These terms refer to how and where a citation appears in your work. Author-Date means the citation appears as a surname and year, Footnotes means the citation appears in a footnote at the end of the page, linked to your work by a small superscript number, and Numbered means that citations appear sequentially through the text.

Author-Date (often called Harvard), Footnotes and Numbered both encompass many hundreds of styles in use throughout Academia. They could be seen as 'genres' rather than styles in their own right.

At King's we have chosen three, one from each genre:

• Our Author-Date style is APA 
• Our Footnotes style is Chicago 
• Our Numbered style is Vancouver

We also have a Footnotes style specifically for Law:

• Our Footnotes style for Law is Oscola

King's has produced new student guidance on the use of generative AI tools. Students are not expected to reference generative AI but are expected to acknowledge its use through a statement. Please see the central Student Guidance for details. 

Check with your tutors and departments if you aren't sure which referencing style you're expected to use when writing your academic assignments.

Every referencing style in use at King's can be found as standard in almost every piece of referencing software available, and they're kept up to date by their respective organisations.

Use the tabs on the left to see more about each referencing style in use at King's.

Aren't using referencing software just yet? Click on the Choosing the right software tab on the left to get started.

Need to know more about the Author-Date, Footnotes and Numbered styles?

You can find videos to learn more about the styles in use and some quizzes you can take to make sure you know what you need to do, on KLaSS: