APA Referencing Guidelines

What Is APA Referencing?

APA referencing, developed by the American Psychological Association, is a widely used and standard method for citing sources and bibliographic references. This author–date system requires that the author’s surname and the year of publication be cited within the text, alongside the relevant statements or quotations.

In-Text Citations

In-text citations appear in parentheses immediately after the quoted or paraphrased material and include the author’s surname, year of publication, and page number, formatted as follows:

Single Author:

• (Heydari, 2019, p. 25)
• (Johnson, 2019, p. 84)

Two Authors:

• (Mirzadeh & Taheri, 2023, p. 47)
• (Brown & Keller, 2021, p. 60)

Three or More Authors:

• (Kazemi et al., 2018, pp. 11–13)
• (Miller et al., 2016, pp. 30–32)

Secondary (Indirect) Citations:

• (Soleimani & Mahdavi, 2016, cited in Hasani, 2021, p. 40)
• (Taylor, 2005, quoted in Green, 2018, p. 27)

Multiple Works by the Same Author in the Same Year:

When citing more than one work by the same author published in the same year, lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.) must be added after the year in both in-text citations and the reference list.

Examples:

• (Naderi, 2020a, pp. 14–15)
• (Naderi, 2020b, pp. 10–12)

 

Reference List

The reference list must be arranged alphabetically and formatted according to the following patterns:

• Do not use abbreviated author names; full given names and surnames must be provided.

Books:

Author’s surname, given name; second author’s surname, given name; third author’s surname, given name, etc. (Year of publication). Title of the book in italics. Translator or editor (if applicable). Place of publication: Publisher. Edition (if applicable).

Example:

• Alvani, Seyed Mehdi. (1990). Decision-Making and Public Policy Formulation. Tehran: SAMT.

Journal Articles:

Author’s surname, given name; second author’s surname, given name; third author’s surname, given name, etc. (Year of publication). “Title of the article.” Title of the Journal in italics, volume number(issue number), page range. DOI (if available).

Examples:

• Nazari Tavakoli, Saeed; Saboui Jahromi, Saeed; & Taqvaian, Seyed Reza. (2023). Validation of historians’ reports on the practical conduct of the Infallibles and its application in deriving Islamic rulings. Comparative Studies of Fiqh and the Principles of Islamic Schools, 6(2), 23–45. doi:10.22034/mfu.2023.62903
• Chin Wei, C., Siong Choy, C., & Kuan Yew, W. (2009). “Is the Malaysian telecommunication industry ready for knowledge management implementation?” Journal of Knowledge Management, 13(1), 69–87.

Transliteration of Persian and Arabic Sources

As the journal is in the process of indexing articles in reputable international databases, particularly Scopus, all Persian sources cited in the manuscript must be transliterated into English and included in the References section in addition to the “Persian References” section at the end of the article.

At the end of each reference, the original language of the source must be specified using one of the following labels:

• (in Persian)
• (in Arabic)
• (in English)

Examples:

Book Reference:

• Danaee Fard, H., Alvani, S. M., & Azar, A. (2004). Methodology of qualitative research in management: A comprehensive approach. Tehran: Saffar Publishing. (in Persian)

Journal Article Reference:

• Dehdashti Shahrokh, Z., & Pourhosseini, A. H. (2013). “Performance implications of sales and marketing strategy.” Journal of Business Management, 5(1), 61–84. (in Persian)

Reference Management Software

To standardize both in-text and reference list citations, authors may use the Pajoohyar Research Reference Management Software, available at: http://www.pajoohyar.ir

The APA Referencing Guide file can be downloaded from here.