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers; 2019.

Author’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial. “Report Title.” Report number. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year.

Bluebook Style

The Bluebook style is commonly used in the legal field for citing legal documents and sources. Here are the different reference formats in Bluebook style:

Case citation

Case name, volume source page (Court year).

Example : Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

Statute citation

Name of Act, volume source § section number (year).

Example : Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. § 7401 (1963).

Regulation citation

Name of regulation, volume source § section number (year).

Example: Clean Air Act, 40 C.F.R. § 52.01 (2019).

Book citation

Author’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial. Book Title. Edition number (if applicable). Place of Publication: Publisher; Year.

Example: Smith, J.R. Legal Writing and Analysis. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Aspen Publishers; 2015.

Journal article citation

Author’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial. “Article Title.” Journal Title. Volume number (year): first page-last page.

Example: Garcia, C. “The Right to Counsel: An International Comparison.” International Journal of Legal Information. 43 (2015): 63-94.

Website citation

Author’s Last name, First Initial. Middle Initial. “Page Title.” Website Title. URL (accessed month day, year).

Example : United Nations. “Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ (accessed January 3, 2023).

Oxford Style

The Oxford style, also known as the Oxford referencing system or the documentary-note citation system, is commonly used in the humanities, including literature, history, and philosophy. Here are the different reference formats in Oxford style:

Author’s Last name, First name. Book Title. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication.

Example : Smith, John. The Art of Writing. New York: Penguin, 2020.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Article Title.” Journal Title volume, no. issue (year): page range.

Example: Garcia, Carlos. “The Role of Ethics in Philosophy.” Philosophy Today 67, no. 3 (2019): 53-68.

Chapter in an edited book citation

Author’s Last name, First name. “Chapter Title.” In Book Title, edited by Editor’s Name, page range. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication.

Example : Lee, Mary. “Feminism in the 21st Century.” In The Oxford Handbook of Feminism, edited by Jane Smith, 51-69. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Author’s Last name, First name. “Page Title.” Website Title. URL (accessed day month year).

Example : Jones, David. “The Importance of Learning Languages.” Oxford Language Center. https://www.oxfordlanguagecenter.com/importance-of-learning-languages/ (accessed 3 January 2023).

Dissertation or thesis citation

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Dissertation/Thesis.” PhD diss., University Name, Year of Publication.

Example : Brown, Susan. “The Art of Storytelling in American Literature.” PhD diss., University of Oxford, 2020.

Newspaper article citation

Author’s Last name, First name. “Article Title.” Newspaper Title, Month Day, Year.

Example : Robinson, Andrew. “New Developments in Climate Change Research.” The Guardian, September 15, 2022.

AAA (American Anthropological Association) Style

The American Anthropological Association (AAA) style is commonly used in anthropology research papers and journals. Here are the different reference formats in AAA style:

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of Publication. Book Title. Place of Publication: Publisher.

Example : Smith, John. 2019. The Anthropology of Food. New York: Routledge.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of Publication. “Article Title.” Journal Title volume, no. issue: page range.

Example : Garcia, Carlos. 2021. “The Role of Ethics in Anthropology.” American Anthropologist 123, no. 2: 237-251.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of Publication. “Chapter Title.” In Book Title, edited by Editor’s Name, page range. Place of Publication: Publisher.

Example: Lee, Mary. 2018. “Feminism in Anthropology.” In The Oxford Handbook of Feminism, edited by Jane Smith, 51-69. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of Publication. “Page Title.” Website Title. URL (accessed day month year).

Example : Jones, David. 2020. “The Importance of Learning Languages.” Oxford Language Center. https://www.oxfordlanguagecenter.com/importance-of-learning-languages/ (accessed January 3, 2023).

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of Publication. “Title of Dissertation/Thesis.” PhD diss., University Name.

Example : Brown, Susan. 2022. “The Art of Storytelling in Anthropology.” PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley.

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of Publication. “Article Title.” Newspaper Title, Month Day.

Example : Robinson, Andrew. 2021. “New Developments in Anthropology Research.” The Guardian, September 15.

AIP (American Institute of Physics) Style

The American Institute of Physics (AIP) style is commonly used in physics research papers and journals. Here are the different reference formats in AIP style:

Example : Johnson, S. D. 2021. “Quantum Computing and Information.” Journal of Applied Physics 129, no. 4: 043102.

Example : Feynman, Richard. 2018. The Feynman Lectures on Physics. New York: Basic Books.

Example : Jones, David. 2020. “The Future of Quantum Computing.” In The Handbook of Physics, edited by John Smith, 125-136. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Conference proceedings citation

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of Publication. “Title of Paper.” Proceedings of Conference Name, date and location: page range. Place of Publication: Publisher.

Example : Chen, Wei. 2019. “The Applications of Nanotechnology in Solar Cells.” Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Nanotechnology, July 15-17, Tokyo, Japan: 224-229. New York: AIP Publishing.

Example : American Institute of Physics. 2022. “About AIP Publishing.” AIP Publishing. https://publishing.aip.org/about-aip-publishing/ (accessed January 3, 2023).

Patent citation

Author’s Last name, First name. Year of Publication. Patent Number.

Example : Smith, John. 2018. US Patent 9,873,644.

References Writing Guide

Here are some general guidelines for writing references:

• Follow the citation style guidelines: Different disciplines and journals may require different citation styles (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago). It is important to follow the specific guidelines for the citation style required.
• Include all necessary information : Each citation should include enough information for readers to locate the source. For example, a journal article citation should include the author(s), title of the article, journal title, volume number, issue number, page numbers, and publication year.
• Use proper formatting: Citation styles typically have specific formatting requirements for different types of sources. Make sure to follow the proper formatting for each citation.
• Order citations alphabetically: If listing multiple sources, they should be listed alphabetically by the author’s last name.
• Be consistent: Use the same citation style throughout the entire paper or project.
• Check for accuracy: Double-check all citations to ensure accuracy, including correct spelling of author names and publication information.
• Use reputable sources: When selecting sources to cite, choose reputable and authoritative sources. Avoid sources that are biased or unreliable.
• Include all sources: Make sure to include all sources used in the research, including those that were not directly quoted but still informed the work.
• Use online tools : There are online tools available (e.g., citation generators) that can help with formatting and organizing references.

Purpose of References in Research

References in research serve several purposes:

• To give credit to the original authors or sources of information used in the research. It is important to acknowledge the work of others and avoid plagiarism.
• To provide evidence for the claims made in the research. References can support the arguments, hypotheses, or conclusions presented in the research by citing relevant studies, data, or theories.
• To allow readers to find and verify the sources used in the research. References provide the necessary information for readers to locate and access the sources cited in the research, which allows them to evaluate the quality and reliability of the information presented.
• To situate the research within the broader context of the field. References can show how the research builds on or contributes to the existing body of knowledge, and can help readers to identify gaps in the literature that the research seeks to address.

Importance of References in Research

References play an important role in research for several reasons:

• Credibility : By citing authoritative sources, references lend credibility to the research and its claims. They provide evidence that the research is based on a sound foundation of knowledge and has been carefully researched.
• Avoidance of Plagiarism : References help researchers avoid plagiarism by giving credit to the original authors or sources of information. This is important for ethical reasons and also to avoid legal repercussions.
• Reproducibility : References allow others to reproduce the research by providing detailed information on the sources used. This is important for verification of the research and for others to build on the work.
• Context : References provide context for the research by situating it within the broader body of knowledge in the field. They help researchers to understand where their work fits in and how it builds on or contributes to existing knowledge.
• Evaluation : References provide a means for others to evaluate the research by allowing them to assess the quality and reliability of the sources used.

Advantages of References in Research

There are several advantages of including references in research:

• Acknowledgment of Sources: Including references gives credit to the authors or sources of information used in the research. This is important to acknowledge the original work and avoid plagiarism.
• Evidence and Support : References can provide evidence to support the arguments, hypotheses, or conclusions presented in the research. This can add credibility and strength to the research.
• Reproducibility : References provide the necessary information for others to reproduce the research. This is important for the verification of the research and for others to build on the work.
• Context : References can help to situate the research within the broader body of knowledge in the field. This helps researchers to understand where their work fits in and how it builds on or contributes to existing knowledge.
• Evaluation : Including references allows others to evaluate the research by providing a means to assess the quality and reliability of the sources used.
• Ongoing Conversation: References allow researchers to engage in ongoing conversations and debates within their fields. They can show how the research builds on or contributes to the existing body of knowledge.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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How to Write References in Research Papers: Navigating the Maze (Part 2)

You truly are navigating a maze when it comes to ci tations and the question of how to write references in research pa per s. In part 1 of this article, we touched upon citations, which are pointers embedded in the text of a research paper, to sources of information or to other research relevant to that being described in the research paper. Those pointers lead to references in research papers , which typically appear at the end of the text. Whereas citations merely point us to sources in research papers, references describe those sources in sufficient detail for readers (1) to know the title of each source, who is responsible for its content, and when it was published; (2) to look up those sources; and (3) to obtain the documents in question if required.  

Table of Contents

Types of references in research papers

In writing a research paper, a researcher draws upon many sources of information, knowledge, opinions, and so on. One of the the most common type s of reference s  in research papers is other research papers published in journals; other common sources include technical reports, handbooks, presentations at conferences, and books. Increasingly, the sources in research papers are digital and include web pages, databases, blog posts, and even tweets and emails.  

Not all sources are considered equally credible , and some may not be accessible to all because they are behind paywalls or available only to members of a network (company intranets, for example) or because they are personal exchanges.  

How to write references in research papers

If the citations follow the Harvard system, references in a research paper s are sorted alphabetically by the last name of the first author; if the citations follow the Vancouver system, the references are arranged by numbers: the reference corresponding to the first numbered citation is numbered 1, and so on. If a source is cited again, its allocated number does not change.  

Some additional conventions govern the alphabetic sorting of references in research papers . For instance, when authors have some papers in which they are the only author and others in which they have one or more co-authors or when the same author or authors have papers published in different years or even within the same year.  

Some publishers make even greater demands of references in research papers : authors are expected to sort the list of references alphabetically, as in the Harvard system; then number the sorted list serially; and then renumber all the citations within the text so that each corresponds to its new number!  

How to add references in a research paper: Key elements

For a source of information to be described accurately, some minimum details are required. Here’s one example of w rit ing references in research paper s – ‘ Nature 171 : 737’ is a code that, if you know how to decipher it, tells you that it means an article published in Nature (a weekly journal published from the UK) that begins on page 737 of volume 171 of that journal. However, it does not tell you what the article was about, who wrote it, when it was published, or even how long it is. A complete reference in research paper s (Fig. 1), however, tells you that the title of the article was ‘Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid’, that it was written by J. D. Watson and F. H. C. Crick, that it was published in 1953, and that it ran to no more than two pages.  

When thinking about how to write research references , remember that the elements that make up a reference to an article published in a journal are different from those that make up a reference to a book (edition if not the first, the publisher, and the place of publication, although the last is no longer considered essential in today’s globalized publishing). The elements that make up a reference to a technical report include the name of the organization issuing that report and the report number, if any, and that to a conference presentation gives the title of the conference, the date(s) on which it was held and the place, the name of the organizer(s) of the conference, and so on.  

Note that journals or publishers differ in the elements they expect authors to include when they state how to put references in research papers ; for example, some journals give only minimal information and exclude the titles of articles and some use the ‘elided’ form of page numbers (737–38 instead of 737–738, for example).  

Then there is the question of abbreviated names of journals: some publishers abbreviate journal titles and some don’t ( Annals of Applied Biology or Ann. Appl. Biol.). And those who do, often disagree on the correct abbreviation—and on whether the abbreviations should end in dots (whether the word ‘Journal’ should be given as J. or J or Jnl or Jnl.).  

Sequence of the elements that make up reference s in research papers  

Publishers and journals also differ in the order or sequence in which they present the elements or components of reference s in research papers : usually, British and European publishers put the year of publication after the names of authors whereas US publishers move the year closer to the volume number of the journal.  

Even within an element, the sequence of references in research paper s can have subtle differences. In Harvard system, because the last name of the first author is using for sorting, the name is ‘inverted’, that is the last name is given first, followed by initials (Watson J D instead of J D Watson). However, some journals invert the names of all the authors whereas some invert the name of only the first author. In Vancouver system, the names are seldom inverted because the sequence is not alphabetical.  

Punctuation to separate the elements that make up references in research papers

The many exasperating details that go into formatting references include punctuation marks (or their absence). In giving the initials of authors, some journals use dots, some journals use space, some use both, and some use neither (Watson J.D. or Watson J D or Watson J. D. or Watson JD). Some use a comma between the last name and the initials whereas some reserve the comma only to separate one name from the next (Watson, J D and Crick, F H C or Watson J D, Crick F H C). Some use ‘and’ some don’t, even when there are only two authors, and some use ‘&’ instead which makes it even more confusing for those struggling with how to write references in a research paper.

When the place of publication was a required element in the case of books, some publishers used the colon and some used the comma (and also changed the order, as in New York: Harper & Row or Harper & Row, New York). Some publishers end each reference with a full stop (period) and some don’t.

Typography of references in research papers  

As if the variations mentioned above were not enough, when figuring out how to add references in a research paper , you also have to contend with the differences in typography as well: journal titles in italics or in normal type, volume numbers in bold or in normal type, hyphens or en dashes between page numbers (737-738 or 737–738), and so on.  

All is not lost, however, if you despair of ever getting the references in a research paper right. For example, some publishers now insist on correct formatting only after a paper has been accepted for publication. Also, ICMJE, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, recommends a set of uniform requirements for manuscripts (the requirements include the formatting of citations and references), and hundreds of medical journals ( www.icmje.org/journals-following-the-icmje-recommendations/ ) have agreed that as long as authors adhere to those recommendations on how to mention references for research papers , any changes to the formatting any journal wants to make will be made by the journal in question.  

Lastly, several software packages help authors to automate this mundane task of consistent formatting of references in research paper s—but that is another article and another day.  

The details involved in using citations and references correctly can be overwhelming for some of us. While this article covers the key tips to help you understand how to give reference s in research paper s , be sure to check out article 1 of this two-part series for more on what, when and how to cite in a research paper. One way to check whether these are handled correctly in your manuscript is to use Researcher.Life’s AI powered manuscript optimizer , which can flag any discrepancies, departures from standard style, and mismatches between citations and references in research paper s.  

R Discovery is a literature search and research reading platform that accelerates your research discovery journey by keeping you updated on the latest, most relevant scholarly content. With 250M+ research articles sourced from trusted aggregators like CrossRef, Unpaywall, PubMed, PubMed Central, Open Alex and top publishing houses like Springer Nature, JAMA, IOP, Taylor & Francis, NEJM, BMJ, Karger, SAGE, Emerald Publishing and more, R Discovery puts a world of research at your fingertips.  

Try R Discovery Prime FREE for 1 week or upgrade at just US$72 a year to access premium features that let you listen to research on the go, read in your language, collaborate with peers, auto sync with reference managers, and much more. Choose a simpler, smarter way to find and read research – Download the app and start your free 7-day trial today !  

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Reference List: Common Reference List Examples

Article (with doi).

Alvarez, E., & Tippins, S. (2019). Socialization agents that Puerto Rican college students use to make financial decisions. Journal of Social Change , 11 (1), 75–85. https://doi.org/10.5590/JOSC.2019.11.1.07

Laplante, J. P., & Nolin, C. (2014). Consultas and socially responsible investing in Guatemala: A case study examining Maya perspectives on the Indigenous right to free, prior, and informed consent. Society & Natural Resources , 27 , 231–248. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2013.861554

Use the DOI number for the source whenever one is available. DOI stands for "digital object identifier," a number specific to the article that can help others locate the source. In APA 7, format the DOI as a web address. Active hyperlinks for DOIs and URLs should be used for documents meant for screen reading. Present these hyperlinks in blue and underlined text (the default formatting in Microsoft Word), although plain black text is also acceptable. Be consistent in your formatting choice for DOIs and URLs throughout your reference list. Also see our Quick Answer FAQ, "Can I use the DOI format provided by library databases?"

Jerrentrup, A., Mueller, T., Glowalla, U., Herder, M., Henrichs, N., Neubauer, A., & Schaefer, J. R. (2018). Teaching medicine with the help of “Dr. House.” PLoS ONE , 13 (3), Article e0193972. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193972

For journal articles that are assigned article numbers rather than page ranges, include the article number in place of the page range.

For more on citing electronic resources, see  Electronic Sources References .

Article (Without DOI)

Found in a common academic research database or in print.

Casler , T. (2020). Improving the graduate nursing experience through support on a social media platform. MEDSURG Nursing , 29 (2), 83–87.

If an article does not have a DOI and you retrieved it from a common academic research database through the university library, there is no need to include any additional electronic retrieval information. The reference list entry looks like the entry for a print copy of the article. (This format differs from APA 6 guidelines that recommended including the URL of a journal's homepage when the DOI was not available.) Note that APA 7 has additional guidance on reference list entries for articles found only in specific databases or archives such as Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, UpToDate, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global, and university archives. See APA 7, Section 9.30 for more information.

Found on an Open Access Website

Eaton, T. V., & Akers, M. D. (2007). Whistleblowing and good governance. CPA Journal , 77 (6), 66–71. http://archives.cpajournal.com/2007/607/essentials/p58.htm

Provide the direct web address/URL to a journal article found on the open web, often on an open access journal's website. In APA 7, active hyperlinks for DOIs and URLs should be used for documents meant for screen reading. Present these hyperlinks in blue and underlined text (the default formatting in Microsoft Word), although plain black text is also acceptable. Be consistent in your formatting choice for DOIs and URLs throughout your reference list.

Weinstein, J. A. (2010).  Social change  (3rd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield.

If the book has an edition number, include it in parentheses after the title of the book. If the book does not list any edition information, do not include an edition number. The edition number is not italicized.

American Nurses Association. (2015). Nursing: Scope and standards of practice (3rd ed.).

If the author and publisher are the same, only include the author in its regular place and omit the publisher.

Lencioni, P. (2012). The advantage: Why organizational health trumps everything else in business . Jossey-Bass. https://amzn.to/343XPSJ

As a change from APA 6 to APA 7, it is no longer necessary to include the ebook format in the title. However, if you listened to an audiobook and the content differs from the text version (e.g., abridged content) or your discussion highlights elements of the audiobook (e.g., narrator's performance), then note that it is an audiobook in the title element in brackets. For ebooks and online audiobooks, also include the DOI number (if available) or nondatabase URL but leave out the electronic retrieval element if the ebook was found in a common academic research database, as with journal articles. APA 7 allows for the shortening of long DOIs and URLs, as shown in this example. See APA 7, Section 9.36 for more information.

Chapter in an Edited Book

Poe, M. (2017). Reframing race in teaching writing across the curriculum. In F. Condon & V. A. Young (Eds.), Performing antiracist pedagogy in rhetoric, writing, and communication (pp. 87–105). University Press of Colorado.

Include the page numbers of the chapter in parentheses after the book title.

Christensen, L. (2001). For my people: Celebrating community through poetry. In B. Bigelow, B. Harvey, S. Karp, & L. Miller (Eds.), Rethinking our classrooms: Teaching for equity and justice (Vol. 2, pp. 16–17). Rethinking Schools.

Also include the volume number or edition number in the parenthetical information after the book title when relevant.

Freud, S. (1961). The ego and the id. In J. Strachey (Ed.),  The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud  (Vol. 19, pp. 3-66). Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1923)

When a text has been republished as part of an anthology collection, after the author’s name include the date of the version that was read. At the end of the entry, place the date of the original publication inside parenthesis along with the note “original work published.” For in-text citations of republished work, use both dates in the parenthetical citation, original date first with a slash separating the years, as in this example: Freud (1923/1961). For more information on reprinted or republished works, see APA 7, Sections 9.40-9.41.

Classroom Resources

Citing classroom resources.

If you need to cite content found in your online classroom, use the author (if there is one listed), the year of publication (if available), the title of the document, and the main URL of Walden classrooms. For example, you are citing study notes titled "Health Effects of Exposure to Forest Fires," but you do not know the author's name, your reference entry will look like this:

Health effects of exposure to forest fires [Lecture notes]. (2005). Walden University Canvas. https://waldenu.instructure.com

If you do know the author of the document, your reference will look like this:

Smith, A. (2005). Health effects of exposure to forest fires [PowerPoint slides]. Walden University Canvas. https://waldenu.instructure.com  

A few notes on citing course materials:

• [Lecture notes]
• [Course handout]
• [Study notes]
• It can be difficult to determine authorship of classroom documents. If an author is listed on the document, use that. If the resource is clearly a product of Walden (such as the course-based videos), use Walden University as the author. If you are unsure or if no author is indicated, place the title in the author spot, as above.
• If you cannot determine a date of publication, you can use n.d. (for "no date") in place of the year.

Note:  The web location for Walden course materials is not directly retrievable without a password, and therefore, following APA guidelines, use the main URL for the class sites: https://class.waldenu.edu.

Citing Tempo Classroom Resources

Clear author: 

Smith, A. (2005). Health effects of exposure to forest fires [PowerPoint slides]. Walden University Brightspace. https://mytempo.waldenu.edu

Unclear author:

Health effects of exposure to forest fires [Lecture notes]. (2005). Walden University Brightspace. https://mytempo.waldenu.edu

Conference Sessions and Presentations

Feinman, Y. (2018, July 27). Alternative to proctoring in introductory statistics community college courses [Poster presentation]. Walden University Research Symposium, Minneapolis, MN, United States. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/symposium2018/23/

Torgerson, K., Parrill, J., & Haas, A. (2019, April 5-9). Tutoring strategies for online students [Conference session]. The Higher Learning Commission Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, United States. http://onlinewritingcenters.org/scholarship/torgerson-parrill-haas-2019/

Dictionary Entry

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Leadership. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary . Retrieved May 28, 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/leadership

When constructing a reference for an entry in a dictionary or other reference work that has no byline (i.e., no named individual authors), use the name of the group—the institution, company, or organization—as author (e.g., Merriam Webster, American Psychological Association, etc.). The name of the entry goes in the title position, followed by "In" and the italicized name of the reference work (e.g., Merriam-Webster.com dictionary , APA dictionary of psychology ). In this instance, APA 7 recommends including a retrieval date as well for this online source since the contents of the page change over time. End the reference entry with the specific URL for the defined word.

Discussion Board Post

Osborne, C. S. (2010, June 29). Re: Environmental responsibility [Discussion post]. Walden University Canvas.  https://waldenu.instructure.com  

Dissertations or Theses

Retrieved From a Database

Nalumango, K. (2019). Perceptions about the asylum-seeking process in the United States after 9/11 (Publication No. 13879844) [Doctoral dissertation, Walden University]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

Retrieved From an Institutional or Personal Website

Evener. J. (2018). Organizational learning in libraries at for-profit colleges and universities [Doctoral dissertation, Walden University]. ScholarWorks. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6606&context=dissertations

Unpublished Dissertation or Thesis

Kirwan, J. G. (2005). An experimental study of the effects of small-group, face-to-face facilitated dialogues on the development of self-actualization levels: A movement towards fully functional persons [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center.

For further examples and information, see APA 7, Section 10.6.

Legal Material

For legal references, APA follows the recommendations of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation , so if you have any questions beyond the examples provided in APA, seek out that resource as well.

Court Decisions

Reference format:

Name v. Name, Volume Reporter Page (Court Date). URL

Sample reference entry:

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/347us483

Sample citation:

In Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court ruled racial segregation in schools unconstitutional.

Note: Italicize the case name when it appears in the text of your paper.

Name of Act, Title Source § Section Number (Year). URL

Sample reference entry for a federal statute:

Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq. (2004). https://www.congress.gov/108/plaws/publ446/PLAW-108publ446.pdf

Sample reference entry for a state statute:

Minnesota Nurse Practice Act, Minn. Stat. §§ 148.171 et seq. (2019). https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/148.171

Sample citation: Minnesota nurses must maintain current registration in order to practice (Minnesota Nurse Practice Act, 2010).

Note: The § symbol stands for "section." Use §§ for sections (plural). To find this symbol in Microsoft Word, go to "Insert" and click on Symbol." Look in the Latin 1-Supplement subset. Note: U.S.C. stands for "United States Code." Note: The Latin abbreviation " et seq. " means "and what follows" and is used when the act includes the cited section and ones that follow. Note: List the chapter first followed by the section or range of sections.

Unenacted Bills and Resolutions

(Those that did not pass and become law)

Title [if there is one], bill or resolution number, xxx Cong. (year). URL

Sample reference entry for Senate bill:

Anti-Phishing Act, S. 472, 109th Cong. (2005). https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/senate-bill/472

Sample reference entry for House of Representatives resolution:

Anti-Phishing Act, H.R. 1099, 109th Cong. (2005). https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/1099

The Anti-Phishing Act (2005) proposed up to 5 years prison time for people running Internet scams.

These are the three legal areas you may be most apt to cite in your scholarly work. For more examples and explanation, see APA 7, Chapter 11.

Magazine Article

Clay, R. (2008, June). Science vs. ideology: Psychologists fight back about the misuse of research. Monitor on Psychology , 39 (6). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2008/06/ideology

Note that for citations, include only the year: Clay (2008). For magazine articles retrieved from a common academic research database, leave out the URL. For magazine articles from an online news website that is not an online version of a print magazine, follow the format for a webpage reference list entry.

Newspaper Article (Retrieved Online)

Baker, A. (2014, May 7). Connecticut students show gains in national tests. New York Times . http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/nyregion/national-assessment-of-educational-progress-results-in-Connecticut-and-New-Jersey.html

Include the full date in the format Year, Month Day. Do not include a retrieval date for periodical sources found on websites. Note that for citations, include only the year: Baker (2014). For newspaper articles retrieved from a common academic research database, leave out the URL. For newspaper articles from an online news website that is not an online version of a print newspaper, follow the format for a webpage reference list entry.

OASIS Resources

Oasis webpage.

OASIS. (n.d.). Common reference list examples . Walden University. https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/apa/references/examples

For all OASIS content, list OASIS as the author. Because OASIS webpages do not include publication dates, use “n.d.” for the year.

Interactive Guide

OASIS. (n.d.). Embrace iterative research and writing [Interactive guide]. Walden University. https://academics.waldenu.edu/oasis/iterative-research-writing-web

For OASIS multimedia resources, such as interactive guides, include a description of the resource in brackets after the title.

Online Video/Webcast

Walden University. (2013).  An overview of learning  [Video]. Walden University Canvas.  https://waldenu.instructure.com  

Use this format for online videos such as Walden videos in classrooms. Most of our classroom videos are produced by Walden University, which will be listed as the author in your reference and citation. Note: Some examples of audiovisual materials in the APA manual show the word “Producer” in parentheses after the producer/author area. In consultation with the editors of the APA manual, we have determined that parenthetical is not necessary for the videos in our courses. The manual itself is unclear on the matter, however, so either approach should be accepted. Note that the speaker in the video does not appear in the reference list entry, but you may want to mention that person in your text. For instance, if you are viewing a video where Tobias Ball is the speaker, you might write the following: Tobias Ball stated that APA guidelines ensure a consistent presentation of information in student papers (Walden University, 2013). For more information on citing the speaker in a video, see our page on Common Citation Errors .

Taylor, R. [taylorphd07]. (2014, February 27). Scales of measurement [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDsMUlexaMY

OASIS. (2020, April 15). One-way ANCOVA: Introduction [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/_XnNDQ5CNW8

For videos from streaming sites, use the person or organization who uploaded the video in the author space to ensure retrievability, whether or not that person is the speaker in the video. A username can be provided in square brackets. As a change from APA 6 to APA 7, include the publisher after the title, and do not use "Retrieved from" before the URL. See APA 7, Section 10.12 for more information and examples.

See also reference list entry formats for TED Talks .

Technical and Research Reports

Edwards, C. (2015). Lighting levels for isolated intersections: Leading to safety improvements (Report No. MnDOT 2015-05). Center for Transportation Studies. http://www.cts.umn.edu/Publications/ResearchReports/reportdetail.html?id=2402

Technical and research reports by governmental agencies and other research institutions usually follow a different publication process than scholarly, peer-reviewed journals. However, they present original research and are often useful for research papers. Sometimes, researchers refer to these types of reports as gray literature , and white papers are a type of this literature. See APA 7, Section 10.4 for more information.

Reference list entires for TED Talks follow the usual guidelines for multimedia content found online. There are two common places to find TED talks online, with slightly different reference list entry formats for each.

TED Talk on the TED website

If you find the TED Talk on the TED website, follow the format for an online video on an organizational website:

Owusu-Kesse, K. (2020, June). 5 needs that any COVID-19 response should meet [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/kwame_owusu_kesse_5_needs_that_any_covid_19_response_should_meet

The speaker is the author in the reference list entry if the video is posted on the TED website. For citations, use the speaker's surname.

TED Talk on YouTube

If you find the TED Talk on YouTube or another streaming video website, follow the usual format for streaming video sites:

TED. (2021, February 5). The shadow pandemic of domestic violence during COVID-19 | Kemi DaSilvalbru [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGdID_ICFII

TED is the author in the reference list entry if the video is posted on YouTube since it is the channel on which the video is posted. For citations, use TED as the author.

Walden University Course Catalog

To include the Walden course catalog in your reference list, use this format:

Walden University. (2020). 2019-2020 Walden University catalog . https://catalog.waldenu.edu/index.php

If you cite from a specific portion of the catalog in your paper, indicate the appropriate section and paragraph number in your text:

...which reflects the commitment to social change expressed in Walden University's mission statement (Walden University, 2020, Vision, Mission, and Goals section, para. 2).

And in the reference list:

Walden University. (2020). Vision, mission, and goals. In 2019-2020 Walden University catalog. https://catalog.waldenu.edu/content.php?catoid=172&navoid=59420&hl=vision&returnto=search

Vartan, S. (2018, January 30). Why vacations matter for your health . CNN. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/why-vacations-matter/index.html

For webpages on the open web, include the author, date, webpage title, organization/site name, and URL. (There is a slight variation for online versions of print newspapers or magazines. For those sources, follow the models in the previous sections of this page.)

American Federation of Teachers. (n.d.). Community schools . http://www.aft.org/issues/schoolreform/commschools/index.cfm

If there is no specified author, then use the organization’s name as the author. In such a case, there is no need to repeat the organization's name after the title.

In APA 7, active hyperlinks for DOIs and URLs should be used for documents meant for screen reading. Present these hyperlinks in blue and underlined text (the default formatting in Microsoft Word), although plain black text is also acceptable. Be consistent in your formatting choice for DOIs and URLs throughout your reference list.

Related Resources

Knowledge Check: Common Reference List Examples

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A Quick Guide to Harvard Referencing | Citation Examples

Published on 14 February 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on 15 September 2023.

Referencing is an important part of academic writing. It tells your readers what sources you’ve used and how to find them.

Harvard is the most common referencing style used in UK universities. In Harvard style, the author and year are cited in-text, and full details of the source are given in a reference list .

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Table of contents

Harvard in-text citation, creating a harvard reference list, harvard referencing examples, referencing sources with no author or date, frequently asked questions about harvard referencing.

A Harvard in-text citation appears in brackets beside any quotation or paraphrase of a source. It gives the last name of the author(s) and the year of publication, as well as a page number or range locating the passage referenced, if applicable:

Note that ‘p.’ is used for a single page, ‘pp.’ for multiple pages (e.g. ‘pp. 1–5’).

An in-text citation usually appears immediately after the quotation or paraphrase in question. It may also appear at the end of the relevant sentence, as long as it’s clear what it refers to.

When your sentence already mentions the name of the author, it should not be repeated in the citation:

Sources with multiple authors

When you cite a source with up to three authors, cite all authors’ names. For four or more authors, list only the first name, followed by ‘ et al. ’:

Sources with no page numbers

Some sources, such as websites , often don’t have page numbers. If the source is a short text, you can simply leave out the page number. With longer sources, you can use an alternate locator such as a subheading or paragraph number if you need to specify where to find the quote:

Multiple citations at the same point

When you need multiple citations to appear at the same point in your text – for example, when you refer to several sources with one phrase – you can present them in the same set of brackets, separated by semicolons. List them in order of publication date:

Multiple sources with the same author and date

If you cite multiple sources by the same author which were published in the same year, it’s important to distinguish between them in your citations. To do this, insert an ‘a’ after the year in the first one you reference, a ‘b’ in the second, and so on:

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A bibliography or reference list appears at the end of your text. It lists all your sources in alphabetical order by the author’s last name, giving complete information so that the reader can look them up if necessary.

The reference entry starts with the author’s last name followed by initial(s). Only the first word of the title is capitalised (as well as any proper nouns).

Sources with multiple authors in the reference list

As with in-text citations, up to three authors should be listed; when there are four or more, list only the first author followed by ‘ et al. ’:

Reference list entries vary according to source type, since different information is relevant for different sources. Formats and examples for the most commonly used source types are given below.

• Entire book
• Book chapter
• Translated book
• Edition of a book

Journal articles

• Print journal
• Online-only journal with DOI
• Online-only journal with no DOI

• General web page
• Online article or blog
• Social media post

Sometimes you won’t have all the information you need for a reference. This section covers what to do when a source lacks a publication date or named author.

No publication date

When a source doesn’t have a clear publication date – for example, a constantly updated reference source like Wikipedia or an obscure historical document which can’t be accurately dated – you can replace it with the words ‘no date’:

Note that when you do this with an online source, you should still include an access date, as in the example.

When a source lacks a clearly identified author, there’s often an appropriate corporate source – the organisation responsible for the source – whom you can credit as author instead, as in the Google and Wikipedia examples above.

When that’s not the case, you can just replace it with the title of the source in both the in-text citation and the reference list:

Harvard referencing uses an author–date system. Sources are cited by the author’s last name and the publication year in brackets. Each Harvard in-text citation corresponds to an entry in the alphabetised reference list at the end of the paper.

Vancouver referencing uses a numerical system. Sources are cited by a number in parentheses or superscript. Each number corresponds to a full reference at the end of the paper.

A Harvard in-text citation should appear in brackets every time you quote, paraphrase, or refer to information from a source.

The citation can appear immediately after the quotation or paraphrase, or at the end of the sentence. If you’re quoting, place the citation outside of the quotation marks but before any other punctuation like a comma or full stop.

In Harvard referencing, up to three author names are included in an in-text citation or reference list entry. When there are four or more authors, include only the first, followed by ‘ et al. ’

Though the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there is a difference in meaning:

• A reference list only includes sources cited in the text – every entry corresponds to an in-text citation .
• A bibliography also includes other sources which were consulted during the research but not cited.

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APA Style 7th Edition: Citing Your Sources

• Basics of APA Formatting
• In Text Quick View
• Block Quotes

The Generic Reference

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References appear at the end of your document and follow a Who, When, What and Where format.  Only include sources you cited within your research document (*exception for personal communications which are excluded from the reference list).

Who:  Identify the creator of the source.  Who can be: a single author; multiple authors; an organization or corporation; editor/s; or the director and producer.  On some occasions when authorship cannot be attributed then you revert to the title entry formatting. 

When:   Identify when the source was published.  For most source types,  simply provide a year of publication.  Exceptions as follows: year followed by month for papers and posters presented at conferences; year followed by month and date for blogs, social media, newspaper and magazine publications.  When there is no publication date (common for web documents and other content) use the abbreviation n.d. for "no date."

What: Title of the source.  This is the title identified for the individual source, rather than where the source is published.  For articles, you want to identify the title of the article rather than the Journal name.  The same can be said for the title of a newspaper article vs. the newspaper name or the title of a webpage vs. the website name.  (ex.  "Mission statement" is a page title on the APA website).

Where:   Once you identify the Who, When, and What, the rest of the information provided to complete the reference falls under "Where."  This portion of the reference sees variations in information included based on source type.  Essentially, it will provide information as to where the reader can retrieve the source.  Where can fall under 2 broad categories: works part of a great whole and stand-alone sources.

Visit the individual Reference Type pages to see further formatting and examples for your source type.

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Referencing explained

Why and when to reference.

Referencing is an important part of academic work. It puts your work in context, demonstrates the breadth and depth of your research, and acknowledges other people’s work. You should reference whenever you use someone else’s idea.

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These webpages explain what referencing is, why it is important and give an overview of the main elements of how to reference. Our Referencing made simple tutorial opens in a new window and covers how to identify your source and create a reference with interactive examples.

Why reference?

Referencing correctly:

• helps you to avoid plagiarism by making it clear which ideas are your own and which are someone else’s
• shows your understanding of the topic
• gives supporting evidence for your ideas, arguments and opinions
• allows others to identify the sources you have used.

When to reference

Whenever you use an idea from someone else's work, for example from a journal article, textbook or website, you should cite the original author to make it clear where that idea came from. This is the case regardless of whether you have paraphrased, summarised or directly quoted their work. This is a key part of good practice in academic writing.

Read more on:

• academic integrity
• quoting, summarising, paraphrasing, and synthesising
• citing direct quotations in Leeds Harvard or citing direct quotations in Leeds Numeric styles.

University and school policies

The University referencing policy (PDF) sets out the referencing requirements that all taught students and tutors are expected to follow.

Each school in the University requires students to use a specific style of referencing. Check the referencing style used in your school before you begin.

All your citations and references should match the style you are using exactly, including any punctuation, capitalisation, italics and bold, and you should use the same referencing style throughout your assignment.

Citing and referencing

What is referencing.

• What is Plagiarism?
• In-text Citations
• Periodicals
• Reference Works
• Theses and Dissertations
• Conference Papers and Proceedings
• Chicago Style
• Vancouver Style
• Styles by UOB Departments

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Referencing is a standardized method of formatting the sources you have used in your written works. Any given referencing style serves many purposes: 

• Establishing credibility by citing reliable sources.
• Preventing plagiarism by giving credit to original creators. 
• Building on and connecting with existing knowledge. 
• Enabling verification and reproducibility of research. 
• Abiding and demonstrating intellectual property rights and standards.
• Provide evidence to support your arguments. 
• Acknowledging diverse perspectives and sources in your work. 

1. In-text citations

In-text citations are important, they consist of mentioning a specific source used in the body of the work. The format of the citation may change depending on the style you are using (e.g. MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.), yet there are some basic elements you need to include, which are: 

• Name of the author(s)
• Year of publication

You must add the exact page number in your citation if you used a direct quote from a source. 

2. List of references

This is  a list of the sources you have cited in the text  at the end of your paper. It is not a list of “works consulted”. Every source listed in your references list must also be cited in the body of your work and vice versa. 

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Introduction to Reference, Bibliography, and Citation

• First Online: 19 December 2019

Cite this chapter

• Abha Agrawal 3 &
• Majid Rasouli 4  

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Research and writing are integral parts of the professional work for researchers, academics, and biomedical professionals. Scientific manuscripts commonly include references to related information in literature. The inclusion of references in manuscripts substantiates arguments with evidence, as well as acknowledges the source of information being referred to. References may be cited from such a variety of sources as journals, books, conference proceedings, magazines, and newspapers, and the Internet. This chapter discusses the basic concepts related to the process of referencing as a foundation to the effective use of reference management software programs, such as EndNote.

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Agrawal, A., Rasouli, M. (2019). Introduction to Reference, Bibliography, and Citation. In: EndNote 1-2-3 Easy!. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24889-5_1

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Academic writing relies on more than just the ideas and experience of one author. It also uses the ideas and research of other sources: books, journal articles, websites, and so forth. These other sources may be used to support the author's ideas, or the author may be discussing, analysing, or critiquing other sources.

Referencing is used to tell the reader where ideas from other sources have been used in an assignment. There are many reasons why it is important to reference sources correctly:

• It shows the reader that you can find and use sources to create a solid argument
• It properly credits the originators of ideas, theories, and research findings
• It shows the reader how your argument relates to the big picture

(For a detailed discussion, see why reference? )

Failure to properly acknowledge sources is called plagiarism , and it can carry significant academic penalties. Fortunately, plagiarism is easy to avoid by following a few basic principles.

What needs to be referenced?

Whenever an assignment uses words, facts, ideas, theories, or interpretations from other sources, those sources must be referenced. Referencing is needed when:

• You have copied words from a book, article, or other source exactly ( quotation )
• You have used an idea or fact from an outside source, even if you haven't used their exact wording ( paraphrasing and summarising )

The only exception to this is when the information is common knowledge , which is something that anyone is likely to know. If you are uncertain whether to reference something or not, it is better to reference it.

Citations and references

There are two elements used in referencing:

• A citation in the text of the assignment (also known as in-text citations)
• An entry in a reference list at the end of the assignment

The citation contains only enough information for the reader to find the source in the reference list. Usually, this is the name of the source's author and the year the source was published. For example:

When testing the usability of a website, it is necessary to gather demographic information about the users (Lazar, 2006).

In this example, (Lazar, 2006) tells the reader that this information has come from a source written by Lazar, which was published in 2006. This is a signpost, pointing the reader to the reference list.

The reference list is a list of all the sources used (and cited) in an assignment. It is alphabetised according to the names of the authors. Each entry in the reference list contains detailed information about one source. This usually includes the author's name, the year of publication, the title of the source, and source location details (e.g., publisher’s name, URL). For example:

Durie, M. (2003). Ngā kāhui pou: Launching Māori futures . Huia.

Hazledine, T., & Quiggan, J. (2006). Public policy in Australia and New Zealand: The new global context. Australian Journal of Political Science, 41 (2), 131–143.

Lazar, J. (2006). Web usability: A user-centered design approach . Pearson Addison Wesley.

Ministry for Primary Industries. (2012).  Food safety . https://www.mpi.govt.nz/food-safety

If they wanted to, a reader could use this information to find these sources in a library or online.

Referencing is a formal system: there are rules and standards to follow when formatting citations and references. Many students find referencing quite intimidating at first. Like any skill, it takes time and patience to learn.

The examples above use APA style , a format created by the American Psychological Association. It is the most common referencing style used at Massey University.

Other styles include MLA style , Oxford style , Harvard style , and Chicago style . These styles are subtly different, and different colleges and departments may ask you to use different styles. Oxford style, for example, uses footnotes instead of in-text citations, and a bibliography instead of a reference list .

For more about the different referencing styles used at Massey University, see referencing styles .

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Citing sources: Overview

• Citation style guides

Manage your references

Use these tools to help you organize and cite your references:

• Citation Management and Writing Tools

If you have questions after consulting this guide about how to cite, please contact your advisor/professor or the writing and communication center .

Why citing is important

It's important to cite sources you used in your research for several reasons:

• To show your reader you've done proper research by listing sources you used to get your information
• To be a responsible scholar by giving credit to other researchers and acknowledging their ideas
• To avoid plagiarism by quoting words and ideas used by other authors
• To allow your reader to track down the sources you used by citing them accurately in your paper by way of footnotes, a bibliography or reference list

About citations

Citing a source means that you show, within the body of your text, that you took words, ideas, figures, images, etc. from another place.

Citations are a short way to uniquely identify a published work (e.g. book, article, chapter, web site).  They are found in bibliographies and reference lists and are also collected in article and book databases.

Citations consist of standard elements, and contain all the information necessary to identify and track down publications, including:

• author name(s)
• titles of books, articles, and journals
• date of publication
• page numbers
• volume and issue numbers (for articles)

Citations may look different, depending on what is being cited and which style was used to create them. Choose an appropriate style guide for your needs.  Here is an example of an article citation using four different citation styles.  Notice the common elements as mentioned above:

Author - R. Langer

Article Title - New Methods of Drug Delivery

Source Title - Science

Volume and issue - Vol 249, issue 4976

Publication Date - 1990

Page numbers - 1527-1533

American Chemical Society (ACS) style:

Langer, R. New Methods of Drug Delivery. Science 1990 , 249 , 1527-1533.

IEEE Style:

R. Langer, " New Methods of Drug Delivery," Science , vol. 249 , pp. 1527-1533 , SEP 28, 1990 .

American Psychological Association   (APA) style:

Langer, R. (1990) . New methods of drug delivery. Science , 249 (4976), 1527-1533.

Modern Language Association (MLA) style:

Langer, R. " New Methods of Drug Delivery." Science 249.4976 (1990) : 1527-33.

What to cite

You must cite:

• Facts, figures, ideas, or other information that is not common knowledge

Publications that must be cited include:  books, book chapters, articles, web pages, theses, etc.

Another person's exact words should be quoted and cited to show proper credit 

When in doubt, be safe and cite your source!

Avoiding plagiarism

Plagiarism occurs when you borrow another's words (or ideas) and do not acknowledge that you have done so. In this culture, we consider our words and ideas intellectual property; like a car or any other possession, we believe our words belong to us and cannot be used without our permission.

Plagiarism is a very serious offense. If it is found that you have plagiarized -- deliberately or inadvertently -- you may face serious consequences. In some instances, plagiarism has meant that students have had to leave the institutions where they were studying.

The best way to avoid plagiarism is to cite your sources - both within the body of your paper and in a bibliography of sources you used at the end of your paper.

Some useful links about plagiarism:

• MIT Academic Integrity Overview on citing sources and avoiding plagiarism at MIT.
• Avoiding Plagiarism From the MIT Writing and Communication Center.
• Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It From Indiana University's Writing Tutorial Services.
• Plagiarism- Overview A resource from Purdue University.
• Next: Citation style guides >>
• Last Updated: Jan 16, 2024 7:02 AM
• URL: https://libguides.mit.edu/citing

What is a Reference and Why is it Important?

• Posted on March 29, 2023

Citations are essential in academic and intellectual writing as they reference the sources used to support ideas and arguments. Disregarding citation procedures and failing to cite sources can result in plagiarism. Citing references is critical in scholarly writing, literature reviews, and other writing forms that value credibility and accuracy.

For instance, in a blog post discussing the benefits of exercise, the author presents claims about its impact on mental health, like “Exercise can reduce anxiety and depression.” This statement lacks citations. On the other hand, the author can back up their claims by citing a study from the Journal of Psychiatric Research (Smith et al., 2020) that reveals how regular exercise can alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression. By providing a reference, the author reinforces their argument and provides evidence for their claims.

Here is an in-depth guide on what is reference in research .

What is Referencing in Research?

Citation styles are vital in academic writing, recognizing and citing online sources while following a style guide. Referencing common knowledge, opinions, ideas, and theories involves creating a reference list that includes publication year and page numbers while also applying proper capitalization. This process supports credibility and allows verification of information.

Here are the benefits of correct referencing:

APA Style Referencing

APA style, commonly used in social science academic papers, provides standards for writing style, formatting, and citing sources to ensure accuracy and clarity. In an APA style referencing tutorial, both parenthetical in-text citations and reference list citations are included. APA style citation format differs from MLA and Chicago style citation formats . Parentheses are used in APA style for in-text citations.

An example of an APA reference is Smith, J. D. (2019). The effects of social media on mental health. Journal of Social Psychology, 150(2), 267-278.

MLA Style Referencing

MLA style, commonly used in the humanities, emphasizes the author-page style of in-text citation and is another popular citation and reference format. In the works cited section, the author’s name, publishing details, title, and medium of publication are listed in alphabetical order. The first author’s last name is used in MLA style to arrange entries in the works cited section.

An example of MLA style is Smith, John. “The Effects of Social Media on Mental Health of New York College Students.” Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 150, no. 2, 2019, pp. 267-278.

This format and in-text citation style are distinctive because they offer a standardized method for citing sources in academic work to prevent writing issues like plagiarism .

5 Types of Information You Need to Reference in Your Research

In a research paper , references to a variety of reliable sources of data get frequently used. Here are some types of information that you need to reference.

Journal Articles

Journal papers and articles generally cover a broad range of topics in different academic fields of study and are published in scholarly journals. They provide detailed information on research studies, experiments, and theories and often get used as primary sources of information for academic research.

The author’s name, the article’s title, the journal’s name, the volume and issue number, the year of publication, and the page numbers must all be present when citing journal articles in research. Readers will then use this information to find the initial source of information and confirm its accuracy.

Author’s Name

The primary source identification method is frequently the author’s name, primarily when several works have been published on the same subject. Readers would find it challenging to locate the information you are quoting without the author’s identity, and they would be unable to find the source independently.

The author’s identity is also vital to determining the source’s reliability. Readers can assess an author’s credentials and area of knowledge, as well as any biases or conflicts of interest, by learning the author’s name.

Date of Publication

Establishing relevance is especially crucial in areas that change quickly, like science and technology, where findings from previous studies can quickly become dated. The publication date can also offer crucial background details, such as the historical, cultural, or political environment in which the work got created.

In the modern era of information , web pages have become an everyday source of data and knowledge for researchers. It is crucial to use websites as data sources when conducting research. Web page citations must include the URL, date accessed, author or organization responsible for the material, and page title.

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Peer-reviewed papers are trustworthy and authoritative sources of information, so as a researcher, you must cite them in your work. These papers have undergone expert scrutiny, and any assertions or conclusions have been examined for validity and accuracy.

Therefore, citing peer-reviewed articles lends credibility to your study by allowing you to quote data that has already undergone a rigorous review to back up your claims.

Reference Page vs. In-Text Citations

Use an in-text citation to cite a particular piece of information or idea within a paragraph which helps avoid plagiarism in literature . It depends on the citation style and entails adding the author’s name and the year of publication in parentheses after the pertinent data.

On the other hand, reference pages offer a thorough list of all the sources used in writing and get placed after a document and help avoid copyright infringement . These citations usually include the author’s name, the work’s title, the year it was published, and any additional pertinent details, like the referenced material’s publisher or page numbers.

Final Thoughts

References are essential to research because they enable the reader to confirm the validity and accuracy of the data provided in a paper. Giving credit to the original writers through references also aids in their efforts to avoid plagiarism. 

Quetext offers a powerful plagiarism checker to help researchers ensure their work is original and properly cited. Try our plagiarism checker today and experience the peace of mind of knowing your work is original and properly cited.

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• Citing Sources

Citing Sources: What are citations and why should I use them?

What is a citation.

Citations are a way of giving credit when certain material in your work came from another source. It also gives your readers the information necessary to find that source again-- it provides an important roadmap to your research process. Whenever you use sources such as books, journals or websites in your research, you must give credit to the original author by citing the source. 

Why do researchers cite?

Scholarship is a conversation  and scholars use citations not only to  give credit  to original creators and thinkers, but also to  add strength and authority  to their own work.  By citing their sources, scholars are  placing their work in a specific context  to show where they “fit” within the larger conversation.  Citations are also a great way to  leave a trail  intended to help others who may want to explore the conversation or use the sources in their own work.

In short, citations

(1) give credit

(2) add strength and authority to your work

(3) place your work in a specific context

(4) leave a trail for other scholars

"Good citations should reveal your sources, not conceal them. They should honeslty reflect the research you conducted." (Lipson 4)

Lipson, Charles. "Why Cite?"  Cite Right: A Quick Guide to Citation Styles--MLA, APA, Chicago, the Sciences, Professions, and More . Chicago: U of Chicago, 2006. Print.

What does a citation look like?

Different subject disciplines call for citation information to be written in very specific order, capitalization, and punctuation. There are therefore many different style formats. Three popular citation formats are MLA Style (for humanities articles) and APA or Chicago (for social sciences articles).

MLA style (print journal article):  

Whisenant, Warren A. "How Women Have Fared as Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Since the Passage of Title IX." Sex Roles Vol. 49.3 (2003): 179-182.

APA style (print journal article):

Whisenant, W. A. (2003) How Women Have Fared as Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Since the Passage of Title IX. Sex Roles , 49 (3), 179-182.

Chicago style (print journal article):

Whisenant, Warren A. "How Women Have Fared as Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Since the Passage of Title IX." Sex Roles 49, no. 3 (2003): 179-182.

No matter which style you use, all citations require the same basic information:

• Author or Creator
• Container (e.g., Journal or magazine, website, edited book)
• Date of creation or publication
• Publisher 

You are most likely to have easy access to all of your citation information when you find it in the first place. Take note of this information up front, and it will be much easier to cite it effectively later.

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• Last Updated: May 1, 2024 12:48 PM
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Research and Citation

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In this section

Subsections.

References in a Meta-Analysis

References for the studies included in a meta-analysis should be incorporated alphabetically into the paper’s reference list and not presented in a separate list. Although this often creates a long list, including all the references in one reference list helps ensure that they will be discovered by abstracting and indexing services, giving proper credit to the original researchers. For this reason, we discourage authors from creating a separate reference list in supplemental materials.

In your reference list, place an asterisk at the beginning of each reference list entry that was included in the meta-analysis. On the first page of the reference list, below the “References” section label, insert the following statement (indented as a new paragraph) describing the purpose of the asterisks: “References marked with an asterisk indicate studies included in the meta-analysis.”

In-text citations

References included in the meta-analysis do not have to be cited in the text. However, they can be cited at the author’s discretion (e.g., in a table for comparison; for an example see Publication Manual Chapter 7, Table 7.4).

Any in-text citations that correspond to these references do not include asterisks.

References included in a meta-analysis are covered in the seventh edition APA Style Publication Manual Section 9.52

Related handouts

• Creating an APA Style Reference List (PDF, 179KB)
• Scaffolded Reference Elements Worksheet (PDF, 150KB)

From the APA Style blog

How to cite a chapter written by someone other than the book’s authors

This post describes how to cite a chapter, foreword, or other part of a book written by someone other than the book’s author(s) and how to cite a book that credits additional people on the cover.

How to cite ChatGPT

This post outlines how to create references for large language model AI tools like ChatGPT and how to present AI-generated text in a paper.

Happy Halloween!

Do you have questions about APA Style? Don’t be afraid to ask!

Fall 2022 resources for students of APA Style

This post includes up-to-date student-friendly instructional resources about APA Style for easy reference.

How to cite an untitled music album reference

Before you attempt to create a reference list entry for a music album in your paper, fact-check the recording artist or group’s discography to ensure the title of the album—or the lack of one—is accurate.

How to alphabetize “a,” “an,” and “the” in APA Style references

APA Style ignores the three nonsignificant words (“a,” “an,” and “the”) at the beginning of an author name for the purposes of alphabetizing.

How to cite a music album reference

Seventh edition APA Style guidelines have made citing a music album easier for writers.

How to cite a single song or track reference

APA Style can help you cite the melodic works you love in your paper or manuscript. In this post, you will learn how to cite a single song or track reference.

The “outdated sources” myth

The “outdated sources” myth is that sources must have been published recently, such as the last 5 to 10 years. There is no timeliness requirement in APA Style.

Back-to-school resources for students of APA Style: 2021 edition

This post compiles instructional resources about APA Style for easy reference.

When and how to transliterate titles in references

APA Style guidelines are to transliterate the title of a work written in a non-Roman alphabet into the Roman alphabet in the reference list entry and if mentioning the title in the text of your paper.

How to cite translated works

In this blog post, you will learn how to cite translated works. When doing so, create the reference in the language in which the translation you read was published.

Why titles have sentence case capitalization in APA Style references

Why are article titles and book titles in APA Style references in sentence case? The answer takes us back to the 1929 origins of APA Style and a guideline that continues to have practical advantages today.

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Articles, Books and . . . ? Understanding the Many Types of Information Found in Libraries

• Reference Sources

Encyclopedias

Dictionaries, almanacs and yearbooks, handbooks and manuals.

• Documents and Reports
• Non-Text Content
• Archival Materials

Reference sources are generally the place to begin your research, especially when you're starting out with an unfamiliar field. But they're also where you return when you need to look up formulas, facts, definitions, and other standard details; they tend to pack a lot of information into simple, easy-to-use packages.

Physical Media

Many reference works are available online and are accessible through links from the Library Catalog and from subject or course guides , but many valuable reference resources are still available only in print, and a few highly specialized tools are on microform or CD. Because print-only reference books are in high demand, they are kept in separate, non-circulating reference collections in most UCLA libraries.

Scholarly Sources

Reference sources are rarely peer-reviewed. In fact, because they mostly contain established, factual information, they're sometimes not even cited in academic works, unless directly quoted. Check your style manual for best guidelines.

Primary or Secondary Sources

As compilations of existing information, reference works are decisively in the category of secondary sources... to the point that some people call them tertiary sources .

Encyclopedias attempt to provide comprehensive summaries of knowledge in either a specific field (subject encyclopedias) or "everything" (general encyclopedias). Encyclopedias are typically divided into a collection of articles on discrete topics. Academically oriented encyclopedias will often include short bibliographies, making them a good resource for identifying key books and articles on a topic.

• Online Encyclopedias
• Finding Print Encyclopedias
• Subject dictionaries: define technical terms in specific fields, sometimes in as much detail as an encyclopedia
• Bilingual dictionaries: define words in a different language
• Thesauri: provide synonyms
• Rhyming dictionariess
• Major Online Dictionaries
• Finding Dictionaries (both online and in print)
• World Almanac and Book of Facts
• Statistical Yearbooks

Both "handbook" and "manual" refer to the traditional small size of the volumes, designed to fit in one hand for ease of use. Despite this origin, many modern handbooks are quite hefty!

• Databases containing online handbooks
• Find print handbooks in the Library Catalog Search "[subject] handbooks" within Subject List.
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Referencing

Referencing is one of the most important aspects of any academic research and poor or lack of referencing will not only diminish your marks, but such practices may also be perceived as plagiarism by your university and disciplinary actions may follow that may even result in expulsion from the course.

Difference between References and Bibliography

It is very important to be able to distinguish between References and Bibliography. Under References you list resources that you referred to within the body of the work that also include quotations.  For example,

It has been noted that “time and the management of time is an important issue, and the supply of time management products – books, articles, CDs, workshops, etc. – reflects the huge demand for these products” (Walsh, 2007, p.3).

Interchangeability of identical parts and a high level of straightforwardness of attaching these parts through the assembly line can be considered as revolutionary components of Fordism for the first part of the 20 th century (Nolan, 2008).

Under Bibliography, on the other hand, you need to list resources that you have read during the research process in order to widen your knowledge about the research area , but specific piece of information from these resources have not been used in your research in the direct manner. You do not need to refer to Bibliography within the body of the text.

There are various methods of referencing such as Harvard, APA and Vancouver referencing systems. You should check with your dissertation handbook for the exact type of referencing required and follow this requirement thoroughly.

John Dudovskiy

What to Know About Fish Oil and What Experts Say to the Latest Heart Health Findings

Supplement advice can be confusing and the latest research on fish oil and heart health underscores that one size certainly doesn't fit all.

• Added coconut oil to cheap coffee before keto made it cool.

In the wellness world, few things are equally as common and as confusing to swallow as advice about vitamins and supplements and whether they have any benefit. 

Research published last month in the journal BMJ Medicine  looked at the risk-vs.-benefit profile of fish oil on heart health, suggesting from a years-long study that regularly taking fish oil may slightly increase the risk of cardiovascular events, including atrial fibrillation and stroke, in people who didn't have a high risk. 

In those who already had cardiovascular disease, the researchers found a benefit to taking fish oil supplements and how the disease progressed. 

Fish oil supplements may be the most common type of omega-3 supplement people can get over-the-counter. They're often in capsule form, and people reach for them because other research has linked omega-3 intake to potentially benefiting a variety of health concerns , including rheumatoid arthritis, cognition and even things like ADHD. Most recently, it has linked omega-3 supplementation to a reduction in anger . 

But the fact that fish oil supplementation may not benefit heart health for the general population is "not a new issue, just a new paper on the issue," Dr. Andrew Freeman, a cardiologist with National Jewish Health in Denver, told CNET.

He added that over-the-counter fish oil supplements are different from the "highly purified" forms of fish oil, including  Lovaza and Vascepa , that people can get from their doctor with a prescription to lower triglycerides. (High triglycerides contribute to cardiovascular risk.) 

While far from the final word on the benefits and risks of omega-3 supplements (there were limitations to this study, including the big fact people self-reported fish oil intake so this research doesn't reflect dosage), it dredges up questions that continue to bump up against supplement recommendations in general, like the fact they're not regulated for safety or effectiveness by the US Food and Drug Administration, and the fact we're meant to get the majority of our nutrients from food and diet. 

Certain eating patterns that focus largely on plant-based foods full of healthy fats, lean proteins and some food-based fish oil sources (including diets like the Mediterranean diet ) continue to be linked to positive health findings. Those diets may be rich in omega-3 fatty acids and other nutrients, but it's proven difficult to replicate those benefits in supplement form. 

Another important caveat is that people take supplements (including omega-3s and fish oil) for different reasons beyond heart health, so advice on whether you should take one depends on you, your diet and your health goals that may change over a lifetime. 

"There is not a lot of evidence for omega-3 supplements in general," Dr. Navya Mysore , a primary care physician based in New York, said in an email. If someone is interested in adding one to their routine for whatever health concern, she said, it's a good idea to check in with a doctor before "making a personalized decision for yourself."

Read more: Omega-3 Rich Foods Offer Many Benefits for Heart, Hearing and Overall Health

What did the study find? Strengths and limitations

The BMJ Medicine study followed more than 400,000 participants, ages 40 to 69, enrolled in the UK Biobank study, following their health events and lifestyle and dietary factors they reported, including whether they regularly took fish oil supplements, their regular food consumption and more. 

After years-long follow-up, researchers found that fish oil supplementation in people who already had cardiovascular disease was beneficial, but in the general population (i.e. those without cardiovascular disease), regularly taking fish oil was linked to increased risk of first-time heart disease and stroke. 

Strengths of the study are that it is large and it was able to track incidences of heart events. Researchers also collected details on some factors that can influence heart health, like smoking, binge drinking and general diet. However, it "did not consider behavioral changes in populations with different cardiovascular profiles," the researchers wrote. It also can't account for all health-affecting behaviors that may influence someone's wellness choices, which are notoriously tricky to separate and pin down to one cause or effect. 

Also, most participants in the study were white, the researchers noted, so whether the same link can be drawn to people of other races is unknown from this study alone. And importantly, it did not account for the dosage of fish oil people were taking or specific brands or types. 

Some foods that naturally include omega-3s include fish and seafood, nuts and seeds, plant oils and some fortified foods. 

Should people base their decisions on this study? Probably not 

The latest findings should not make you panic and feel that your omega-3s or fish oil pills are heart problems in a bottle; as the study's authors noted, more research is needed on the link between cardiovascular events and fish oil, and it comes on the tail of ongoing research into the comprehensive, complicated tie between omega-3s and different health benefits when they come in supplement form. At least for the general population, much of it has been conflicting or inconclusive.

This study alone isn't enough to definitively sway the fish oil benefits argument, according to Dr. Gregory Katz, a cardiologist with NYU Langone. 

"To change clinical practice, only a randomized trial actually lets you see cause and effect," Katz said in an email. "A study like this doesn't tell you whether the fish oil caused the irregular heartbeats." 

But, he said, "There's been a signal in some of the clinical trials on high-dose omega-3 supplements -- that there may be an increased risk of an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation," which does increase the risk of stroke. 

When asked whether vegan or vegetarian omega-3 supplements would be better -- those that come from ALA instead of DHA and EPA, the evidence is also murky, since ALA is a "precursor in the body to DHA and EPA, which are the active omega-3s," Katz said, adding that the way it's converted to active omega-3s isn't as efficient and it may be "not all that useful."

So all of this circles back to the same advice: Get your omega-3s (and all other nutrients) from your food when possible. If that's not possible, talk with your doctor about starting a dietary supplement or using additional vitamins. Because people may be interested in taking omega-3s for different health reasons beyond heart health, you should speak with someone who understands your health history so you can weigh your risks and benefits. 

In a large summery last updated in 2023, which looked at available studies on omega-3s and omega-3 supplements for a whole scroll of health conditions including cardiovascular disease, the National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements concluded that "consuming fish and other types of seafood as part of a balanced diet promotes heart health, especially when the seafood is consumed in place of less healthy foods." But evidence of protective heart-health benefits of supplements is stronger in people with existing disease. 

The latest findings do drive home some much-needed nuance for supplements, though.

"Not everybody's the same," Freeman said of the latest fish oil study. "Not all drugs are the same, and what may seem benign may not always be the case." 

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Definition & Facts of Hemorrhoids

In this section:

What are hemorrhoids?

How common are hemorrhoids, who is more likely to get hemorrhoids, what are the complications of hemorrhoids.

Hemorrhoids, also called piles, are swollen and inflamed veins around your anus or in your lower rectum .

The two types of hemorrhoids are

• external hemorrhoids, which form under the skin around the anus
• internal hemorrhoids, which form in the lining of the anus and lower rectum

Hemorrhoids are common in both men and women 1 and affect about 1 in 20 Americans. 2 About half of adults older than age 50 have hemorrhoids. 2

You are more likely to get hemorrhoids if you

• strain during bowel movements
• sit on the toilet for long periods of time
• have chronic constipation or diarrhea
• eat foods that are low in fiber
• are older than age 50
• are pregnant
• often lift heavy objects

Complications of hemorrhoids can include the following:

• blood clots in an external hemorrhoid
• skin tags—extra skin left behind when a blood clot in an external hemorrhoid dissolves
• infection of a sore on an external hemorrhoid
• strangulated hemorrhoid—when the muscles around your anus cut off the blood supply to an internal hemorrhoid that has fallen through your anal opening

This content is provided as a service of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), part of the National Institutes of Health. NIDDK translates and disseminates research findings to increase knowledge and understanding about health and disease among patients, health professionals, and the public. Content produced by NIDDK is carefully reviewed by NIDDK scientists and other experts.

Generate accurate APA citations for free

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• APA Style 7th edition
• Setting Up the APA Reference Page | Formatting & References (Examples)

Setting Up the APA Reference Page | Formatting & References (Examples)

Published on November 4, 2020 by Raimo Streefkerk . Revised on January 17, 2024.

On the APA reference page, you list all the sources that you’ve cited in your paper. The list starts on a new page right after the body text.

Follow these instructions to set up your APA reference page:

• Place the section label “References” in bold at the top of the page (centered).
• Order the references alphabetically .
• Double-space all text.
• Apply a hanging indent of 0.5 inches.

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Table of contents

Setting up the apa reference page, apa alphabetization guidelines, which sources to include on the reference page, annotated bibliography, creating apa references.

Scribbr Citation Checker New

The AI-powered Citation Checker helps you avoid common mistakes such as:

• Missing commas and periods
• Incorrect usage of “et al.”
• Ampersands (&) in narrative citations
• Missing reference entries

References are ordered alphabetically by the first author’s last name. If the author is unknown, order the reference entry by the first meaningful word of the title (ignoring articles: “the”, “a”, or “an”).

Word processors like Word or Google Docs and citation generators can usually order the reference list automatically. However, ordering becomes challenging when citing multiple works by the same author or works by authors with the same last name.

Our in-depth article on ordering references in APA Style explains what to do in these situations.

Only include references for sources cited in the body text (with an APA in-text citation ). Don’t include references for:

• Sources that you only consulted;
• Personal communications (e.g., emails or phone calls);
• General mentions of websites or periodicals ;
• Common knowledge .

For some student papers, it’s common to describe or evaluate the source in an annotation . These annotations are placed on a new line below the corresponding reference entry. The entire annotation is indented 0.5 inches.

If an annotation consists of multiple paragraphs, the first line of the second and any subsequent paragraphs is indented an additional 0.5 inches.

The format of an APA reference differs depending on the source type. Play around with the options in the Scribbr Example Generator to get familiar with APA Style.

Scribbr Citation Generator

With Scribbr’s free APA citation generator you can easily cite your sources according to the new 7th edition guidelines. It’s accurate, fast, and easy to use. Give it a try!

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APA citation examples

Check out Scribbr’s citation examples to learn more about citing each type of source, ranging from books and journals to podcasts and tweets !

Periodicals

• Journal article
• Newspaper article

Reports and gray literature

• Press release
• Dissertation or thesis
• Conference paper

Books and reference works

• Dictionary entry
• Encyclopedia entry

Audiovisual works

• Movie or documentary
• YouTube video

Online media

• Personal communication
• Tables and figures

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Streefkerk, R. (2024, January 17). Setting Up the APA Reference Page | Formatting & References (Examples). Scribbr. Retrieved June 11, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/apa-style/apa-reference-page/

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Research Says This Is What It’s Like Teaching in 2024

Teachers share how they feel about work-life balance, stress, salary, and more.  

Teaching in 2024 is no joke. Schools today face challenges that no one could have foreseen five years ago, teaching after COVID , challenges to classroom materials , the rise of A.I., student mental health concerns. And, we haven’t even touched on the incredible teacher shortage .

Among it all, a new PEW Research survey finds some interesting trends in how teachers feel about their jobs and what it’s like to teach in 2024. The headline: teachers are stressed, overwhelmed, and pessimistic about education, but also satisfied with their work.

(The PEW Research Center surveyed 2,531 public K-12 teachers in the U.S. in October and November 2023.)

We asked teachers what they thought about the major findings in the survey. Here’s what Pew reported and what 22 teachers from our We Are Teachers HELPLINE Facebook group think about the state of teaching in 2024.

1. Teaching in 2024 is stressful

Ok, that’s not really “news.” But what is interesting is that teachers are less satisfied with their jobs than other workers and, the high percent of teachers who said that teaching today is just too much.

In the PEW survey, 77% of teachers said that teaching is frequently stressful and 68% said teaching is overwhelming.

“Teaching has become more and more stressful. We are expected to be everything for a student, yet not have appropriate boundaries.” —Keri

From a high school teacher with a decade of teaching experience: “This is the first year since the lockdown that I felt more enjoyment than stress. That said, I still experience more stress than I would like because of kids who simply want to challenge you and not learn, bulldozer parents who are made their kids are being held accountable and micromanaging admin who seem to think harping on teachers will…motivate them?” —Ali

“Some days I enjoy it, some days its stressful. Usually the stress comes from admin or parents. The mounting expectations. Sometimes kids’ behaviors.” —Heather

2. Teachers don’t recommend teaching

There’s already a teacher shortage , what will happen if teachers in today’s classrooms aren’t passing the baton?

52% of survey respondents said they would not advise young people to become teachers.

“I would in no way recommend this to anyone…I’m not sure I can make it to retirement.” —Shannon

“Yes, I would recommend teaching and do to those that I feel have the gift. I tell them upfront it is not an easy job.” —Roberta

“My own daughter wants to be a teacher and I am actively trying to change her mind.” —Keri

3. Teachers think education is getting worse

In the survey, and in the Helpline , teachers overwhelmingly thought that education was getting worse. The reasons are varied; in the Pew survey, 60% mentioned the current political climate, 57% mentioned effects from COVID,and 46% mentioned lack of funding and resources.

82% of teachers surveyed said that they think the state of education has gotten worse in the past five years.

From a middle school teacher of 40 years: “The COVID lockdown changed these kids in maturity, and they haven’t caught up…They’ve regressed so much emotionally and there isn’t a plan to address this.” —Craig

“No one is managing kids’ behaviors at home so the behaviors are out of control at school, where there no consequences. They are completely addicted to their phones and constantly distracted.” —Deanna

“Unfortunately, education in the U.S. has escaped the trends in broader society and school is increasingly dangerous for everyone in the building, most specifically black, brown, and LGBTQAI+ children and educators.” —Ashley

“Education itself is about the same. There’s nothing new under the sun, its just how they package it.” —William

“When I started teaching 7th grade 13 years ago, I could give much more rigorous tasks, kids would read directions and write their full names on things, etc. Today I feel like I am teaching to a much lower grade level.” —Beth

“Education in the U.S. hasn’t really changed much in the last hundred years. What has changed is the needs of students attending and parent expectations.” —Tim

“I feel that ‘education’ has improved. However, what’s holding us back are things beyond an educator’s control. Being called groomers or indoctrinators by society. Parents screaming for book bans on stuff they clearly haven’t read. No discipline at home. Devices. State testing.” —Maria

4. Work-life balance is, well, not a thing

While there are efforts to help teachers find work-life balance, it feels elusive to many teachers. And, there was a difference between male and female teachers on this question. Women teachers were more likely to than men to say that work-life balance was difficult (57% of women vs. 43% of men).

54% of teachers said it’s hard to balance work and life. 25% said it was easy.

“Work-life balance? AHAHAHAHA What’s that?” —Ali

“As teachers are finding a better work life balance, and saying no to all the unpaid extra activities, we are being told that we should ‘do it for the kids!’” —Keri

From a high school teacher who shifted to teaching after working in the corporate world. “I am done with work when the last bell rings….love having summers to spend with my husband and grandchildren.”—Debi

Read more: 10 Ways Teachers Cut Corners at Work

5. Work friends make our day

Teaching is about more than students–it’s also about finding camaraderie with peers and mentors. Relationships at school is one area where teachers, generally, had positive things to say.

When it came to aspects of teaching that were satisfying, 71% of teachers were most satisfied with relationships with others at school.

“I work with an amazing team! We eat lunch together every day, bouncing ideas off one another. We group text all weekend and share everything!” —Angela

“I couldn’t do this job without my colleagues. My fellow teachers and I support each other and cover for each other. Need a quick break? We gotcha covered. Need advice? Someone else has walked that way. Sometimes we even encourage each other to take mental health days. Without my colleagues, this job would be overwhelming.” —Linda

“My grade level partner and I work so well together and it makes everything else go smoothly.” —Gretchen

“I never get to spend time with any other teachers for more than five minutes.” —Kelly

Read more: 43 Amazing Things Teacher Friends do for One Another

6. Salaries are not cutting it

Another non-headline, teachers need to be paid more. Legislators, are you reading this?

15% of teachers were extremely or very satisfied with how much they got paid, while 51% were not satisfied.

“I knew what I signed on for. Do I deserve more? Probably! Do I work more than 40 hours a week? Most certainly. Is it worth it? To me it is.” —Laura Ann

“I’m relatively okay with my salary, but our raises are not keeping up with inflation.” —Roberta

One teacher mentioned the fact that salary has a lot to do with where you teach. “Since moving back to IL my salary is great. In AZ, my salary was barely above poverty level.” —Jen

Check out 2023 teacher salaries across the U.S. and our Teacher Salary Stories series.

7. Teachers like teaching

More than half of teachers reported finding their job fulfilling or enjoyable, which is less than the percent who said it was overwhelming. However, teachers who were newer to the profession reported more positive experiences than those who have been teaching for 10 years or more.

56% of teachers indicated that their job was fulfilling often or extremely often. 53% said their work was enjoyable.

“The thing that keeps me coming back is the relationships I form with many of my kids. I have two periods full of genuinely sweet, wonderful kiddos who truly give me hope for the future.” —Ali

“I love teaching. My students make me laugh and most of them are truly trying their very best. And when the light bulb goes on, it’s the best feeling.” —Keri

“Love the autonomy of teaching…as long as I cover the standards I can pretty much do what I want in my class…Even on the worst day, it’s the best job ever.”—Debi

From an AP Literature teacher, “I love my students…just to see how successful they are brings me great joy.” —Laura Ann

“I love my students. I taught 2nd grade for nine years, bonding with students. Last year I was moved to 7th grade and have my old students again. The joy of seeing where they have gone in their lives and their learning!” —Angela

“I get to work with some terrific kids and help them grow as people.”—Roberta

“I like teaching my content area, English.”—Jen

From a teacher at a career-tech high school. “Walking through the career-tech labs is so impressive. Watching high school kids shine in this environment is spectacular.” —Cindy

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Better Siri is coming: what Apple’s research says about its AI plans

Apple hasn’t talked too much about ai so far — but it’s been working on stuff. a lot of stuff..

By David Pierce , editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.

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It would be easy to think that Apple is late to the game on AI. Since late 2022, when ChatGPT took the world by storm, most of Apple’s competitors have fallen over themselves to catch up. While Apple has certainly talked about AI and even released some products with AI in mind, it seemed to be dipping a toe in rather than diving in headfirst.

But over the last few months, rumors and reports have suggested that Apple has, in fact, just been biding its time, waiting to make its move. There have been reports in recent weeks that Apple is talking to both OpenAI and Google about powering some of its AI features, and the company has also been working on its own model, called Ajax .

If you look through Apple’s published AI research, a picture starts to develop of how Apple’s approach to AI might come to life. Now, obviously, making product assumptions based on research papers is a deeply inexact science — the line from research to store shelves is windy and full of potholes. But you can at least get a sense of what the company is thinking about — and how its AI features might work when Apple starts to talk about them at its annual developer conference, WWDC, in June.

Smaller, more efficient models

I suspect you and I are hoping for the same thing here: Better Siri. And it looks very much like Better Siri is coming! There’s an assumption in a lot of Apple’s research (and in a lot of the tech industry, the world, and everywhere) that large language models will immediately make virtual assistants better and smarter. For Apple, getting to Better Siri means making those models as fast as possible — and making sure they’re everywhere.

In iOS 18, Apple plans to have all its AI features running on an on-device, fully offline model, Bloomberg recently reported . It’s tough to build a good multipurpose model even when you have a network of data centers and thousands of state-of-the-art GPUs — it’s drastically harder to do it with only the guts inside your smartphone. So Apple’s having to get creative.

In a paper called “ LLM in a flash: Efficient Large Language Model Inference with Limited Memory ” (all these papers have really boring titles but are really interesting, I promise!), researchers devised a system for storing a model’s data, which is usually stored on your device’s RAM, on the SSD instead. “We have demonstrated the ability to run LLMs up to twice the size of available DRAM [on the SSD],” the researchers wrote, “achieving an acceleration in inference speed by 4-5x compared to traditional loading methods in CPU, and 20-25x in GPU.” By taking advantage of the most inexpensive and available storage on your device, they found, the models can run faster and more efficiently. 

Apple’s researchers also created a system called EELBERT that can essentially compress an LLM into a much smaller size without making it meaningfully worse. Their compressed take on Google’s Bert model was 15 times smaller — only 1.2 megabytes — and saw only a 4 percent reduction in quality. It did come with some latency tradeoffs, though.

In general, Apple is pushing to solve a core tension in the model world: the bigger a model gets, the better and more useful it can be, but also the more unwieldy, power-hungry, and slow it can become. Like so many others, the company is trying to find the right balance between all those things while also looking for a way to have it all.

Siri, but good

A lot of what we talk about when we talk about AI products is virtual assistants — assistants that know things, that can remind us of things, that can answer questions, and get stuff done on our behalf. So it’s not exactly shocking that a lot of Apple’s AI research boils down to a single question: what if Siri was really, really, really good?

A group of Apple researchers has been working on a way to use Siri without needing to use a wake word at all; instead of listening for “Hey Siri” or “Siri,” the device might be able to simply intuit whether you’re talking to it. “This problem is significantly more challenging than voice trigger detection,” the researchers did acknowledge, “since there might not be a leading trigger phrase that marks the beginning of a voice command.” That might be why another group of researchers developed a system to more accurately detect wake words . Another paper trained a model to better understand rare words, which are often not well understood by assistants.

In both cases, the appeal of an LLM is that it can, in theory, process much more information much more quickly. In the wake-word paper, for instance, the researchers found that by not trying to discard all unnecessary sound but, instead, feeding it all to the model and letting it process what does and doesn’t matter, the wake word worked far more reliably.

Once Siri hears you, Apple’s doing a bunch of work to make sure it understands and communicates better. In one paper, it developed a system called STEER (which stands for Semantic Turn Extension-Expansion Recognition, so we’ll go with STEER) that aims to improve your back-and-forth communication with an assistant by trying to figure out when you’re asking a follow-up question and when you’re asking a new one. In another, it uses LLMs to better understand “ambiguous queries” to figure out what you mean no matter how you say it. “In uncertain circumstances,” they wrote, “intelligent conversational agents may need to take the initiative to reduce their uncertainty by asking good questions proactively, thereby solving problems more effectively.” Another paper aims to help with that, too: researchers used LLMs to make assistants less verbose and more understandable when they’re generating answers.

AI in health, image editors, in your Memojis

Whenever Apple does talk publicly about AI, it tends to focus less on raw technological might and more on the day-to-day stuff AI can actually do for you. So, while there’s a lot of focus on Siri — especially as Apple looks to compete with devices like the Humane AI Pin, the Rabbit R1, and Google’s ongoing smashing of Gemini into all of Android — there are plenty of other ways Apple seems to see AI being useful.

One obvious place for Apple to focus is on health: LLMs could, in theory, help wade through the oceans of biometric data collected by your various devices and help you make sense of it all. So, Apple has been researching how to collect and collate all of your motion data, how to use gait recognition and your headphones to identify you, and how to track and understand your heart rate data. Apple also created and released “the largest multi-device multi-location sensor-based human activity dataset” available after collecting data from 50 participants with multiple on-body sensors.

Apple also seems to imagine AI as a creative tool. For one paper, researchers interviewed a bunch of animators, designers, and engineers and built a system called Keyframer that “enable[s] users to iteratively construct and refine generated designs.” Instead of typing in a prompt and getting an image, then typing another prompt to get another image, you start with a prompt but then get a toolkit to tweak and refine parts of the image to your liking. You could imagine this kind of back-and-forth artistic process showing up anywhere from the Memoji creator to some of Apple’s more professional artistic tools.

In another paper , Apple describes a tool called MGIE that lets you edit an image just by describing the edits you want to make. (“Make the sky more blue,” “make my face less weird,” “add some rocks,” that sort of thing.) “Instead of brief but ambiguous guidance, MGIE derives explicit visual-aware intention and leads to reasonable image editing,” the researchers wrote. Its initial experiments weren’t perfect, but they were impressive.

We might even get some AI in Apple Music: for a paper called “ Resource-constrained Stereo Singing Voice Cancellation ,” researchers explored ways to separate voices from instruments in songs — which could come in handy if Apple wants to give people tools to, say, remix songs the way you can on TikTok or Instagram.

Over time, I’d bet this is the kind of stuff you’ll see Apple lean into, especially on iOS. Some of it Apple will build into its own apps; some it will offer to third-party developers as APIs. (The recent Journaling Suggestions feature is probably a good guide to how that might work.) Apple has always trumpeted its hardware capabilities, particularly compared to your average Android device; pairing all that horsepower with on-device, privacy-focused AI could be a big differentiator.

But if you want to see the biggest, most ambitious AI thing going at Apple, you need to know about Ferret . Ferret is a multi-modal large language model that can take instructions, focus on something specific you’ve circled or otherwise selected, and understand the world around it. It’s designed for the now-normal AI use case of asking a device about the world around you, but it might also be able to understand what’s on your screen. In the Ferret paper, researchers show that it could help you navigate apps, answer questions about App Store ratings, describe what you’re looking at, and more. This has really exciting implications for accessibility but could also completely change the way you use your phone — and your Vision Pro and / or smart glasses someday.

We’re getting way ahead of ourselves here, but you can imagine how this would work with some of the other stuff Apple is working on. A Siri that can understand what you want, paired with a device that can see and understand everything that’s happening on your display, is a phone that can literally use itself. Apple wouldn’t need deep integrations with everything; it could simply run the apps and tap the right buttons automatically. 

Again, all this is just research, and for all of it to work well starting this spring would be a legitimately unheard-of technical achievement. (I mean, you’ve tried chatbots — you know they’re not great.) But I’d bet you anything we’re going to get some big AI announcements at WWDC. Apple CEO Tim Cook even teased as much in February, and basically promised it on this week’s earnings call. And two things are very clear: Apple is very much in the AI race, and it might amount to a total overhaul of the iPhone. Heck, you might even start willingly using Siri! And that would be quite the accomplishment.

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