Referencing and Citing

Referencing styles are sets of instructions explaining how you should reference the sources you use. There are many different styles in use at Victoria but it is important to follow a single style.

Each style has an official “style manual” although many other helpful resources also exist.

Your department will have a policy on which style to use, which you can confirm with your lecturer or by consulting your course outline.

Common styles used within the University are given below.

This is a common style and is used by the Faculty of Education, Victoria Business School, the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies and other social science and science subjects. The latest style is APA 6th edition.

• APA style official homepage
• APA style official guide to electronic references
• The basics of APA style official tutorial (requires Adobe Flash)
• Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (official print edition)
• APA style official blog
• QuickCite: APA 6 referencing examples (University of Auckland)
• APA Interactive referencing examples (Massey University)
• Referencing APA 6th (Auckland University of Technology)
• APA Referencing Style Guide (University of Waikato)

This style is common in the humanities and social sciences. It allows for two different styles of referencing:

• Chicago A uses footnotes for referencing
• Chicago B uses ‘in-text’ references, also known as ‘Harvard’ or ’author-date’ references.

 Confirm which reference style you are supposed to use.

• Chicago manual of style
• QuickCite: Chicago (Footnotes) (University of Auckland)
• Chicago Manual of Style Citation Guide (Ohio State University)
• Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide (University of Chicago Press)

This is the preferred style of the Faculty of Architecture and Design and the School of English, Film, Theatre, and Media Studies. It is also common in modern literature courses and the humanities generally.

Two official style manuals cover the MLA style. Both include the same information about referencing. You can consult either the Style Manual or the Handbook.

• QuickCite: MLA 7 (University of Auckland)
• Purdue Online Writing Lab: MLA Formatting and Style Guide
• MLA handbook for writers of research papers, 7th edition
• MLA style manual and guide to scholarly publishing, 3rd edition

The NZLSG is the officially adopted referencing style of the Faculty of Law and must be used in all writing for the Faculty. It supersedes all other law style guides.

• New Zealand Law Style Guide (online)
• New Zealand Law Style Guide (print version)