Harvard vs APA vs Chicago: How to Reference Step by Step

If your last course never named a referencing style, your first assignment in the UK, the US or Canada may be the first time a marker checks one line by line. This guide takes every rule from the style's own manual or a named university guide and works it on real sources, including Indian ones. One rule outranks the rest: your module handbook or syllabus names the style, and its examples beat any guide, this one included. More study guides sit in our education samples and guides.

What Is the Difference Between a Citation, a Reference and a Bibliography?

A citation is the short pointer in your sentence, such as (Saranga, Roy and Chowdhury, 2024). A reference is the full entry at the end that lets a reader find the source. A reference list holds only what you cited; a bibliography can add background reading, so use one only when your module asks for it, as the University of Sussex's Cite Them Right guide advises.

Styles come in three families, which UCL's library guide names author-date (such as Harvard), numeric (such as Vancouver) and notes and bibliography (such as MHRA). APA joins Harvard in the first; IEEE joins Vancouver in the second; OSCOLA and Chicago's notes system sit in the third, as King's College London's list of its own styles shows. The family tells you what your sentences will look like; the style tells you the punctuation.

Which Referencing Style Will Your UK, US or Canadian Course Use?

Your module handbook in the UK, or your syllabus in the US and Canada, names the style, and for Harvard it should also name the version, such as Cite Them Right. Until you have it, the subject is a fair guide: the library pages behind the table put business on Harvard in the UK and on APA in North America, and law on each country's own legal style.

Which style a course is likely to set, by country and subject

Point of comparison	UK	USA	Canada
Business and management	UK Harvard, in the version your school names	USA APA 7	Canada APA 7
Psychology, education and nursing	UK APA 7; nursing often Harvard	USA APA 7	Canada APA 7
English and history	UK MHRA, or a footnote style	USA MLA 9; history: Chicago notes	Canada MLA; history: Chicago
Law	UK OSCOLA, 5th edn (2026)	USA Bluebook, 22nd edn (2025)	Canada McGill Guide, 10th edn (2023)
Engineering and computing	UK Harvard or numeric; IEEE in electrical	USA IEEE	Canada IEEE
Medicine and health	UK Vancouver or Harvard	USA AMA, 11th edn (2020)	Canada Vancouver

The pages disagree at the edges: the University of Reading allows Cite Them Right Harvard beside OSCOLA in law. Read the table as the question to put to your tutor, not the answer.

• UK. The University of Leeds list of school styles; the University of Reading (Cite Them Right Harvard at Henley Business School, Oxford footnotes in history); the University of Derby (Harvard, which "most programmes" in its nursing college use); Oxford for the OSCOLA edition.
• USA. Seton Hall University's styles per discipline; Harvard Library (the Bluebook, "frequently used by law schools"); the University of Southern California (AMA, 11th edition, 2020, "used throughout disciplines in the health sciences").
• Canada. McGill Library's citation styles by subject; the University of Victoria (APA, "the preferred style guide" for its business school, and the McGill Guide, "a commonly accepted citation standard for Canadian legal writing").

Our pages for assignment help in the UK, the USA and Canada set out what changes by country, from Harvard versions and OSCOLA to the Bluebook and the McGill Guide.

How Do You Reference an Assignment, Step by Step?

Find the style and its version in your handbook, record each source's details as you read, and set a reference manager to that style. Then cite in the text every time you use someone's words, ideas, data or images, build the list in the style's order, match citations and entries both ways, and proof the small marks last.

How to reference an assignment in eight steps

1. 1 Find the style and its version Your handbook or syllabus names it; for Harvard, look for the version, such as Cite Them Right.
2. 2 Record the details as you read Authors, year, title, journal or publisher, volume, issue, pages, DOI or URL, and the page of any quotation.
3. 3 Set your reference manager to that style Zotero or Mendeley; then check every entry it writes.
4. 4 Cite every borrowed word, idea, figure and image In the text, at the point where you use it.
5. 5 Quote sparingly, with a page number Paraphrase in your own words and structure, and cite that too.
6. 6 Build the list in the style's order Alphabetical for author-date styles; numbered in order of first citation for IEEE and Vancouver.
7. 7 Match citations and entries both ways Every citation has an entry, and every entry is cited.
8. 8 Proof the small marks Commas, italics, capitals, et al. and the DOI.

Here is the method, worked on the article this guide uses throughout, Saranga, Roy and Chowdhury (2024).

1. Find the style. A handbook that says "Harvard (Cite Them Right, 13th edition)" has named the version; one that says only "Harvard" has not, so copy its own examples or ask your tutor.
2. Record the details. For this article: three names, 2024, the title and subtitle, IIMB Management Review, volume 36, issue 1, pages 21 to 38 and the DOI, all from the publisher's Crossref record.
3. Set up a reference manager. Zotero or Mendeley formats the article in any style below; our dissertation writing tips say to start one on the day you begin reading. Check what it writes: the University of Manitoba warns that "sometimes citation generators will change the capitalization or the order of name". Zotero's Cite Them Right style is still titled 12th edition, so check it against your handbook's 13th-edition examples.
4. Cite every borrowing. Oxford's rule "applies not only to text, but also to other media, such as computer code, illustrations, graphs etc."
5. Quote sparingly. Sussex, after Cite Them Right: paraphrasing "is generally preferable to the repeated use of direct quotations". A paraphrase still takes a citation.
6. Order the list. Author-date styles run alphabetically by first author. IEEE citations, McGill Library explains, "are numbered in the order in which they appear in the text", as are Vancouver's.
7. Match both ways. Every citation needs an entry and every entry a citation, APA's rule in the misconduct section below. In a dissertation, our dissertation editing and proofreading checks the reference list against your style.
8. Proof the small marks. Read the list once for nothing but commas, italics, capitals, et al. and the DOI, which APA and MLA write as a full https://doi.org/ link.

Harvard vs APA vs Chicago: What Are the Differences?

All three can be author-date styles, so the differences sit in the detail: the comma before the year, when et al. starts, and how a title is capitalised. APA 7 is one published standard. Chicago 18 has two systems, author-date and notes. Harvard has no single owner, so "Harvard" always means a named version, such as Cite Them Right.

Harvard vs APA vs Chicago: the differences that show on the page

Point of comparison	Harvard (Cite Them Right)	APA 7	Chicago 18 author-date
Who sets it	Harvard (Cite Them Right) Cite Them Right, 13th edn (2025), and university versions	APA 7 APA Publication Manual, 7th edn	Chicago 18 author-date Chicago Manual of Style, 18th edn (2024)
Three authors in the text	Harvard (Cite Them Right) (Saranga, Roy and Chowdhury, 2024)	APA 7 (Saranga et al., 2024)	Chicago 18 author-date (Saranga et al. 2024)
A page in the text	Harvard (Cite Them Right) (Saranga, Roy and Chowdhury, 2024, p. 21)	APA 7 (Saranga et al., 2024, p. 21)	Chicago 18 author-date (Saranga et al. 2024, 21)
Two authors in the text	Harvard (Cite Them Right) (Surname and Surname, 2024)	APA 7 (Surname & Surname, 2024)	Chicago 18 author-date (Surname and Surname 2024)
Et al. in the text from	Harvard (Cite Them Right) Four authors, set in italics	APA 7 Three authors	Chicago 18 author-date Three authors
Authors named in the list	Harvard (Cite Them Right) Up to three; et al. from four, unless your school asks for all	APA 7 Up to 20	Chicago 18 author-date Up to six; for seven or more, the first three and et al.
Article title	Harvard (Cite Them Right) Sentence case, in single quotation marks	APA 7 Sentence case with a capital after a colon, no quotation marks	Chicago 18 author-date Headline case, in double quotation marks
Where you will meet it	Harvard (Cite Them Right) UK business and nursing, e.g. Reading, Derby	APA 7 Psychology, education, nursing; North American business	Chicago 18 author-date Social sciences; notes system: literature, history, arts

The comma is the first detail to check. Cite Them Right prints one between author and year: the Open University's quick guide gives (Harris, 2015) and Sussex gives (Hickel, 2021). Leeds Harvard does the same. Chicago's author-date system has no comma: (Kwon 2022, 1842–43). So a page that tells you "Harvard has no comma" is describing another version, or Chicago, and your handbook's own examples settle it. UCL's guide gives the reason: "there are many versions of the Harvard and Vancouver referencing styles, there is no single 'correct' style."

The title is the second: APA's sentence case capitalises the first word after a colon. Most Cite Them Right examples at Sussex and Reading keep it lower case, but Sussex's rule capitalises the first word of a subtitle, so follow your handbook's examples.

Chicago's other system, notes and bibliography, puts a numbered footnote in your sentence and a bibliography at the end. Purdue's writing lab describes it as the system "used by those working in literature, history, and the arts". In a note, Chicago 18 names only the first of three or more authors, followed by et al.

What About MLA, IEEE, Vancouver and OSCOLA?

Each has a narrower home and one owner.

• MLA 9 (Modern Language Association, ninth edition, 2021) cites author and page in the text, such as (Saranga et al. 21), and lists only the first author followed by et al. when there are three or more.
• IEEE (Reference Guide, version of 28 March 2025) numbers sources in square brackets, uses et al. in the text "when three or more names are given", and lists up to six names in the reference.
• Vancouver, also called ICMJE style, is the numbered style of medicine and health; McGill Library traces it to editors of medical journals meeting in Vancouver in 1978.
• OSCOLA (fifth edition, Oxford, 2026, free online) cites law in footnotes. Its list of guides for other countries gives the Bluebook (22nd edition, 2025) for the US and the McGill Guide (10th edition, 2023) for Canada.

If you are unsure whether your references match your handbook, send your draft and the referencing page of your module handbook on WhatsApp, and an expert will check your citations against your style.

How Does One Source Look in Harvard, APA, Chicago, MLA and IEEE?

Here is one open-access article by three Indian authors, Saranga, Roy and Chowdhury (2024) in IIMB Management Review, written out in six styles from the publisher's Crossref record. Three authors is deliberate: it is the number at which the styles split on et al., so the in-text forms differ as much as the reference lines do.

• Harvard (Cite Them Right 13th edn)

  Saranga, H., Roy, S. and Chowdhury, S. (2024) ‘Charting a sustainable future: transformative policies for India’s energy, agriculture, and transport sectors’, IIMB Management Review, 36(1), pp. 21–38. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iimb.2024.02.005

  In the text: (Saranga, Roy and Chowdhury, 2024)

• APA 7

  Saranga, H., Roy, S., & Chowdhury, S. (2024). Charting a sustainable future: Transformative policies for India’s energy, agriculture, and transport sectors. IIMB Management Review, 36(1), 21–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iimb.2024.02.005

  In the text: (Saranga et al., 2024)

• Chicago 18 author-date

  Saranga, Haritha, Satyajit Roy, and Sayan Chowdhury. 2024. “Charting a Sustainable Future: Transformative Policies for India’s Energy, Agriculture, and Transport Sectors.” IIMB Management Review 36 (1): 21–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iimb.2024.02.005.

  In the text: (Saranga et al. 2024)

• Chicago 18 notes and bibliography

  Note: 1. Haritha Saranga et al., “Charting a Sustainable Future: Transformative Policies for India’s Energy, Agriculture, and Transport Sectors,” IIMB Management Review 36, no. 1 (2024): 21, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iimb.2024.02.005.

  Later notes: Saranga et al., “Charting a Sustainable Future,” 21.

  Bibliography: Saranga, Haritha, Satyajit Roy, and Sayan Chowdhury. “Charting a Sustainable Future: Transformative Policies for India’s Energy, Agriculture, and Transport Sectors.” IIMB Management Review 36, no. 1 (2024): 21–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iimb.2024.02.005.

• MLA 9

  Saranga, Haritha, et al. “Charting a Sustainable Future: Transformative Policies for India’s Energy, Agriculture, and Transport Sectors.” IIMB Management Review, vol. 36, no. 1, Mar. 2024, pp. 21–38, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iimb.2024.02.005.

  In the text: (Saranga et al. 21), with the page you used

• IEEE

  [1] H. Saranga, S. Roy, and S. Chowdhury, “Charting a sustainable future: Transformative policies for India’s energy, agriculture, and transport sectors,” IIMB Manage. Rev., vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 21–38, Mar. 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.iimb.2024.02.005.

  In the text: [1], or Saranga et al. [1]

The note cites page 21, the article's first page; yours cites the page you used. IEEE shortens the journal title with its guide's word list: Management becomes Manage., Review becomes Rev.

Which Parts Change From One Style to the Next?

Six things move: how the names are written, where the year goes, how the title is capitalised and punctuated, which parts are in italics, how the pages are introduced, and how the DOI is written. The two figures below label each part in Harvard and APA 7.

One article in Cite Them Right Harvard, part by part

Harvard (Cite Them Right 13th edn)

Saranga, H., [Author] Roy, S. [Author] and Chowdhury, S. [Author] (2024) [Year] ‘Charting a sustainable future: transformative policies for India’s energy, agriculture, and transport sectors’, [Article title] IIMB Management Review, [Journal] 36(1), [Volume (issue)] pp. 21–38. [Pages] Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iimb.2024.02.005 [DOI]

In-Text Citation (Saranga, Roy and Chowdhury, 2024)

The same article in APA 7

APA 7

Saranga, H., [Author] Roy, S., [Author] & Chowdhury, S. [Author] (2024). [Year] Charting a sustainable future: Transformative policies for India’s energy, agriculture, and transport sectors. [Article title] IIMB Management Review, [Journal] 36(1), [Volume (issue)] 21–38. [Pages] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iimb.2024.02.005 [DOI]

In-Text Citation (Saranga et al., 2024)

Three slips on the same article

• Harvard Comma

  Wrong

  (Saranga, Roy and Chowdhury 2024)

  Right

  (Saranga, Roy and Chowdhury, 2024)

  Cite Them Right (13th edn) and Leeds Harvard both put a comma before the year. Leaving the comma out is Chicago author-date’s convention; follow your own handbook’s examples.

• Three Authors in Harvard

  Wrong

  (Saranga et al., 2024)

  Right

  (Saranga, Roy and Chowdhury, 2024)

  Cite Them Right names up to three authors in the text and uses et al. from four. The wrong line is correct APA 7, which uses et al. from three.

• Family Name First

  Wrong

  Haritha, S., Satyajit, R. and Sayan, C. (2024)

  Right

  Saranga, H., Roy, S. and Chowdhury, S. (2024)

  The Crossref record gives Saranga, Roy and Chowdhury as the family names. The family name leads and the given name becomes an initial.

A reference manager switches the order and punctuation in a click, but if the record it holds is wrong, all six versions are wrong.

How Do You Write Indian Names in a Reference?

Copy the name as it is printed on the source, put the family name first, reduce the given names to initials, and never expand an initial you cannot see. Keep two-part surnames whole, and drop titles such as Dr or Prof. and s/o or d/o. If you cannot tell which part is the family name, check how other papers cite the author, as the University of Leeds suggests.

• Family name last. Haritha Saranga becomes Saranga, H. in Harvard and APA, Saranga, Haritha in Chicago and MLA, and H. Saranga in IEEE.
• Two-part surnames. APA says to write the name "exactly as it appears on the published work, including hyphenated surnames and two-part surnames" (APA Style). The Crossref record of a 2023 IIMB Management Review article files Supratim Das Gupta under Das Gupta, so write Das Gupta, S., not Gupta, S.D.
• An initial before the given name. Manitoba's guide notes that in some cultures, "such as in South India", family names "are not a traditional feature", so a name may open with an initial. The publisher's record shows how it was filed: the Crossref record of a 2026 article gives Mahadevan as the family name and B as the given name, so write Mahadevan, B.
• A single name. Manitoba's rule is to "use the name that they have provided": write it in full, with no initial to invent.
• Titles and family markers. Drop Dr, Prof., Shri or Smt.: OSCOLA gives the name "exactly as it appears in the publication but omit titles and postnominals". Drop s/o and d/o, which the APA guides of NIE Singapore and Universiti Malaya both tell students to omit. NIE's first-name-only in-text form is, by its own account, a library recommendation made because APA has no rule for non-Western names, so follow your handbook.
• Same surname, different authors. Under APA's section 8.20, when the first authors of two works share a surname but not their initials, the initials go into every in-text citation: (A. Singh, Year; R. Singh, Year).
• Organisations. Give the full name the first time with its abbreviation in square brackets, then the abbreviation alone, as both Sussex and APA show; APA spells the name out in full in the reference list. The Open University's version of Cite Them Right uses round brackets inside, (The Open University (OU), 2024), another case where your handbook's examples decide.

How Do You Cite Indian Sources Such as RBI Reports, the Census and NCERT Books?

Treat the issuing body as the author, date the document by when it was published rather than the period it covers, and copy the title from the cover or the record page. Then add what lets a reader find the exact item: the table number for Census data, the edition for an NCERT book, and the URL and access date for anything read online.

Three dating slips in Indian sources

• Census Year

  Wrong

  (Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India, 2011)

  Right

  (Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India, 2022)

  2011 is the census in the table’s title. The record page was created and last modified on 4 July 2022, so that is the year to use; ‘no date’ or ‘n.d.’ is only for a page that shows no date.

• NCERT Reprint Year

  Wrong

  (National Council of Educational Research and Training, 2026)

  Right

  (National Council of Educational Research and Training, 2022)

  Every page says ‘Reprint 2026-27’, but the text is the revised edition of October 2022. A reprint changes no words, so the edition’s year goes in the bracket.

• Access Date Missing

  Wrong

  Department of Economic Affairs (2026) Economic survey 2025-26. Ministry of Finance, Government of India. Available at: https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/economicsurvey/

  Right

  Department of Economic Affairs (2026) Economic survey 2025-26. Ministry of Finance, Government of India. Available at: https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/economicsurvey/ (Accessed: 14 October 2026).

  Cite Them Right adds the date you viewed any document read online. APA 7 adds a retrieval date only to pages designed to change, so its version has none.

The forms below follow Cite Them Right Harvard, as Sussex and Reading set it out, and APA 7, each built from the document's own page on 14 October 2026. Our PESTEL analysis guide explains why a figure needs its release date.

How Do You Cite an RBI Report?

The RBI is author and publisher, so its name appears once. The Annual Report 2025-26 covers April 2025 to March 2026 but came out on 29 May 2026, says the RBI's press release, so its year is 2026.

• Harvard: Reserve Bank of India (2026) Annual report 2025-26. Available at: https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/AnnualReportPublications.aspx?year=2026 (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• APA 7: Reserve Bank of India. (2026). Annual report 2025-26. https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/AnnualReportPublications.aspx?year=2026
• In the text: (Reserve Bank of India [RBI], 2026) the first time, then (RBI, 2026).

APA drops the site name when it repeats the author, as its webpage examples show. Our inflation in India assignment example dates each RBI and MOSPI release to the day it came out.

How Do You Cite the Economic Survey of India?

The Economic Survey 2025-26 is issued by the Ministry of Finance's Department of Economic Affairs, and its title page is dated January 2026. APA names the most specific agency as the author and the parent body as the publisher. The title page also names an Economic Division inside it; the Department is the clearer author.

• Harvard: Department of Economic Affairs (2026) Economic survey 2025-26. Ministry of Finance, Government of India. Available at: https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/economicsurvey/ (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• APA 7: Department of Economic Affairs. (2026). Economic survey 2025-26. Ministry of Finance, Government of India. https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/economicsurvey/
• In the text, pointing to chapter 1, ‘State of the economy: pushing the growth frontier’: (Department of Economic Affairs, 2026, ch. 1) in Harvard.

The Statistical Appendix is a separate document; reference it on its own if you take tables from it.

How Do You Cite Census of India Data?

Cite the table you used, not "the Census". The author is the Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India, under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Its page for table C-16, population by mother tongue, was created and last modified on 4 July 2022, so that is the year: the 2011 in the title is the census year. Write "no date" in Harvard or "n.d." in APA only when a page shows no date at all.

• Harvard: Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India (2022) ‘C-16: population by mother tongue, India - 2011’. Available at: https://censusindia.gov.in/nada/index.php/catalog/10191 (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• APA 7: Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. (2022). C-16: Population by mother tongue, India - 2011 [Data set]. Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. https://censusindia.gov.in/nada/index.php/catalog/10191

Harvard puts a data set's title in single quotation marks; APA italicises it and adds a bracketed description.

How Do You Cite an NCERT Textbook?

NCERT is author and publisher, because the textbook names a development committee, not authors. Date it by the edition, not the reprint. The imprint page of Introductory Macroeconomics for Class XII reads "Revised Edition October 2022", then lists reprints up to January 2026, and every page footer says "Reprint 2026-27".

• Harvard: National Council of Educational Research and Training (2022) Introductory macroeconomics: textbook in economics for Class XII. Revised edn. Reprint, National Council of Educational Research and Training, 2026.
• APA 7: National Council of Educational Research and Training. (2022). Introductory macroeconomics: Textbook in economics for Class XII (Rev. ed.).
• In the text: (National Council of Educational Research and Training [NCERT], 2022), then (NCERT, 2022).

The Harvard form follows Cite Them Right's reprint example, as the University of Worcester quotes it. APA puts the edition in brackets after the title; "Rev. ed." is the manual's abbreviation, per the University of the West Indies list.

How Do You Cite an Indian Act or a Supreme Court Judgment?

Take the Act from India Code, the government's database of Acts as amended, and the judgment from the Supreme Court's website, with the neutral citation on its first page, "2026 INSC 668". OSCOLA's fifth edition says to cite cases from other jurisdictions "as they are cited in their own jurisdiction, but with minimal punctuation", and its list of foreign guides has none for India.

• Harvard, the Act (Reading's legislation pattern, adapted): Copyright Act, 1957 (Act No. 14 of 1957). Available at: https://indiacode.gov.in/handle/123456789/496733 (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Harvard, the judgment (Reading's case pattern, adapted): ‘Pooja Ramesh Singh v. Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd.’ (2026) Supreme Court of India, 2026 INSC 668. Available at: https://www.sci.gov.in/view-pdf/?diary_no=523382025&type=j&order_date=2026-07-02&from=latest_judgements_order (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• OSCOLA footnotes: 1 Copyright Act, 1957 (India). 2 Pooja Ramesh Singh v Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd 2026 INSC 668 [7]. OSCOLA italicises the case name, and [7] pinpoints paragraph 7.

We show Harvard and OSCOLA only; for an APA essay, use your handbook's section on legal sources. Law students should check their school's OSCOLA guide for Indian materials. The misconduct section below returns to this judgment.

How Do You Cite an Indian Newspaper Article?

Name the journalist when there is a byline; without one, Sussex's Cite Them Right guide puts the newspaper's name in the author's place. Use the article's printed date, and in Harvard the date you read it online.

• Harvard: Singh, S.G. (2026) ‘Indian students going abroad fall 31% in 3 years as visa rules tighten’, Business Standard, 12 February. Available at: https://www.business-standard.com/immigration/indian-students-going-abroad-fall-31-in-3-years-as-visa-rules-tighten-126021200374_1.html (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• APA 7: Singh, S. G. (2026, February 12). Indian students going abroad fall 31% in 3 years as visa rules tighten. Business Standard. https://www.business-standard.com/immigration/indian-students-going-abroad-fall-31-in-3-years-as-visa-rules-tighten-126021200374_1.html

APA cites a daily paper's website as a newspaper, with the paper's name in italics. A company annual report follows the RBI's group-author pattern; our guide to citing an annual report or a 10-K in Harvard works one through.

Which Referencing Habits Get Flagged as Academic Misconduct?

Oxford's guidance names two habits plainly: copying an author's words without quotation marks, even when you cite them, and listing a source you never read. It treats both as plagiarism. Both are fixable before you submit: quote with marks and a page number, or paraphrase in your own structure, and cite only what you read.

Four citation habits, fixed

• Citation With No Entry

  Wrong

  In the text: (RBI, 2026). In the reference list: nothing under Reserve Bank of India.

  Right

  In the text: (Reserve Bank of India [RBI], 2026), then (RBI, 2026). In the list: Reserve Bank of India (2026) Annual report 2025-26, with its link and access date.

  Sussex: each in-text citation should correspond to a full reference entry. APA asks for the same match in both directions.

• Two Styles in One Essay

  Wrong

  (Saranga et al. 2024) on one page and (RBI, 2026) on the next

  Right

  (Saranga et al., 2024) and (RBI, 2026), both in APA 7

  Leeds asks for citations that match one style exactly, ‘including any punctuation, capitalisation, italics and bold’.

• Google or Wikipedia as the Source

  Wrong

  (Google, 2026) or (Wikipedia, 2026)

  Right

  (Reserve Bank of India [RBI], 2026), the report the search led you to

  A search engine is how you found a document, not who wrote it. Queen’s University Belfast: Wikipedia ‘is not itself a source’.

• Slides in Place of the Article

  Wrong

  (Saranga, Roy and Chowdhury, 2024), when you read only the lecture slides

  Right

  (Saranga, Roy and Chowdhury, 2024, cited in Lecturer, Year, slide 4), with only the slides in your list. Better: read the article.

  APA and Sussex both prefer the original. If you cite through the slides, name what you actually read.

1. Words without quotation marks. Oxford: "Quotations must always be identified as such by the use of either quotation marks or indentation, and with full referencing of the sources cited." A citation at the end of copied words does not make them yours.
2. Close paraphrase. Oxford counts paraphrasing "by altering a few words and changing their order, or by closely following the structure of their argument" as plagiarism without due acknowledgement, and adds that "a passing reference to the original author in your own text may not be enough". Read, close the source, write from your notes, then cite.
3. A source you did not read. Oxford: "you should not include anything in your references or bibliography that you have not actually consulted." Write "cited in" (Cite Them Right, as Sussex shows) or "as cited in" (APA), and list only the work you read.
4. A chatbot or Wikipedia as the authority. UCL's guidance says AI systems "should not be cited as an author nor included as a source in the reference list", and that their use must be acknowledged. In July 2026 the Supreme Court of India set aside a tribunal's decision that relied on "non-existent, fake and hallucinated material, generated through Artificial Intelligence", and called for "a zero-tolerance mode for producing, citing or using AI-generated precedents without verification". Some of those citations named real judgments; the paragraphs the tribunal cited from them did not exist. Wikipedia, in Queen's University Belfast's words, "is not itself a source". Find and read what a chatbot or an encyclopedia points to; if you cannot find it, you cannot cite it.
5. Figures, tables and images with no citation. Give the page and the label: Sussex's example is (Hickel, Sullivan and Zoomkawala, 2021, p. 1038, table 2).
6. A list and a text that do not match. APA: each work cited in the text must appear in the reference list, and each work in the list must be cited.
7. Two styles in one essay. The University of Leeds asks you to "use the same referencing style throughout your assignment".

Oxford is plain that "even if plagiarism is inadvertent, it can result in a penalty", so build these fixes in as habits, not a last edit the night before.

Is There a Safe Similarity Percentage?

No percentage makes copied words safe. India's UGC regulations of 2018 set similarity bands for theses, dissertations and research papers at masters and research level, under which Level 0, similarities "upto 10%", carries no penalty, but they exclude "assignments / term papers / project reports / course work / essays". In the UK, the University of Aberdeen's guidance says a similarity index "is not by itself evidence of plagiarism" and that there is "no set percentage". Markers judge each match, so a quotation without marks counts at any percentage.

For your first assignment in the UK, the US or Canada, send us your draft and the referencing section of your handbook on WhatsApp for a referencing check before you submit. An expert compares your citations with your reference list and your style, and returns the draft with tracked changes and comments. Our essay editing and proofreading service explains the check, and more guides are in our dissertation samples and guides.

Sources

In Cite Them Right Harvard, the style this guide demonstrates; every source opened on 14 October 2026. Four sites were read in Internet Archive copies: APA Style (dated 28 May 2025 to 9 October 2026), the Open University (19 September 2026), NIE Singapore (17 February 2026) and Oxford (11 October 2026). The article's details come from its Crossref record. Editions are those the owners' pages gave that day. When the Economic Survey 2026-27 and RBI Annual Report 2026-27 appear, cite the new editions.

• American Psychological Association (2019) Author–date citation system. Available at: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/basic-principles/author-date (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• American Psychological Association (2020a) Book/ebook references. Available at: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/book-references (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• American Psychological Association (2020b) Citing authors with the same surname. Available at: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/basic-principles/citing-authors-same-surname (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• American Psychological Association (2020c) Data set references. Available at: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/data-set-references (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• American Psychological Association (2020d) Newspaper article references. Available at: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/newspaper-article-references (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• American Psychological Association (2020e) Report by a government agency. Available at: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/report-government-agency-references (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• American Psychological Association (2022a) DOIs and URLs. Available at: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/dois-urls (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• American Psychological Association (2022b) Missing reference information. Available at: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/missing-information (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• American Psychological Association (2022c) Quotations. Available at: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/quotations (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• American Psychological Association (2022d) Secondary sources. Available at: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/secondary-sources (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• American Psychological Association (2022e) Sentence case capitalization. Available at: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/sentence-case (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• American Psychological Association (2022f) Works included in a reference list. Available at: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/works-included (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• American Psychological Association (2023) Journal article references. Available at: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/journal-article-references (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• American Psychological Association (2025) Elements of reference list entries. Available at: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/elements-list-entry (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• American Psychological Association (2026) Webpage on a website references. Available at: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/webpage-website-references (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Citation Style Language (2026) Cite Them Right 12th edition (author-date/Harvard). Style file harvard-cite-them-right.csl, updated 12 February. Available at: https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/blob/master/harvard-cite-them-right.csl (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Copyright Act, 1957 (Act No. 14 of 1957), as on 15 June 2026. Available at: https://indiacode.gov.in/handle/123456789/496733 (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Crossref (no date a) Work record for DOI 10.1016/j.iimb.2023.07.002. Available at: https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1016/j.iimb.2023.07.002 (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Crossref (no date b) Work record for DOI 10.1016/j.iimb.2024.02.005. Available at: https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1016/j.iimb.2024.02.005 (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Crossref (no date c) Work record for DOI 10.1016/j.iimb.2026.100710. Available at: https://api.crossref.org/works/10.1016/j.iimb.2026.100710 (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Department of Economic Affairs (2026) Economic survey 2025-26. Ministry of Finance, Government of India. Available at: https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/economicsurvey/ (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Faculty of Law, University of Oxford (2026) OSCOLA: the Oxford University standard for citation of legal authorities. 5th edn. Available at: https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2026-03/OSCOLA%205.pdf (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Harvard Library (2026) Bluebook legal citation system guide. Available at: https://guides.library.harvard.edu/law/bluebook (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• IEEE (2025) IEEE reference guide. Version of 28 March 2025. Available at: https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/IEEE_Reference_Guide.pdf (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• King's College London (2026) Quick start guide: King's guide to referencing. Available at: https://libguides.kcl.ac.uk/referencing (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• McGill Library (2026a) Citation styles. Available at: https://libraryguides.mcgill.ca/citations (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• McGill Library (2026b) IEEE. Available at: https://libraryguides.mcgill.ca/citations/ieee (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• McGill Library (2026c) Vancouver (ICMJE). Available at: https://libraryguides.mcgill.ca/citations/vancouver (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Modern Language Association (no date) How do I cite the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook? Available at: https://style.mla.org/citing-mla-handbook-ninth-edition/ (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• National Council of Educational Research and Training (2022) Introductory macroeconomics: textbook in economics for Class XII. Revised edn. Reprint, National Council of Educational Research and Training, 2026. Prelims available at: https://ncert.nic.in/textbook/pdf/leec1ps.pdf (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• National Institute of Education, Singapore (2024) Citing author names (Chinese, Malay, Indian). Available at: https://libguides.nie.edu.sg/c.php?g=927877&p=7038393 (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India (2022) ‘C-16: population by mother tongue, India - 2011’. Available at: https://censusindia.gov.in/nada/index.php/catalog/10191 (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• ‘Pooja Ramesh Singh v. Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd.’ (2026) Supreme Court of India, 2026 INSC 668. Available at: https://www.sci.gov.in/view-pdf/?diary_no=523382025&type=j&order_date=2026-07-02&from=latest_judgements_order (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Purdue Online Writing Lab (no date a) Chicago Manual of Style 18th edition. Available at: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_18th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/chicago_manual_of_style_18th_edition.html (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Purdue Online Writing Lab (no date b) MLA works cited page: books. Available at: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_works_cited_page_books.html (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Queen's University Belfast (2021) Wikipedia. Available at: https://libguides.qub.ac.uk/findliterature/wikipedia (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Reserve Bank of India (2026a) Annual report 2025-26. Available at: https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/AnnualReportPublications.aspx?year=2026 (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Reserve Bank of India (2026b) Annual report for the year 2025-26. Press release, 29 May. Available at: https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=62821 (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Saranga, H., Roy, S. and Chowdhury, S. (2024) ‘Charting a sustainable future: transformative policies for India’s energy, agriculture, and transport sectors’, IIMB Management Review, 36(1), pp. 21–38. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iimb.2024.02.005
• Seton Hall University Libraries (no date) Citation styles per discipline. Available at: https://library.shu.edu/citation/styles-per-discipline (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Singh, S.G. (2026) ‘Indian students going abroad fall 31% in 3 years as visa rules tighten’, Business Standard, 12 February. Available at: https://www.business-standard.com/immigration/indian-students-going-abroad-fall-31-in-3-years-as-visa-rules-tighten-126021200374_1.html (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• The Open University (no date) Quick guide to Harvard referencing (Cite Them Right). Available at: https://university.open.ac.uk/library/referencing-and-plagiarism/quick-guide-to-harvard-referencing-cite-them-right (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• Universiti Malaya Library (2021) APA style 7th edition. Available at: https://fsktm.um.edu.my/fsktm/doc/postgraduate/APA_Style_7th_Edition_7_Oct_2021__V4_.pdf (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University College London (2026a) Generative AI. Available at: https://library-guides.ucl.ac.uk/harvard/generative-ai (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University College London (2026b) Referencing styles. Available at: https://library-guides.ucl.ac.uk/referencing-plagiarism/referencing-styles (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University Grants Commission (2018) University Grants Commission (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2018. The Gazette of India, Extraordinary, 31 July. Available at: https://www.ugc.gov.in/pdfnews/7771545_academic-integrity-Regulation2018.pdf (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Aberdeen (no date) Plagiarism. Available at: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/staffnet/education/assessment/academic-integrity/plagiarism/ (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Chicago Press (no date a) Author-date: sample citations. Available at: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Chicago Press (no date b) Notes and bibliography: sample citations. Available at: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-1.html (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Derby (2026) Nursing & midwifery. Available at: https://libguides.derby.ac.uk/nursing-midwifery (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Leeds (no date a) Find your school's referencing style. Available at: https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1402/referencing/49/find-your-schools-referencing-style (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Leeds (no date b) Leeds Harvard introduction. Available at: https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1402/referencing/50/leeds_harvard_introduction (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Leeds (no date c) Module lecture and materials. Available at: https://library.leeds.ac.uk/referencing-examples/9/leeds-harvard/520/module-lecture-and-materials (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Leeds (no date d) Referencing authors' names correctly. Available at: https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1402/referencing/47/referencing-explained/6 (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Leeds (no date e) Why and when to reference. Available at: https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1402/referencing/47/referencing-explained/1 (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Manitoba Libraries (2026) Author names. Available at: https://libguides.lib.umanitoba.ca/apastyle/authornames (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Oxford (no date) Plagiarism. Available at: https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/skills/plagiarism (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Reading (2026a) Reference examples (Harvard style). Available at: https://libguides.reading.ac.uk/citing-references/citationexamples (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Reading (2026b) Which style does your School/Department use? Available at: https://libguides.reading.ac.uk/citing-references/styles-in-use (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Southern California Libraries (2026) AMA style (11th ed): citing your sources. Available at: https://libguides.usc.edu/ama11 (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Staffordshire (no date) Assessment limit guidance. Available at: https://www.staffs.ac.uk/students/course-administration/academic-policies-and-regulations/assessment-limit-guidance (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Sussex (no date) Harvard style. Available at: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/skills-hub/referencing-and-academic-integrity/harvard (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of the West Indies Libraries (2026) APA references. Available at: https://libguides.uwi.edu/apa7 (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Victoria Libraries (2026a) Citation help: legal research and writing. Available at: https://libguides.uvic.ca/lrw/citation-help (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Victoria Libraries (2026b) Citing and writing help: MBA program. Available at: https://libguides.uvic.ca/mba/cite (Accessed: 14 October 2026).
• University of Worcester (2026) If a book has been reprinted should the reprint date be used in the reference? Available at: https://libraryfaqs.worc.ac.uk/faq/101469 (Accessed: 14 October 2026).