APA 6th Edition - Copenhagen Business School: APA style and referencing

Please note that there has been an update to the APA Guide by October 2019.

Find the guide for APA 7th here

Why should I reference?

Referencing is important in academic writing and an essential part of any of your assignments. It:

• allows you to acknowledge your sources,
• gives academic credibility to your work,
• demonstrates your knowledge of a subject area,
• prevents accusations of plagiarism.

What is plagiarism?

Check out our guide Working with Integrity as a CBS Student

What should I reference?

You should always reference a source when:

• using a direct quote
• summarising a theory
• discussing someone else's opinion
• using case studies
• quoting statistics or visual data
• but not when stating your own opinion, observation or experience.

The Copenhagen Business School Library is thankful for the permission to use and adapt the University of Lincoln APA Citation Style 6th Edition libguide.

The quickest and easiest way to reference in your academic work is to:

• record the necessary information at the time of using it
• be consistent

Referencing is a very important part of an academic work and by following these guidelines you will ensure that you meet the requirements set out by your tutor.

You need to reference:

• to demonstrate that you have undertaken research for your academic work
• to acknowledge the work of other authors, which can be found in books, journal articles, websites etc.
• to avoid accusations of plagiarism

There are many referencing systems available, but this guide will focus on the American Psychological Association (APA) system which is very common in the social sciences and the preferred style in many CBS programmes.

NB! some CBS programmes may not follow the APA standard - Please check out the guidelines for YOUR programme!! 

This guide provides examples of different information sources: how to cite them within your text body and how to include them in your reference list. For more information, please consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. 

On http://www.apastyle.org you will find more information and tips on how to use the APA style.

Other referencing styles

If you need to use a referencing style other than APA, please check out these library guides:

• Purdue (MLA and Chicago)
• University of Lincoln (Harvard, Vancover, IEEE, MHRA and OSCOLA)

Please direct all queries and comments to reftool.lib@cbs.dk