2.2.6 Referencing styles: author-date

Author-date systems have two parts to every reference:

1. The in-text citation, which includes the author’s name (usually just surname) and date (year of publication), and the page number if the reference is for a direct quotation. Page numbers are also used in APA to indicate that information has been taken from a specific part (e.g. a chapter) of a source text. The in-text citation is placed in the body of your writing to clearly distinguish which sections have come from that source.
2. The end-text reference in the reference list. A bibliography is similar to a reference list in that it is located at the end of your writing and contains specific information about the source text so that it can be easily located by the reader. The reference list contains only sources that appear in the body of the writing; that is, every source in the reference list should have at least one in-text citation.

The University of Notre Dame uses the American Psychological Association (APA) author-date referencing system (as well as others previously mentioned i.e. Chicago Footnotes, AMA Vancouver and AGLC). Click on the tabs below to see an example of APA in-text and end-text referencing.

Text Version