Every type has its own set of guidelines to follow, called a reference format.
How to start:
1. First define your source type.
2. Look for it’s reference format.
3. Fill in the format.
4. Check for variations on the basic reference format.
Page number
No page number for a quote
Number of authors
Include all authors in the order they appear in the document. Use an and to link the last two multiple authors.
Use the full name on your reference list.
Some documents have very large numbers of authors, particularly in certain disciplines. There may be a very large numbers of authors and a wish not to include them all in a reference list.
| Author type | Paraphrase | Quote |
|---|---|---|
| 1 author | Green (2004) | Green (2004, p. 18) |
| 2 authors | Green and Brown (2004) | (Green & Brown, 2004, p.18) |
| 3 - 20 authors | Green, et al. (2004) | Green, et al. (2004, p. 18) |
| 21+ authors | see example | see example |
| Corporate author | Institute of Hospitality (2004) | Institute of Hospitality (2004, p. 18) |
One author:
Last name followed by the initials of the author:
| Ahmed, S. (2012). On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Duke University Press. |
Two authors:
List them by their last names and initials. Separate author names with a comma. Use the ampersand instead of "and.“:
| Soto, C. J., & John, O. P. (2017). The next big five inventory (BFI-2): Developing and assessing a hierarchical model with 15 facets to enhance bandwidth, fidelity, and predictive power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(1), 117-143. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000096 |
Three to twenty authors
List them by last names and initials; commas separate author names, while the last author’s name is preceded again by ampersand &
| Nguyen, T., Carnevale, J. J., Scholer, A. A., Miele, D. B., & Fujita, K. (2019). Metamotivational knowledge of the role of high-level and low-level construal in goal-relevant task performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 117(5), 879-899. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000166 |
More than twenty authors
List by last names and initials; commas separate author names. After the first 19 authors’ names, use an ellipsis in place of the remaining author names. Then, end with the final author's name (do not place an ampersand before it). There should be no more than twenty names in the citation in total:
| Pegion, K., Kirtman, B. P., Becker, E., Collins, D. C., LaJoie, E., Burgman, R., Bell, R., DelSole, R., Min, D., Zhu, Y., Li, W., Sinsky, E., Guan, H., Gottschalck, J., Metzger, E. J., Barton, N. P., Achuthavarier, D., Marshak, J., Koster, R., . . . Kim, H. (2019). The subseasonal experiment (SubX): A multimodel subseasonal prediction experiment. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 100(10), 2043-2061. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0270.1 |
Abbreviations
Corporate authors
If there is no personal author, you can refer to the organization name. Such as names of publications by institutes, committees, associations, companies, government departments etc. For instance, Institute of Hospitality or Committee on Risk Management.
More information on authors in references.
Bergs (n.d., p. 4) states “For different types of sources (for example books, journal articles, or web pages), there are different formats to use in the reference list”.
A publisher is the "person, firm, or corporate body responsible for making a work available to the public" (NISO). Publisher information is usually found on the title page or verso of the title page of a book. Record the name as it appears in the publication.
Omit words that designate a business purpose from the publisher name such as Co., LLC, and Inc. from publisher names. Retain the words Books and Press.
If more than one publisher is given, use the first one or the one that represents the home office, if given.
Begin publisher information after the title. End publisher information with a period.