APA, MLA, Chicago or Harvard: which style should you use?
APA 7 is common in psychology, education and the social sciences. MLA 9 is used in literature and the humanities. Chicago is popular in history, and Harvard is widely used in UK and Australian universities.
Always follow the style your teacher or department asks for, and stay consistent: one style for the whole document.
What information do you need to cite a source?
For a website: the author or organization, the date of publication, the title of the page, the website name and the URL. For a book: the author, year, title, edition and publisher.
For a journal article: the authors, year, article title, journal name, volume, issue, page range and DOI when there is one. A DOI is more stable than a URL, so use it whenever it exists.
Reference list vs in-text citation
The in-text citation is the short mention inside your text, such as (Smith, 2020). It points to the full reference in your bibliography at the end of the document.
Every in-text citation must match one entry in the reference list, and every entry in the list should be cited at least once.