1.
Referencing style: APA, MLA and others
Research Methodology
Presenter:
Sudeshna Lahiri
Department of Education , University of Calcutta

2.
A referencing style
• Is a set of rules to acknowledge and refer a source or author when her/his
thoughts, ideas and works have been used in one’s academic writings.
• Is important for an effective writing and avoiding plagiarism in one’s
research reporting and publication.
• Are standardized and accepted rules for referring information about the
sources used in a text.
• Describes how to organize information about author(s), publication year,
title, page numbers, location of the publishing company, journal title, or
DOI (Digital Object Identifer).
• Different citation styles have different rules for in-text citations, reference
list entries, and (sometimes) the formatting of academic writing and
research papers.
• is a way of giving credit to individuals for their creative and intellectual
works that has been used in someone else’s manuscript to support
research.
• It can also be used to locate particular sources and combat plagiarism.

3.
Citation/Referencing styles
Citation style Disciplines Type of citation
MLA
(Modern Language
Association)
Humanities Parenthetical (author-page
number)
APA
(American
Psychological
Association)
Psychology, education,
social sciences
Parenthetical (author-
date)
Chicago A History, humanities Notes (footnote or
endnote)
Chicago B Sciences, social sciences,
humanities
Parenthetical (author-date)
in the text
Turabian
(based on Chicago style)
Humanities, social sciences,
sciences
Notes or author-date

4.
Citation/Referencing style….
Citation style Disciplines Type of citation
Harvard
(There is no official style guide)
Economics Parenthetical (author-date)
Vancouver
(developed by the International
Committee of Medical Journal
Editors)
Medicine Numeric (the source is
indicated by numbers in
the text)
OSCOLA
(The Oxford University Standard for
the Citation of Legal Authorities)
Law Notes (the text with
footnote numbers)
IEEE
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers)
Engineering, IT Numeric (the source is
indicated by numbers in
the text)

5.
Citation/ Referencing styles…..
Citation style Disciplines Types of Citation
AMA (American Medical
Association)
Medicine Numeric (superscript in
text, page number
included in
parentheses)
ACS (American Chemical
Society)
Chemistry Numeric, Author-page
number or Notes
NLM (National Library of
Medicine)
Medicine Numeric
AAA (American Anthropological
Association)
Anthropology,
social studies
an author-date system;
Based on Chicago
style; citations in
parentheses
APSA ((American Political
Science Review)
Political
science
Parenthetical (author-
date)

6.
APA
• Full Form as American Psychological Association
• The standard style used in psychology, but it is widely used in other of social
sciences.
• The latest edition of manual is "Publication Manual of the American Psychological
Association" 7th edition (2019).
• The “APA style” is an author-date style for citing and referencing information for
publications and academic writing.

7.
MLA
• Full form as Modern Language Association.
• The latest edition (Eighth Edition) is MLA Handbook, published by the
Modern Language Association in 2016.
• The referencing style is used in Humanities

8.
Quoting, paraphrasing or summarizing
(Gaudio & Snowdon, 2008, pp.441-444)
Year of Publication
Author
name
Page (s)

9.
Li, S., & Seale, C. (2007). Learning to do qualitative data analysis: An
observational study of doctoral work. Qualitative Health Research, 17(10),
1442-1452.
Volume & Issue
Pages
Sub-title of the article
Authors
Year
Title of the
Article
Journal
(in
italics)

10.
Examples of APA style
Material Type Reference List/Bibliography
Book Wells, A. (2009). Metacognitive therapy for anxiety
and depression in psychology. Guilford Press.
Book: Organisation
as Author
American Educational Research Association. (1985).
Standards for educational and psychological testing.
American Psychological Association.
Book: No Author The Blackwell dictionary of cognitive psychology.
(1991). Blackwell.
A book chapter,
print version
Haybron, D. M. (2008). Philosophy and the science
of subjective well-being. In M. Eid & R. J. Larsen
(Eds.), The science of subjective well-being (pp. 17-
43). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

11.
Examples…………..
An eBook Millbower, L. (2003). Show biz training: Fun and effective business
training techniques from the worlds of stage, screen, and song.
Retrieved from http://www.amacombooks.org/
An article in a
print journal
Alibali, M. W. (1999). How children change their minds: Strategy
change can be gradual or abrupt. Developmental Psychology, 35, 127-
145.
Two authors (a
journal article with
doi)
Li, S., & Seale, C. (2007). Learning to do qualitative data analysis: An
observational study of doctoral work. Qualitative Health Research,
17(10), 1442-1452. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732307306924
An article in a
journal without
DOI
Li, S., & Seale, C. (2007). Learning to do qualitative data analysis: An
observational study of doctoral work. Qualitative Health Research,
17, 1442–1452. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732307306924
Author unknown Autonomy. (2008). Key Concepts in Nursing. London, United
Kingdom: Sage.

12.
Examples………..
No Publication Date Scott, G.L. (n.d.). The Canadian government has further
softened access to information privileges. Vice.
Retrieved from http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/the-
canadian-government-has-further-softened-access-to-
information-privileges
Newspaper Article in
Print
Kissane, K. (1998, September 5). Kiss or kill: Who is
the victim when a battered woman kills? The Age:
Extra, p. 6.
Newspaper Article
with URL
Rosenberg, G. (1997, March 31). Electronic discovery
proves an effective legal weapon.The New York Times,
Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com
Blog Comment Stephen. (2017, February 21). Re: Why you should let
your passion die [Comment]. PsychCentral.
https://psychcentral.com/blog/discuss/102347/

13.
Source and Reading List
https://aut.ac.nz.libguides.com/APA6th/referencelist
https://guides.library.uq.edu.au/referencing?b=g&d=a&group_id=15017
https://libguides.murdoch.edu.au/APA/all
https://pitt.libguides.com/c.php?g=12108&p=64730

14.
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