Type of citation

Example and comments

One author

...This was seen in an Australian study (Scholtz, 1990).
OR
Scholtz (1990) has argued that...

Two authors

...(Davidson & Harrington, 2002).
OR
Davidson and Harrington (2002)...

Three to five authors

Cite all names and publication year the first time, thereafter only the first name followed by et al.
The first time cited:

...(Brown, Smith, & Jones, 1990).
Brown, Smith, and Jones (1990)...

thereafter:

...(Brown et al., 1990).
Brown et al. (1990)...

Six or more authors

Cite only the surname of the first author followed by et al.and the year from the first citation.
Provide all six author names (followed by et al. if more authors) in the reference list.

.... (Jones et al., 2003).
Jones et al. (2003)...

Different authors:
same surname

Add initials to the authors names to distinguish them

P.R. Smith (1923) to distinguish from S. Smith (1945) ...
(Jones & S.A. Brown, 1961) to distinguish from (W.O. Brown & Smith, 1985).

Multiple authors:
ambiguous citations

If a multiple (3+) author citation abbreviated with et al. looks the same as another in text citation similarly shortened, add enough surnames to make a distinction.

...(Brown, Smith, et al., 1998) to distinguish from (Brown, Taylor, et al., 1998).

Multiple works:
by same author

When cited together give the author's surname once followed by the years of each publication, which are separated by a comma.

... (Stairs, 1992, 1993).
Stairs (1992, 1993)...

Multiple works
by same author AND same year

If there is more than one reference by an author in the same year, suffixes (a, b, c, etc.) are added to the year.
If cited together, list by suffix as shown below.
Allocation of the suffixes is determined by the order of the references in the reference list.
Suffixes are also included in the reference list, and these references are listed alphabetically by title.

Stairs (1992b)... later in the text ... (Stairs, 1992a).
...(Stairs, 1992a, 1992b).

If author name is given as 'anonymous'

Use Anonymous as the author's name.

... (Anonymous, 1997).

Unknown author

Give the first few words of the title.
If the title is from an article (eg a website article) or a chapter use double quotation marks. If the title is from a periodical, book brochure or report then use italics.

...the worst election loss in the party's history ("This is the end", 1968).

Corporate or group of authors

If organization is recognized by abbreviation, cite the first time as follows:

... (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [AIHW], 2005)

thereafter

... (AIHW, 2005).

If abbreviation not widely known, give the name in full every time:

... (Australian Research Council, 1996).

Multiple references

List the citations in alphabetical order and separate with semicolons.

... (Burst, 1995; Turner & Hooch, 1982; Zane, 1976).

Quotes

For a direct quote the page number must be given.

As one writer put it "the darkest days were still ahead" (Weston, 1988, p. 45).
Weston (1988) argued that "the darkest days were still ahead" (p. 45).

Quote from an electronic source

Where page numbers are not provided use paragraph numbers.

...(Sturt, 2001, para. 2)
...(Sturt, 2001, ¶ 2) where ¶ stands for para.

Personal communication:
for email and other 'unrecoverable' data

Personal communications are not included in the reference list.

... (R. Smith, personal communication, January 28, 2002).
R. Smith (personal communication, January 28, 2002)...

Citation of a secondary source (ie, a source referred to in another publication)

In the reference list you ONLY include the details of the source you actually read - not the original source.
In the example below, the original source would be Farrow (1968), which you saw cited in a paper by Ward and Decan (1988).

... (Farrow, 1968, as cited in Ward & Decan, 1988).
Farrow (1968, as cited in Ward & Decan, 1988) ...