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Referencing Styles

Referencing styles vary across subject areas. Some of the referencing styles include the following:

1. American Medical Association (AMA): used in medicine, health and biological sciences.

2. American Psychological Association (APA) : used in psychology, and other social sciences.

3. Modern Language Association (MLA): used in literature, arts and humanities.

4. Turabian / Chicago: designed for use by students in all subjects; also used in all subjects in the “real world” by books, magazines, newspapers, and other non-scholarly publications.

5. Vancouver – as in AMA, it is used in medicine, health and biological sciences.

Points to note

1. There are several types of referencing formats and these depend on the field understudy.

2. Always ensure that uniformity is maintained in your citations, i.e., do not mix different referencing styles in one document or paper. If you copy and paste references, remember to edit them appropriately to suit your referencing style.

3. Never abridge or leave out author or article title information if are too long. See referencing guides of details. If a title has got a sub-title, do not leave it out as this is just as important as any other detail in a reference.

4. Punctuation marks should be followed to the letter according to the prescribed referencing style.

5. Find out what referencing style is acceptable in your department, college of publishing company.

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