Why does every kind of scientific paper need a well-structured reference list? What are different types of referencing styles? Why do we need to reference lists in different styles? What is the proper way to cite sources as in-text or referencing list by following APA style? All students who are new to research and have such questions in their minds should go ahead with this article that will help them to learn many essentials about creating the first reference list and in-text citations in the APA referencing style.
Why is it important to include referencing list in scientific papers?
Referencing is a fundamental element in all types of academic work. Reference list is present at the end of the assignment, but it helps you to improve credibility of your research work. Also, referencing validates the depth of research or the credibility of sources used in a paper. Other than this, one objective is to give credit to the original researchers.
What are referencing styles, and what are the different style of references?
Referencing styles, in other words, are rules to guide researchers on how to credit someone else’s intellectual work. This is the best solution to use others’ ideas without committing plagiarism. There are many types of referencing styles in which four most usable are:
- The MLA (Modern Languages Association) system
- The APA (American Psychological Association) system
- The Harvard system
- The MHRA (Modern Humanities Research Association) system
Why do we need the reference lists in different styles?
With time the number of referencing styles are increasing. Until now, there are more than 32 referencing styles. The possible reason for having such a greater number of referencing styles is that unique styles help better disseminate intellectual work. Also, it improves the quality as well as importance of scientific work.
After answering all basic information about the referencing styles, it is time to discuss APA referencing styles in detail.
APA style reference list:
The reference list contains all sources a writer uses in his assignment. The same goes for the APA style referencing, as the general purpose of this style is also to list the sources. To put it in another way, every time a researcher reads, evaluates, or includes someone else’s data, he must cite it and use a reference entry in the reference list. There are many dissertation writing services available to get help from regarding this matter. To cite and add a reference entry, APA referencing styles have certain rules and components that every writer must know:
Rules for APA style reference list:
1. Basic rules for APA reference list:
APA referencing list formation guide states a few general rules to draft it. Let’s discuss them;
- The writer must use a new page on the document file to generate the list of references in APA referencing style.
- All the references should be centered, aligned and justified.
- The writer should sort the whole list alphabetically in ascending order.
- If a reference list contains more than one work of an author, then the date of publication will suggest the arrangement
- If you have more references with the same first authors and date of publication, the alphabetic order of the title of research will be considered.
- The number of in-text citations and references in the list must also be equal.
- You can give a hanging pattern to the APA style reference list.
Components of APA reference list
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Author:
If you have a list of authors, then the rule for citing it in the reference list is as follow:
From the author’s list, you first need to pick the first author’s surname, then copy this surname as it is. After that, use the first alphabet from other parts of the name and place them with a period between them.
Like Marinella Linardos James will become Linardos, M. J.,
To list more than one author, follow the same procedure, use the last name of first author followed by initials of first and middle name, followed by “.,”. The process goes on until the last author, but you must place (&) before the last author instead of using a comma. After this, your reference entry will look like this:
Linardos, M., Gomes, T., Pereira, JA, Ramalhosa, E., Casal, S., & Baptista, P. (2018).
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Date of publication:
Right after the authors’ list, the next thing to be placed is the date of publication. The small brackets are used to differentiate the date from the author’s names. In case of absence of a date of publication (n.d) will be used.
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Paper’s title
The title can be the same as used in the original article. The date of publication is followed by paper or book title in APA referencing style.
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Journal’s or Publisher’s names
A reference in the APA style referencing list ends on the publisher’s information for books and journal name (in italics) in case of research/journal article.
Hence, the sequence of these components in the APA style reference is:
(First author Last name) (initials of first author)., (2nd author Last name) (initials of 2nd author)., and (3rd author Last name) (initials of 3rd author) (Date of publication) Title of the original paper. Journal name (in italics) Volume and Issue No.
After following these rules, you can properly structure or format the reference list in APA style. But you must know the basic rules to give in-text citation as well.
2. Basic rules for in-text citation:
In the in-text citation, you have to write the author’s name with the year of publications in small brackets. Rules for correct in-text citations deal with how to cite according to the number of authors.
If you have only one author to state, then in APA referencing style, the in-text citation will be as follows:
Linardos (year of publication) or (Linardos, year of publication)
In case you have two authors to cite, then the in-text citation will be as:
Linardos & Gomes (year of publication) states, Linardos & Gomes (year of publication).
In the case of three, four and five authors, you need to cite the surname of all. After that use the date of publication.
Linardos, Gomes & Pereira (date of publication) states or (Linardos, Gomes & Pereira, date of publication).
If you have more than three authors then the surname of 1st author is followed by et al., followed by year e.g.,
(Linardos et al., year of publication). Or at the start of the sentence, you can use Linardos et al. (year of publication)
Apart from all, if the author is unknown, then you can use website name, title of paper/book as your author’s name:
(Website name, date of publication)
I hope you find this article on APA referencing style informative. This article stated almost all basic things that a writer must know before selecting APA referencing styles for any academic document.
