Student reading a book

At Arcada, we recommend the APA 7 reference style.

The APA referencing style

APA stands for American Psychological Association and is a common way of indicating sources. APA is a so-called author-date system. This means that you write a source citation parenthesis in the sentence or paragraph where you have used a source. In the parenthesis you write the author's surname, year and, whenever possible, page number. In the list of sources at the end of the text, you give a full source reference, including publication details, publisher and link, if available. The source citation is thus done in two steps. 

When should I include a source reference?

You should always provide a source when citing what someone else has said, written, photographed, or illustrated. This also applies to figures and tables. The source reference should be accurate and clear, allowing the reader to easily find the source you have used. 

Note that you must also be transparent about how you use AI for a text, image, figure, table, presentation or other purposes. Remember that text created by a language model is not a factual source, but you must indicate how you, for example, have brainstormed ideas with ChatGPT. You will find more detailed instructions below. 

You should be familiar with Arcada's Guidelines for AI-supported tools and follow the instructions for ethical and transparent use of AI. Be curious and learn more about how you can responsibly use AI to support your studies.

How to write source references

References are written differently depending on the type of source. In the list of references, italicize the title if it is a book. If it is an article in a journal, write the title in normal font, but the name of the journal in italics. The different ways help the reader to identify what kind of source it is.

In the body text, the author’s surname is given in a source reference parenthesis. If there is no author, which is common in the case of websites, the name of the organisation or the title of the source is given instead. 

You don't need to memorise source referencing techniques, but it is always important to reference correctly. If you are uncertain, look up the formal guidelines, or use the Karolinska Institutet Reference Guide for APA 7 !

The APA Reference Guide provides examples of how to refer to different types of sources: books, articles, websites, social media, reports, brochures, theses, PowerPoint, images, and so on. The following is an example of a reference to a book source:

Parenthetical reference within a sentence or paragraph: 
(Corvellec, 2013) 


Narrative reference: 
Corvellec (2013) notes that... 


This is what the same source looks like in the reference list:
Corvellec, H. (2013). What is theory? Answers from the social and cultural sciences. Liber; Copenhagen Business School Press.

The name in the source parentheses is the reference word and that same name must be found in the list of references at the end of the text. This is important because the reader should be able to find the extended information about the source in the reference list. If the parentheses in the body text and the reference list do not correspond, the source reference technique is not working.

In the body text, you can vary how you indicate the source. Instead of a reference parenthesis, you can use the narrative reference with reporting verbs. 

Citing and quoting

A quotation is a word-for-word extract from a source. Citation is when you refer to, or retell what someone else has written. In both cases there must be a reference to the source, even when you are retelling in your own words, otherwise you are guilty of plagiarism.

In general, you should cite rather than quote. When you quote, you must not change anything in the text and therefore quotes often do not fit well in your own text. Citing is therefore more flexible and allows you to vary your referencing technique.

Quotations can be used if you want to emphasise something particularly important and central. The quotation must always have a clear function and illustrate your argument. There are two ways of quoting. Which one you choose depends on the length of the quote.

Short quotations range from one word to a few sentences and are marked with quotation marks [" "] on both sides of the quoted text and woven into the text.

Block quotes consist of more than three lines of text. The quotation is marked with an indent and written in a more compact form (font size 10 p and line spacing 1), a bit like a box. Please note that no quotation marks should be used. You write a standard source reference parenthesis after the block quote. By using [...], you indicate that you have omitted certain parts of a longer quotation. In the Writing Template you can see what the layout of a block quote looks like.

When referencing, write in your own words what you want to highlight from your source material. At the end of the sentence or paragraph, write a parenthetical reference.

You can vary your language and the way you refer to your sources by using reporting verbs. Reporting verbs are verbs that refer to your source, e.g. writes, argues, shows, concludes. Here are some examples of how you can use reporting verbs when referring to a source.

Watson and Person (2021) emphasise that good writing practices are important from the very beginning of your studies. A study by Nesser et al. (2022) finds that students also report that good writing practices are important for achieving good results.

If your cited passage is long, essentially an entire paragraph, it is recommended to begin the paragraph with a narrative reference along with a source parenthesis. This ensures that the reader immediately knows whose research you are referring to. If you continue with the same source in the next paragraph, you should reference the source again; otherwise, the reader will assume that the new paragraph represents your own thoughts. For more information, see the APA7 guide .

Remember that all quotations appear with references to their sources; otherwise you are guilty of plagiarism. To avoid plagiarism, Arcada uses the program Urkund, which automatically checks texts for plagiarism.

Further reading:

List of reporting verbs

Citing and referencing tutorial

How to reference AI sources

Information about AI, software or applications should be included in two steps, like all other sources: in the body text and as an entry in the reference list. Specify which version of an AI you have used, as well as how and why. Here is an example of a reference to an AI source:

Parenthetical reference within a sentence or paragraph:
(OpenAI, 2023)

Narrative reference: 
When given the prompt x, OpenAI (2023) defined the phenomenon as… 

This is what the same source looks like in the reference list:
OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT 3.5 (Version 21 november 2023) [Large Language Model]. https://chat.openai.com/

The elements of the reference list are:
Author/Organisation/Company. (Year). Name of software (Version) [Descriptor]. URL

Read more about how to reference language models in APA Style.

Reference management tools

An easy way to manage sources is to use the reference management tool Mendeley. You can save all your sources in Mendeley and use it to create a list of sources in the correct format. Read more at Arcada LibGuides