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Referencing has two jobs: giving credit to other people's ideas and letting your reader find your sources. Every style does the same thing, just with different formatting.
The two parts of every reference
- In-text citation: a short marker in your sentence, like (Sharma, 2024) or [3].
- Reference list: the full details at the end, so anyone can find the source.
Every in-text citation must match an entry in the reference list, and every entry in the list must be cited somewhere in the text.
The common styles at a glance
- APA (7th edition): author–date, common in psychology, education, nursing and social sciences. In-text: (Sharma & Lee, 2024).
- Harvard: author–date, very common in business and management in the UK, India and Australia. In-text: (Sharma and Lee 2024). Universities often have their own version, so check your handbook.
- MLA: author–page, used in literature and humanities. In-text: (Sharma 45).
- IEEE: numbered, used in engineering and computer science. In-text: [1], with the list ordered by first appearance.
- Chicago: either notes-bibliography (history) or author–date.
- OSCOLA: footnotes, used in law.
How to avoid losing marks
- Use the style your course asks for, and the exact version (APA 6 and APA 7 differ).
- Be consistent: one style, applied the same way everywhere.
- Reference as you write: adding references at the end almost always leads to missing or mismatched citations.
- Use a reference manager: Zotero (free), Mendeley or the citation tool in Word can format references automatically. Always double-check the output.
- Paraphrase properly: change the wording and sentence structure, then cite. Changing a few words of a sentence is still plagiarism.
Direct quotes
Use them sparingly, put them in quotation marks and include a page number where the style requires it. Your marker wants to see your analysis, not someone else's words.
If referencing is costing you marks, our proofreading and editing service includes a full referencing check.