Updated December 2022

Heartwood uses an author-date referencing style known as APA. It has 2 parts:

• In-text citations e.g. (Tobyn, 2013), which appear in the text of your assignment
• List of References at the end of the assignment, which gives the full details of each source.

APA referencing is widely used in health and medicine and was developed by the American Psychological Association. The APA style of referencing is detailed in a manual, currently in its 7th edition, and so the current version of APA is known as ‘APA 7th’. If you are using any digital tools to help you produce your references, then you will need to make sure that you use the settings for APA 7th.

Wherever you have written about information or ideas that you have read about, you must cite the source using the author’s surname and the year of publication, in brackets. This is known as an in-text citation and often occurs at the end of the sentence e.g.

From a young age, Nicholas Culpeper was interested in plants (Tobyn, 2013).  

Here, the student has written their sentence containing information that they read in Tobyn’s book. As they have put the information into their own words, we call this paraphrasing or summarising. Even though the sentence is the student’s own words, tutors need to know where the information comes from and so an in-text-citation must be used.

Instead of putting citations at the end of the sentence, you can bring them into the sentence in a variety of ways:

According to Tobyn (2013), Culpeper was interested in plants from a young age.  
Tobyn (2013) suggests that Culpeper was interested in plants from a young age.  

For more information on in-text citations see the APA online style guide

If you are citing multiple sources at the end of a sentence to support an argument or statement, then list them in alphabetical order with a semi-colon between each citation:

(Green et al., 2007; Paton, 2013; Shaw & Hedley, 2017)

If you want to include a direct quotation, rather than summarising or paraphrasing in your own words, then how it is set out depends on its length.

For short quotations (less than 40 words), use double quotation marks and include the page number in the citation:

Clinical reasoning encompasses “the sum of thinking and decision-making processes associated with clinical practice” (Higgs & Jones, 2008, p.4).

For longer quotes (40 words or over), indent the quote and include the page number at the end:

Tobyn et al. (2016) identify that the historical use of white dead nettle is confusing as it is unclear which herb is being discussed, pointing out that: 
     A very unclear picture emerges from the Ancients themselves - are Dioscorides and Pliny speaking of the same plant and if so 
     is it Lamium or Scrophularia? The Renaissance authors broaden the debate considerably but do not necessarily help us to a 
     conclusion. (p. 215)

N.B. quotations should always be kept to a minimum. If possible, it is better to summarise or paraphrase authors in your own words (and don’t forget to include the in-text citation).

If you use a source that mentions another source with useful information in it, ideally you should always try and track down the original. However, if you can’t get hold of a copy of the original source, then you can use a secondary citation. Here you cite the original source, followed by ‘as cited in’ and the citation for the source that you read:

Culpeper is an important source of information about the practice of medicine in the 17th century (Poynter, 1962 as cited in Tobyn, 2013). 

Only the details of the source you actually read are entered into the reference list at the end of the assignment.

The reference list comes at the end of your assignment and lists the full details of all the sources you cited.

All your in-text citations should correspond to an entry in your reference list, and all the entries in your reference list should be cited in the text of your assignment. If you use the same citation multiple times in your assignment, you only need to put it once in your reference list.

Do not separate the list out into different source types – it should just be one list.

The list is in alphabetical order and should start on a new page at the end of your assignment. When you alphabetise your references by author's surname, proceed letter by letter disregarding any spaces, capitalization, hyphens, apostrophes, full stops or accent marks e.g. De Vargas would go under D; van den Oord would go under V. Bibliography: This is a second list, in the same format as the reference list but instead it includes sources that you read or consulted, but didn’t actually cite in the assignment. For most assignments you will only need a reference list, but sometimes you might also choose to include a bibliography to indicate your background reading.

Bibliography: This is a second list, in the same format as the reference list but instead it includes sources that you read or consulted, but didn’t actually cite in the assignment. For most assignments you will only need a reference list, but sometimes you might also choose to include a bibliography to indicate your background reading.

References

American Botanical Council. (2000). Herbal Medicine: Expanded Commission E: Hawthorn Berry. http://cms.herbalgram.org/expandedE/Hawthornberry.html

Bone, K. and Mills, S. (2013). Principles and practice of phytotherapy (2nd ed.). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/C2009-0-48725-7

Cabrera, C. (2014). Green healing – biophilia, herbal medicine and health. In: H. Brice-Ytsma and F. Watkins (Eds.), Herbal exchanges (2nd ed., pp.123-.131). Strathmore Publishing.

Chevallier, A. (2020). Three key herbs for the cardiovascular system at work in the older patient [Conference presentation]. Hein Zeylstra Memorial Lecture, NIMH Conference 2020. https://whova.com/embedded/event/herba_202010/?utc_source=ems#

Culpeper, N. (2007). Complete Herbal. Wordsworth. (Original work published 1653).

Ganora, L. (2009). Herbal constituents: foundations of phytochemistry. Herbalchem Press.

Green, J., Denham, A., Ingram, J., Hawkey, S. & Greenwood, R. (2007). Treatment of menopausal symptoms by qualified herbal practitioners: a prospective, randomized controlled trial. Family Practice, 24(5) pp. 468-474. http://doi.org/10.1093/fampra/cmm048.

Royal Horticultural Society. (n.d.) Symphytum officinale. https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/17886/i-Symphytum-officinale-i/Details

Shaw, N. & Hedley, C. (2017). A herbal book of making and taking (2nd ed.). Weeds in Situ.

This section will give details of how to reference the principal source types you will be using for your assignments.

Reference list entries have four basic elements: author, date, title and source details.

Each of these elements relates to a question that helps us locate the work:

• author: Who is responsible for this work?
• date: When was this work published?
• title: What is this work called?
• source: Where can I retrieve this work?

There will be occasions where you find material that you want to cite that doesn’t seem to fit any of the examples here. If this happens, answer the four questions above and use the most similar example in this guide as a template. For example, if your source is a leaflet you found online and you are not sure how to reference it, then follow the guidance for websites.

And always remember that the golden rule in referencing is to be consistent!

For more information and examples of reference list entries see the online APA style guide

End of sentence citation (Author, year):

… (Ganora, 2009).
… (Shaw & Hedley, 2017).

In-sentence citation:

Ganora (2009) points out that ….
Shaw and Hedley (2017) state that …

Reference list entry:

Author surnames(s), Initial(s). (Year). Book title in italics (Edition number, if available). Publisher.

Ganora, L. (2009). Herbal constituents: foundations of phytochemistry. Herbalchem Press. Shaw, N. & Hedley, C. (2017). A herbal book of making and taking (2nd ed.). Weeds in Situ.

Most books will list the year and publisher inside the front cover (often in very small writing). Alternatively, if you search for the book online you can usually find the information you need from book retailer websites or library catalogues.

Reference an ebook in the same way as for a print book but for ebooks you will also need to add the Digital Object Identifier (doi). The doi looks similar to a URL or web address, but it is more stable and permanent. You may find the doi formatted in various ways:

https://doi.org/10.1111/hex.12487
https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2018.1560449
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2017.11.014

ebook example:

…. (Bone and Mills, 2013).
Bone and Mills (2013) describe …

Bone, K. and Mills, S. (2013). Principles and practice of phytotherapy (2nd ed.). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/C2009-0-48725-7

If the ebook doesn’t have a doi, then use the URL instead.

Academic books are often made up of a series of essays or articles by different authors collected together into one book. If you look at the contents page, you will notice that each chapter is written by a different author. The book will have been put together by one or more editors (who may also write chapters) and it will be these editors whose names appear on the front and spine of the book.

For your citation, use the author of the specific chapter rather than the editors.

In the following example, we are referencing a chapter written by Chanchal Cabrera that is in a collection called Herbal Exchanges, edited by Hananja Brice-Ytsma and Frances Watkins.

End of sentence in-text citation (Author, year):

…. (Cabrera, 2014).

In-sentence citation:

Cabrera (2014) suggests that ….

Reference list entry:

Author surnames(s), Initial(s). (Year). Chapter title. In: Editor(s) by first initial, Surname (eds.). Book title in italics (Edition number if available and page numbers of chapter). Publisher.

Cabrera, C. (2014). Green healing – biophilia, herbal medicine and health. In: H. Brice-Ytsma and F. Watkins (Eds.), Herbal exchanges (2nd ed., pp.123-.131). Strathmore Publishing.

Journal articles often have multiple authors. If there are more than three authors, then use the first author, followed by ‘et al.’ in the in-text citation.

…. (Green et al., 2007).
Green et al. (2007) found that ….  

Reference list entry:

In the reference list entry you should write out all the authors, unless there are more than 20.

Author surname(s), Initial(s). (Year). Title of article. Journal title in italics, Volume number in italics (issue number in brackets if available) page numbers of article, or article ID number. DOI

Green, J., Denham, A., Ingram, J., Hawkey, S. & Greenwood, R. (2007). Treatment of menopausal symptoms by qualified herbal practitioners: a prospective, randomized controlled trial. Family Practice, 24(5) pp. 468-474. http://doi.org/10.1093/fampra/cmm048.

If there are more than 20 authors then write out the first 19 authors’ names and initials, followed by an ellipsis (…) and then write the final authors’ name and initials.

Digital Object Identifiers (doi)

For electronic journal articles you will need use the Digital Object Identifier (doi). The doi looks similar to a URL or web address, but it is more stable and permanent. You may find the doi formatted in various ways:

https://doi.org/10.1111/hex.12487
https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2018.1560449
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2017.11.014

For many websites it is difficult to find a specific author’s name so you can use the organisation/institution as the author. If the organisation name is often abbreviated, then you will need to give the full name before you use the abbreviation.

It is also sometimes hard to find a specific year, in which case you can use ‘n.d.’ (which stands for no date).

End of sentence in-text citation (Author, year):

First citation:			…. (Royal Horticultural Society [RHS], n.d.).  
Subsequent citations: 		…. (RHS, n.d.).

In-sentence citation:

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS, n.d.) state that …

Reference list entry:

Author surname(s), Initial(s). (or use full organisation/institutional name). (Year, or if no year use n.d.). Web page title in italics. URL

Royal Horticultural Society. (n.d.) Symphytum officinale. https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/17886/i-Symphytum-officinale-i/Details