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Educational Research

A guide to key resources for conducting quality research in Education.

What are your referencing obligations?

  • You have a legal and ethical obligation to reference your sources, it's part of academic writing.
  • When you cite sources you acknowledge the contribution of other writers to the development of your ideas and writing.
  • Make sure you understand when you need to cite and the University's policy on plagiarism.

APA7 Formatting guidance for commonly used source types for Education

APA 7th ed. is the preferred style for the Faculty of Education graduate coursework programs. For your assessment tasks you will need to regularly reference and cite books, book chapters and journal articles and a range of educational sources.

Quick links to relevant sections of APA7 style in Re:Cite, the University of Melbourne referencing website
  1. Books and book chapters, theses, online dictionaries and encyclopedias
  2. Curriculum – see Web pages with a group or organisational author for guidance. Example: ACARA - Year 7 English webpage
  3. GenAI text (eg. ChatGPT)
  4. Journal articles and magazines
  5. Legislative frameworks - See the Legislative instruments (Australian) section for guidance on how to cite and reference legislative frameworks. Example: Australian Disability Standards for Education
  6. Reports, curriculum frameworks and documents – See the Reports section for guidance about citing references in PDF or in print format. Examples: Victorian early years learning and development framework (print); Belonging, being and becoming: The early years learning framework for Australia (online PDF)
  7. Webpages

Browse the Re:cite APA7 style menu for coverage of other source types.The button below links out to another window.

Recite: citing and referencing in APA7 style

Your referencing checklist

1. Understand the referencing requirements

  1. Academic Integrity requirements at the University of Melbourne
  2. Examples of what constitutes plagiarism and collusion so you can avoid it
  3. Review the How to reference guide provided by UoM Academic Skills. This covers all the steps and skills you need! 

2. Tips for effective referencing

You will need to refer to an APA style guide to address the requirements of the style
  • Start by reading the general style notes section - this outlines the conventions for creating in-text citations, ordering and formatting the reference list. 

  • Download the Quick Guide to APA for a handy guide to the style, with a summary of the main elements and examples of the most commonly cited reference types. Refer to the full APA style guide if it doesn't cover the reference type you need

Cleaning up auto-generated references

Be aware that references created using citation generator tools or reference management software may be missing elements or have incorrect formatting. 

  • To achieve full marks for referencing before you submit an assessment, we highly recommend you cross-check your draft references against the sample citations provided in an APA 7th ed. style guide and correct any issues.
     

You should cross-check the capitalization, punctuation and manually add missing elements

  • Note: APA 7th style, requires you to include a DOI (digital object identifier) for journal articles citations, if the article has one or a URL. The DOI usually appears at the top of the article or in the database record for the article and came into use from the year 2000. See https://library.unimelb.edu.au/recite/apa7/journal for more information.

Reference management software guides

Explore the reference management programs and tools we recommend to support your writing and referencing. We recommend Zotero for most Education students

The button below links out to another window.

Explore our reference management software guides and access the programs

APA 7th style guides

Further guides for APA style.


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