The author might be a group, or one or more people.

Individual author(s)

List the author's last name first, followed by a comma, a space, and the initials of their first and (if given) middle name. Leave a space between the initials if a middle name is provided.

If there is more than one author, they should be listed in the order they appear on the source. 

Group author

List the full name of the group in your reference.

Examples

The following table shows how authors are listed on a source, and how these names should be listed in a reference:

Note: Do not include professional titles (Dr.) or academic licenses/degrees (MD) in a reference. Include suffixes such as "Jr." and "Sr." after the initials.

The date of a source's publication follows the author in rounded brackets.

Date listed

The date of publication follows the author and is placed in rounded brackets. Include the month and day if it is provided.

No date listed

If no date is provided, write "n.d." to indicate that no date was found. Do not use the copyright date listed on web pages.

Examples

The following table provides examples of how to include publication date information in a reference:

Note: If a webpage provides multiple dates, use the 'last updated' date. Do not use the 'last reviewed date' or the copyright (c) year listed at the bottom of a webpage. 

The third part of a reference is the title of your source. Titles are formatted in sentence case and are usually italicized.

Sentence case

Titles are always written in sentence case. This means that you should only capitalize:

       • The first word of the title

       • The first word of a subtitle (i.e., when a ":" is written before an additional title),

       • Proper nouns (a specific, not generic, name for a particular person, place, or thing)

Italics

The italicization of a title is determined by the following rules:

       • If a work stands alone, the title is italicized. 

       • If a work was published inside a larger container, the title is not italicized. Instead, the container (part 4 of a reference) is italicized.

The following table identifies which types of sources require an italicized title:

If your work is found within a larger container, the container is listed after the title in mixed case and italics. Examples of containers include scholarly journals, trade magazines, textbooks, and podcasts. 

Title case

Since the container is a name, it should be written in title case. This means that most words should be capitalized. Do not capitalize:

      • Conjunctions that are three letters or fewer (and; but; for; nor; or; so; yet)  

      • Propositions (at; around; by; after; along; for; from; of; on; to; with; without)

      • Articles (the; a; an)

Italics

If the work is inside a container, the container name is italicized instead of the title of the work itself. 

Examples
The following table provides examples of how containers should be written in a reference:

The final part of a reference entry is the publisher and/or the URL.

Physical sources

Physical sources are not online, so their reference entries will only include a publisher. Print books, DVDs, and print magazine and newspaper articles are examples of sources that do not have a URL.

Electronic source

Electronic sources are online, and usually have a URL that will help your reader to get back to the source.

Ebooks and journal articles are often assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). A DOI starts with "https://doi.org/" and is followed by a string of numbers, letters, and symbols.

Examples

The following table provides examples of what publication and URL information to provide in a reference:

Note: DOIs and URLS should be live (i.e., hyperlinked) in assignments that you submit online, such as through D2L.