Writing > Plagiarism and Academic Integrity > Referencing > Reference list

A reference list is found at the end of an article, paper or presentation. The purpose of a reference is to provide all the information needed for someone else to find that same article, book or internet site (APA, 2001).

All references will refer to information used in your paper, article or presentation. If you’ve read an article but do not use any of its ideas/data/theories, then it should not be in the reference list. The APA manual states, "[r]eferences cited in text must appear in the reference list; conversely, each entry in the reference list must be cited in text" (p. 215).

So, now you know what referencing is and why it is important. The next question is, how do you create a proper APA reference in a reference list?

The tutorials listed below are excellent to help you break down the daunting task of creating reference entries into clear steps.

Key Resources
Creating APA References for books and journals tutorial
Creating APA References for websites tutorial
Creating a Research log tutorial