Citation in Indian universities: styles, UGC rules and names

No single citation style governs Indian universities. The University Grants Commission (UGC) regulates how a PhD is examined and how plagiarism is handled, but names no style, so the choice falls to each university, department and journal. EdCitation publishes this guide; its tools find each reference in the publisher's own record rather than composing it.

Every rule below was read in its original document on 26 and 27 September 2026: two UGC regulations, three UGC notices, six university thesis handbooks and two journals from the UGC-CARE list. Several Indian university sites refused our connection on the day; we say which. The final section gives, word for word, the output of EdCitation's free Verify references and Cite a source on real Indian articles, faults included.

Does the UGC set a citation style?

No. The PhD Regulations 2022 require a coursework course in "Research and Publication Ethics", software to detect plagiarism, an undertaking from the scholar and a certificate from the supervisor, and deposit of the thesis with INFLIBNET, but they never name a referencing style (University Grants Commission, 2022). The 2018 plagiarism regulations go only as far as telling institutions to teach "proper attribution" and to train students in "reference management tools" (University Grants Commission, 2018).

So the handbook of your university, or your department's own sheet, is the rule. Where the two differ, ask your supervisor which one the examiners will read.

Which styles do Indian universities and journals ask for?

APA, IEEE, Vancouver, MLA and Chicago, split by discipline, with a few house formats. This is what each source said on the day.

When the handbook names an older edition

Christ University's 2025 handbook still lists APA 6 for commerce and management, MLA 8 and Chicago 17. EdCitation's Cite a source produces the current editions (APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date), so an entry for those programmes needs the older edition's differences applied by hand; our guide to rules that changed between editions lists them. If a department allows the current edition, use it: ask first.

When the handbook's own example is wrong

Copy a handbook's pattern, never its sample. Three we read carry faults:

• Chandigarh University's IEEE example writes "Langelaar G.C., Setyawan I., Lagendijk R.L.", surname first, where IEEE puts initials first (see our IEEE referencing guide). It gives pages 20-43; the publisher's record for that article says 20-46.
• IIT Kanpur's chemistry example gives the DOI 10.1021/ic202121. No registry holds it; the article's DOI ends in "s".
• SGRD's Vancouver table names all eight authors of one article, yet cuts a book to six and "et al.". The Indian Journal of Physiology and Allied Sciences lists up to six, and beyond six only three. Our Vancouver guide explains why sources disagree.

What do the UGC plagiarism regulations 2018 say?

They set four levels of similarity and the penalty for each, for theses, dissertations and papers at master's and research level. The UGC (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2018 were dated 23 July 2018 and published in the Gazette of India on 31 July 2018. Their "script" covers theses, dissertations, papers and books, and excludes assignments, term papers, project reports, essays and answer scripts (University Grants Commission, 2018). For a thesis:

1. Level 0, similarity up to 10%: no penalty.
2. Level 1, above 10% to 40%: a revised script within six months.
3. Level 2, above 40% to 60%: no revised script for one year.
4. Level 3, above 60%: registration for the programme cancelled.

The check leaves out quoted work "with all necessary permission and/or attribution"; references, bibliography, contents, preface and acknowledgements; generic terms, laws, standard symbols and equations; and common or coincidental phrases of up to fourteen consecutive words. Read that first exclusion closely: a quotation without its citation is not excluded.

Universities often go further

Jamia Millia Islamia's 2024 PhD ordinance allows 10% overall and no more than 3% from any single source (Jamia Millia Islamia, 2024). Manipal asks for a similarity index below 15% on a PhD proposal. The Indian Journal of Physiology and Allied Sciences wants a report under 10% with every submission. A percentage is a count of matching text, not a verdict, as our guide to what similarity percentage is acceptable explains.

What is the UGC-CARE list now?

A reference list that no longer grows. A public notice of 11 February 2025 discontinued UGC-CARE listing and replaced it with "suggestive parameters" for choosing peer-reviewed journals (University Grants Commission, 2025a). A second notice, of 16 July 2025, approved those parameters and put up 1,474 journals listed as on 10 February 2025, "for referencing purposes"; inclusion or exclusion "does not imply validation or endorsement" (University Grants Commission, 2025b, 2025c).

Parameter 5.1 is "Accurate and standardized referencing". A journal's author instructions, not the list, set its reference format. Two journals on the final list show how far apart they are:

• Indian Journal of History of Science (listed June 2019 to 10 February 2025): author-date in the text, as (Thompson 1990); the list alphabetical, with journal names abbreviated by the ISSN word list and DOIs written as full links.
• Indian Journal of Physiology and Allied Sciences (listed from April 2024): superscript numbers in order of citation; Vancouver-pattern entries such as "Indian J Physiol Allied Sci. 2023;75(1):119-22"; accessed dates written 27.03.2023.

Choosing a journal is its own question: see how to choose a journal and avoid predatory ones.

Where are Indian theses deposited?

On Shodhganga, run by INFLIBNET. The 2018 regulations require institutions to send soft copies of master's and research dissertations and theses to INFLIBNET within a month of the award, for the "Shodh Ganga e-repository"; the 2022 regulations require the PhD thesis to reach INFLIBNET before the degree is announced. Manipal and Jamia both name Shodhganga in their own rules. The Shodhganga and INFLIBNET sites refused our connection on the day, so we give no figures about them.

Because it sits in a repository, a Shodhganga thesis is a published thesis in APA 7: author, year, title in italics, "[Doctoral thesis, University name]", then Shodhganga and the link, if the link resolves for readers (American Psychological Association, 2020). The other five styles are in our thesis citation guide.

How do you write Indian names in a reference?

As the author writes them in their own publications, because naming differs across India. A senior librarian at Singapore's National Library Board sets out the conventions (Ilangovan, 2021):

• Many South Indian names carry initials for the village of origin and the father's name, then the given name and sometimes a caste name.
• Tamil names traditionally have no surname; the father's name serves instead.
• A caste name such as Iyer, Pillai or Reddy is sometimes the family name and sometimes only part of the name.
• The Library of Congress files B. K. S. Iyengar as "Iyengar, B. K. S." and A. P. J. Abdul Kalam as "Abdul Kalam, A. P. J."

In APA that gives Abdul Kalam, A. P. J. (year). An author with one name is cited by that name in full; see names across cultures. The problem is old: Puniamoorthy et al. (2008) wrote to Nature that south Indian authors lose credit to inconsistent abbreviation of names.

What the records get wrong

Publishers' records split names mechanically. The record for 10.55184/ijpas.v76i04.232 makes "D" the family name of an author listed as Annamalai D; the record for 10.55184/ijpas.v76i03.229 puts "Ankush Pal" in a single field; a Current Science record lists Ngangom Robertson with Robertson as the family name, and the record cannot say whether that is so. Check the article's first page.

How do you build an Indian reference list?

1. Find your department's handbook and note the style and edition.
2. Search for sources in EdCitation's Find sources.
3. Build each entry from its DOI in Cite a source, in the style the handbook names.
4. Correct by hand: any place or name an APA or Vancouver title lowered, missing page ranges, names as the authors write them, and any older-edition rules.
5. Run the finished list through Verify references and resolve every "check this".
6. Make sure every quotation carries its citation before the university's similarity check.

What did EdCitation return on Indian references?

EdCitation's Cite a source covers six styles, namely APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver: the styles most of the handbooks above name, though not the law styles, the older editions or the house formats. It is free with no account, and it looks each reference up in the publisher's record and never writes one, which no chatbot can promise. We ran three Indian DOIs.

Cite a source on three DOIs

For 10.1007/s43539-025-00187-y it returned, in APA:

Jayakrishnan, R., Fazil, C. K., & Rahul Dev, L. (2025). 162 years of rendezvous with the magnetic equator by the Travancore observatory. Indian Journal of History of Science, 60(4), 371–381. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43539-025-00187-y

That entry is correct (Jayakrishnan et al., 2025). Its IEEE entry abbreviated the journal "Indian J Hist. Sci.", with one full stop missing, and its RIS export dated the article 29 October while MLA gave "Dec. 2025", the issue's month.

For 10.18520/cs/v124/i3/363-370, a Current Science article, APA came back with "124(3), 363–370", the range read from the DOI because the record holds only the first page, and with the deposited title set in sentence case, as APA asks "even if title case was used in the original work" (American Psychological Association, 2022): "Study of decadal variations in width and mangrove cover of the thane creek, Maharashtra, India…". Give the place back its capitals: Thane Creek.

For 10.55184/ijpas.v76i04.232 it turned the record's capitals, "SYAM KUMAR", into "Kumar, S.", and the fourth author, whom the record files under the family name "D", into "Annamalai, D." in APA and "Annamalai D" in Vancouver. It gave no pages, which the record lacks, and wrote the journal in full in Vancouver where the journal itself asks for "Indian J Physiol Allied Sci".

Verify references on a short list

We pasted six real entries. Verify references answered:

• The history article with its DOI: verified, "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches."
• The Current Science article without a DOI, and a psychiatry guideline in Vancouver form: verified, "Title, year and first author match a published record."
• The Manipur article with the names reversed: "check this", "A record with this title exists, but the first author differs. Check the names."
• Chandigarh's IEEE example: "check this", "The closest published record differs in its title." It did not mention the page range.
• IIT Kanpur's example: "check this", "No registry holds the DOI 10.1021/ic202121. The work is on record with the DOI 10.1021/ic202121s."

Find sources, and what the Pro plan adds

Find sources searched "MGNREGA women employment rural India" and returned 2,215,259 results. Of the first ten, one had no authors, and one record, deposited with a dash for every surname and "Prof Dr" before a name, came back as "Joshua N. Kaki" and "Y Ashok Kumar". Take names and titles from the article page.

For $8 a month, the Pro plan brings References from a file and Check plagiarism, which marks passages that match published or web text, with each source; it proves nothing, and your university's own check is the one that counts. See pricing, and our guides to Chinese and Arabic citation.

Quick questions

Does the UGC require APA for a PhD thesis?

No. The UGC's PhD Regulations 2022 name no style; the university or department sets it.

Is the UGC-CARE list still valid?

The UGC discontinued it on 11 February 2025. Its final list of 1,474 journals remains on the UGC site as a reference, which the UGC says is not an endorsement.

Is 10% similarity allowed in a thesis?

Under the UGC's 2018 regulations, up to 10% is Level 0, with no penalty. Universities can be stricter: Jamia Millia Islamia also caps any single source at 3%.

How do I cite a thesis from Shodhganga?

In APA 7, as a published thesis: author, year, italic title, "[Doctoral thesis, University]", Shodhganga, and the link.

Can EdCitation build the Indian Law Institute or Bluebook style?

No. The six styles EdCitation's Cite a source produces leave out legal citation, so law students follow their handbook by hand.

References

• American Psychological Association. (2020). Published dissertation or thesis references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/published-dissertation-references
• American Psychological Association. (2022). Sentence case capitalization. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/sentence-case
• Annamalai University. (2016). Guidelines for preparation and submission of Ph.D. thesis [PDF]. Faculty of Engineering & Technology. http://www.coe.annamalaiuniversity.ac.in/download/phd_manual.pdf
• Chandigarh University. (2025). Guidelines for preparation of Ph.D. thesis [PDF]. Dean Research Office. https://www.cuchd.in/phd-me-admissions/brochure/guidelines-for-thesis-writing.pdf
• Christ University. (2025). Common guidelines for format of PhD thesis (Version 1.3) [PDF]. Centre for Research. https://christuniversity.in/uploads/userfiles/file/PhD%20Thesis%20printing%20Guidelines%20-%20Updated%2022%20July%202025.pdf
• IIT Kanpur. (2019). Guidelines for thesis preparation [PDF]. Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. https://iitk.ac.in/doaa/data/GUIDELINE_THESIS.pdf
• Ilangovan, M. (2021, October 1). Understanding Indian names in naming conventions, discovery, and standardisation. Library Association of Singapore. https://las.org.sg/understanding-indian-names-in-naming-conventions-discovery-and-standardisation/
• Indian Journal of History of Science. (n.d.). Submission guidelines. Springer Nature. https://link.springer.com/journal/43539/submission-guidelines
• Indian Journal of Physiology and Allied Sciences. (n.d.). Submissions. Physiological Society of India. https://ijpas.org/index.php/ijpas/about/submissions
• Jamia Millia Islamia. (2024). Ph.D. ordinance 9 (IX): Degree of Doctor of Philosophy [PDF]. https://jmi.ac.in/upload/advertisement/notification_ordinance_ac_9_2024august30.pdf
• Jayakrishnan, R., Fazil, C. K., & Rahul Dev, L. (2025). 162 years of rendezvous with the magnetic equator by the Travancore observatory. Indian Journal of History of Science, 60(4), 371–381. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43539-025-00187-y
• Manipal Academy of Higher Education. (2021). Ph.D. guidelines [PDF]. Centre for Doctoral Studies. https://www.manipal.edu/content/dam/manipal/mu/documents/mahe/PhD/Handbooks%20Downloads/PhD%20Guidelines%20-%20November%202021.pdf
• Puniamoorthy, N., Jeevanandam, J., & Narayanan Kutty, S. (2008). Give south Indian authors their true names. Nature, 452(7187), 530. https://doi.org/10.1038/452530d
• SGRD University of Health Sciences. (2019). Guidebook for submission of thesis/dissertations in print and electronic format for MD/MS course [PDF]. https://www.sgrduhs.in/downloadfiles/GuideBook_for_MD_MS.pdf
• University Grants Commission. (2018). UGC (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2018 [PDF]. The Gazette of India. https://www.ugc.gov.in/pdfnews/7771545_academic-integrity-Regulation2018.pdf
• University Grants Commission. (2022). UGC (Minimum Standards and Procedures for Award of Ph.D. Degree) Regulations, 2022 [PDF]. The Gazette of India. https://www.ugc.gov.in/pdfnews/0909572_Minimum-Standards-and-Procedure-for-Award-of-PhD-Degree.pdf
• University Grants Commission. (2025a, February 11). Public notice: UGC-CARE listing of journals discontinued [PDF]. https://www.ugc.gov.in/pdfnews/9678711_PUBLIC-NOTICE-CARE.pdf
• University Grants Commission. (2025b, July 16). Public notice: Suggestive parameters for choosing peer-reviewed journals [PDF]. https://www.ugc.gov.in/pdfnews/6124898_Public-Notice-CARE-Journals.pdf
• University Grants Commission. (2025c). The list of UGC-CARE journals (now discontinued) as on February 10, 2025 [PDF]. https://www.ugc.gov.in/e-book/Final_list_of_UGC-CARE_journals.pdf