Chapter 5 · Practice 2 of 3

Use APA author-date style correctly if your department asks for it

From Cite sources properly in IEEE or APA style

Why it matters

Some departments, particularly in information systems and interdisciplinary programmes, use APA (7th edition). Its core rules:

In the text: author surname and year, such as (Khan & Ali, 2024) or "Khan and Ali (2024) found...". Add a page number for direct quotes.
Three or more authors: the first author's name plus "et al." from the first citation, such as (Rahman et al., 2023).
Reference list: alphabetical by first author's surname, with a hanging indent.
DOIs: written as full https://doi.org/ links where available.

Whichever style you use, be consistent: same style in every chapter, every source in the text appears in the list, and every entry in the list is cited in the text. A reference manager such as Zotero, or BibTeX in LaTeX, handles most of the formatting for you.

Keep one style throughout the report
Check every in-text citation has a reference list entry

Avoid

References in the list that are never cited in the text

Example

Code

In text:   Small shops rarely track batches (Khan & Ali, 2024).
Reference: Khan, A., & Ali, S. (2024). Batch-level expiry tracking for small
           pharmacies. Journal of Retail Systems, 12(3), 101-110.
           https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx