Business and Government Research

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The School of Business and Government's preferred referencing style is APA 7th edition.

Commercial Law students can use either APA or the New Zealand Law Style Guide by the New Zealand Law Foundation. Please check with your lecturer or tutor if unsure which to use.

In-text citation

In APA citations are in-text, which means the citation information is included in the text at the location where the source is cited. The citation is placed inside parentheses (...).

The citation can include up to three parts; the author surname(s), year, and page number or page range e.g.

(Smith, 2012)

(Smith, 2012, 23)

(Smith, 2012, 23-24)

The citation serves as a signpost to point the reader to the reference list, where they will find out more about the source of the information.

Citing a quotation vs paraphrasing

A quotation must have the page (or section for a website) included, for example:

... which entails an "often seen issue between supply and demand" (Smith, 2012, 23)

OR

... as Smith (2012, 23) points out, there is an "often seen issue between supply and demand" ...

Citing a source without directly quoting the source (paraphrasing) does not require the page (or section for a website) included, for example:

... whereas there may be issues with this suggestion (Smith, 2012) ...

... whereas Smith (2012) notes several issues with this suggestion...

Reference list

The reference list is used to include all the sources which were read and used in the research.

An entry in the reference provides much more information about the source than the citation. Exactly what information is included in the reference entry depends on the type of source - see Referencing examples below.

For the structure and formatting of the reference list, see:

Reference list vs bibliography

In APA 7th, a bibliography is used to indicate sources which were read but not cited in your research or assignment. Bibliographies are not usually required, but it is always best to check your particular assignment requirements.

For more information about bibliographies, see What is a bibliography?

• Refer to these examples to learn the APA rules or to check your own references.
• Click the title to see the example
• Remember to adapt the examples to your specific sources, including accurate information such as authors, publication dates, titles, and URLs.
• For reports found in Library databases refer to the APA 7 rules for Database Information in References.