Inline citations use a brief summary of the reference in the text (such as listing the author and date, or the author and title, or author and page) with the full reference stated at the end of the chapter or work.
This final list is called a reference list or bibliography.
Generally the full list of references will be in alphabetical order by the first author’s surname.
Inline styles are sometimes called the “Harvard” style as they were first used at Harvard in the 1880s. They are also called “Parenthetical” styles as they enclose the partial information in brackets.
The main referencing style used in Psychology is the American Psychological Association style or APA for short. This is a Harvard style system using author/date formatting. It is often called a parenthetical style with citations placed with parentheses or brackets. See our tutorial on referencing and plagiarism for more information.
If you decide to reference manually, the main Publication manual of the APA is available in the Library. There are print copies of the most recent 7th edition in the Library. There are particular websites which are useful for APA support:
Academic Writer Tutorial - basics of 7th edition APA style
University of South Caroline Aiken APA library support pages (7th ed)
Excelsior College APA support pages
Mardigian Library APA library guide
Remember that in most databases you can use the cite feature within a record to copy the citation into your reference list. However, you will still need to manually create the intext citation within your document. See a quick clip here on how this works (EBSCO) (min 1:12 -1:52)
You may decide to use a reference manager software to automatically reference your material. Examples include Zotero, Mendeley, Refworks and Endnote. The Library supports Endnote. Please see our Endnote pages for download instructions and support information.
The Library tutorial on Endnote is available to view here
Additional links to proprietary guides from Endnote.com (Clarivate Analytics)
See this university library webpage which may help you troubleshoot problems you may encounter using APA style in Endnote (courtesy of AUT university librarians).
Curtin Library Endnote pages are also very comprehensive.
We are going to see what a reference looks like using using the APA 6th and 7th edition styles. Here's the information we want to reference:
In the text, first example:
"As the global information landscape increasingly facilitates the sharing, re-purposing and dissemination of information, the ways in which students are accustomed to interacting with information resources are also changing" (Stagg, Kimmins, & Pavlovski, 2013).
In the text, later example:
"Referencing, like research and other academic learning skills, has often not been taught explicitly, or within a discipline context prior to tertiary education" (Stagg et al., 2013).
The APA has very specific rules regarding numbers of authors and using "et al.", how that is formatted, and so on. For an article with three authors, for example, in APA 6th it lists all three the first time it is mentioned but uses "et al." for subsequent mentions. This is something that is often incorrect in essays and theses.
Reference list:
Stagg, A., Kimmins, L., & Pavlovski, N. (2013). Academic style with substance: A collaborative screencasting project to support referencing skills. The Electronic Library, 31(4), 452-464. doi:10.1108/el-01-2012-0005
In the text, first example:
"As the global information landscape increasingly facilitates the sharing, re-purposing and dissemination of information, the ways in which students are accustomed to interacting with information resources are also changing" (Stagg et al., 2013).
In the text, later example:
"Referencing, like research and other academic learning skills, has often not been taught explicitly, or within a discipline context prior to tertiary education" (Stagg et al., 2013).
The APA has very specific rules regarding numbers of authors and using "et al.", how that is formatted, and so on. For an article with three authors, for example, in APA 7th it uses "et al." for all mentions in the text (but has a different rule for the reference list). This is a major change to previous editions.
Reference list:
Stagg, A., Kimmins, L., & Pavlovski, N. (2013). Academic style with substance: A collaborative screencasting project to support referencing skills. The Electronic Library, 31(4), 452-464. https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-01-2012-0005
View these brief videos on formatting in APA.
APA 7th Referencing workshop (courtesy of AUT) (approx. 7 mins.)
See the latest release of APA database webinars. Includes beginner and advanced Psycinfo tutorials. Please note that PsyInfo in Trinity College Dublin Library is hosted on EBSCO. Look out for EBSCO hosted tutorials in particular.
