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Nursing

Library resources for all Nursing & Health Professions programs.

References

Reference List Quick Guide

References and In-text Citations

  • Each source you cite in the paper must appear in your reference list; likewise, each entry in the reference list must be cited in your text.
  • Use a hanging indent-- the first line in a citation is not indented, but all lines after it are.
    • In Google Docs, go to Format > Align & Indent > Indentations Options > Special Indent > Hanging

Author Names

  • Authors’ names are formatted as last name first, followed by first and middle initials.
    • Example: Jane Marie Smith would appear in the reference list as Smith, JM.
  • Give the last name and first/middle initials for all authors of a particular work up to and including 20 authors. If there are more than 21 authors, use an ellipses after the 19th author and include the final author’s name.

Titles

  • Journal title: capitalize all the major words and italicize
  • Journal article title: capitalize only the first word of the article title, as well as the first word after a colon or a dash, and any proper nouns.

DOIs

  • DOIs are an attempt to provide stable, long-lasting links for online articles. Include the DOI when it is available. When no DOI is available, include a URL only if the article came from a website (if the article came from a database, no URL is required).

Example

Nguyen, T., Carnevale, J. J., Scholer, A. A., Miele, D. B., & Fujita, K. (2019). Metamotivational knowledge of the role of high-level and low-level construal in goal-relevant task performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 117(5), 879-899. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000166

In-Text Citations

In-Text Citations Quick Guide

In-text Citations and References
  • One complete reference for each in-text citation should appear in the reference list at the end of the paper.
  • The in-text citation should include the author's last name and the year of publication. 
    • Example: (Jackson, 2019).
    • As Jackson found in their research (2019)
Multiple Authors
  • When citing a work by two authors include both authors, using the ampersand (&)
    • Example: (Ahn & Zarin, 2012)
  • When citing a work by more than two authors, include only the first author in the in-text citation, followed by “et al.”
    • Example: (Lillie et al., 2019)
Direct Quotes
  • If you are directly quoting from another work, you should include the page number at the end of the in-text citation.
  • Use the abbreviation “p.” for one page, or “pp.” for multiple pages before listing the page number(s).
    • Example: (Jones, 2014, p. 189)
  • Use an en dash for page ranges.
    • Page range example: (Jones, 2014, pp. 189–191).
  • Quotes of more than 40 words should be indented in block quotation format.

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