The reference must be part of the same sentence, thus full stop must be at the end.

You should provide references to both ideas and information:

• data
• statistics
• tables
• direct quotes
• the opinions and ideas of other researchers.

There are two instances where you do not need to reference.

1. You do not have to reference what is known as ‘common knowledge’. This is somewhat difficult to define, as what may be common knowledge in one field will not be in another. Essentially, however, common knowledge is what most people in a particular field would be expected to know, and which has the status of established fact.
2. You also don’t need to reference an idea or words (phrases or sentences) which are totally your own. But if you haven’t referenced a particular point, the implication is that you are claiming the idea as your own.

If the direct quote is from a website then you don’t have to include a page number.

This is a statement that you have para phrased from Lin’s article / book / website etc.

When including a reference at the end of the statement then it should be in brackets i.e.,

A recent report found that online shoppers were more impulsive than other traditional shoppers (Lin, 2013). An alternative way of writing this is,

A recent report by Lin (2013) found that online shoppers were more impulsive than other traditional shoppers.

It is common practice to only use the surname (no initials or first names) when including a reference in the main text.

Providing this is not a direct quote (in this case a “” and a page number is required) the referencing format is correct.

Don’t use the URL format when referencing in your main text.

Where the abbreviation is well known then it is acceptable to use it in the text otherwise if the name of the group first appears in the narrative, put the abbreviation, a comma, and the year for the citation in parentheses after it.

• Example: The American Psychological Association (APA, 2011) suggested that parents talk to their children about family finances in age-appropriate ways.

If the name of the group first appears in parentheses, put the abbreviation in brackets after it, followed by a comma and the year for the citation.

• Example: Children should learn about family finances in age-appropriate ways (American Psychological Association [APA], 2011).

See the explanation above.

In general, references at the at the beginning of a sentence should not be enclosed in brackets.

The reference must be part of the sentence.

All facts need to be referenced.

When referring to your own research there is no need to apply a reference providing it relates to the current research.

Some referencing formats stipulate that multiple authors should be in chronological order, APA stipulate that multiple authors should be in alphabetical order.

As per the above points.

When a scholar has more than one article you can include them all in your referencing.

When an author has multiple works in the same year then we need to identify each reference with a suffix.

Some referencing formats may require that the location of publication is placed at the end of the reference but with APA it is before the publisher.

This is the correct way to reference a book.

The journal title and volume should be in italics.

Note if the journal article is an electronic version the a DOI number is required.

Be aware that different elements of a reference  should be in italics, this depends on the type of resource.

Some referencing formats require you to state when you accessed the data: APA referencing does not require this.

Some referencing formats require you to state when you accessed the data: APA referencing does not require this.