Templates
Citation templates for your draft
Ready made patterns for APA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard: how to cite inside your draft, how to format every common source type, and how to lay out the final list. Copy any template straight into your paper.
Common in psychology, education, nursing and the social sciences.
In your draft: in-text citations
Paraphrase, one or two authors
(Smith, 2020) · (Smith & Jones, 2020)
Three or more authors
(Smith et al., 2020)
Author in your sentence
Smith (2020) found that early reading predicts later fluency.
Direct quote
(Smith, 2020, p. 12)
No date available
(Smith, n.d.)
Reference list templates
Journal article
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (2020). Title of the article: Subtitle if any. Journal Name, 12(3), 45-59. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx
Book
Author, A. A. (2020). Title of the book (2nd ed.). Publisher.
Book chapter
Author, A. A. (2020). Title of the chapter. In E. Editor (Ed.), Title of the book (pp. 45-59). Publisher.
Website
Author, A. A. (2020, March 4). Title of the page. Site Name. https://example.com/page
Thesis
Author, A. A. (2020). Title of the thesis [Master's thesis, University Name]. Repository Name. https://example.com/thesis
Formatting checklist
- Start the reference list on a new page with the heading "References", centred and bold.
- Use a hanging indent: the first line of each entry sits at the margin and later lines indent by 1.27 cm.
- Place the citation just before the closing punctuation: the claim ends here (Smith, 2020).
- Alphabetise entries by the first author's surname.
Placing citations while you write
- Put the citation immediately after the borrowed idea or quotation, not at the end of the paragraph.
- Vary signal phrases so your draft reads like a human wrote it: argues, demonstrates, found, warns, observed.
- APA and MLA citations sit inside the sentence, before the full stop. Chicago uses a footnote number after the punctuation.
- Never leave a quotation or statistic uncited: every borrowed idea needs a citation at the point it appears.