The author should be listed with their surname first, followed by their first initials (including middle names), like so:
Smith, J.
If there are two authors, use an ampersand instead of the word 'and', like so:
Smith, J., & Jones, M.
If there are three or more authors (but less than 21) you must list all of their names in the reference list like so:
Barnes, G., Sanders, C., Walker, B., & McCaw, P.
If there are more than 21 authors of your source, list the first 19, put three dots and then the last authors name, like so:
Moore, J., Adams, A., Higgins, H., Barnes, B., Smith, G., Carter, T., Thomas, R., Roberts, K., Thompson, T., Sanders, C., McDonald, R., McGee, G., Sampson, G., Reid, S., Robin, D., McKay, W., Walker, B., McCaw, P., Cross, M., … Walters, B.
Note: Your in-text citation for 3+ authors should only list the first name and then use et al. e.g. (Moore et al., 2025)
Some sources like webpages do not have individual authors listed. In that case you list the company/organisation that the webpage belongs to. This is what is known as a 'Group Author'. Group authors need capital letters for the main words of the name, and they still need a full stop at the end of the name before the date, e.g. Ministry of Health.
Note: You can use an acronym in the in-text citation (as long as you write it in full first), but use the group's full name in the reference list.
Hyphenated name
If an author's first name is hyphenated, keep the hyphen and add a full stop after each initial, for example Jean-Baptiste Lamour would be:
Lamour, J.-B.
If an author's surname is hyphenated, include both names and the hyphen in the reference list, e.g. Diego J. Rivera-Gutierrez would be:
Rivera-Gutierrez, D. J.
Surname prefix
If the surname of an author has a prefix, include it before the surname in the reference list and in-text citation i.e. de, de la, der, van, von. If it is spelt with a lower-case letter, retain the lower-case in your citation and reference list. For example, Ludwig van Beethoven would be:
van Beethoven, L.
Titles and suffixes
Remove any titles for reference list entries and in-text citations e.g. Dr, Professor, Sir, etc.
For a suffix, include it in the reference list entry but not in the in-text citation e.g. H.W. Jones Senior and H. W. Jones Junior would be:
Jones, H. W. Jr., & Jones, H. W. Sr.
If you cannot find the author of a particular source, shift the title of the work to the author's position.
If the title would usually appear italicsed, i.e. because it is a resource that stands alone, such as books, brochures and reports, then retain the italics in the author position, like so:
My family. (2000). Learning Media.
You would not italicise the title for journal/newspaper articles or edited book chapters like so:
MMR vaccination remains a priority. (2021). Best Practice Journal, (3), 24-32
Note: In-text citations when there is no author