Arizona State University has no single citation style. Arizona State University Library (2026c), in its Citation Styles guide, says the choice depends on your discipline and on what your instructor, department, school or college requires. The guide has pages for APA, MLA, Chicago, AMA and IEEE; APA 7 covers the most disciplines, so this ASU citation guide works its example in APA.
EdCitation is not affiliated with Arizona State University; this follows its public library guide, checked on 2 October 2026. Every page below was read that day and is linked under References. The last section quotes what the free Cite a source and Verify references returned on ASU's own samples, faults included.
Which citation style does Arizona State University use?
The one your assignment names. ASU Library weighs your discipline's usual style, what your instructor, department, school or college requires, and what a publisher asks for. Each style's page names its disciplines.
| Style on ASU's pages | Disciplines ASU names | ASU page | Built by EdCitation? |
|---|---|---|---|
| APA 7th edition | Business, communication, criminology and criminal justice, education, engineering, nursing, political science, psychology, social work | APA | Yes, APA 7 |
| MLA 9th edition | English, literature, art, philosophy, religion | MLA | Yes, MLA 9 |
| Chicago 18th, notes-bibliography | Preferred by many in literature, history and the arts | Chicago | No: notes by hand |
| Chicago 18th, author-date | Physical, natural and social sciences; business, library science and publishing use either system | Chicago | Yes, Chicago 18 author-date |
| Turabian 9th edition | Research papers, theses and dissertations | Turabian Style | No: closest is Chicago 18 author-date |
| AMA 11th edition | Medicine, nutrition, life sciences, biomedical informatics, kinesiology | AMA | No: closest is Vancouver |
| IEEE | Engineering, computer science, electrical engineering | IEEE | Yes, IEEE |
| ASA, ACS, CSE, AIAA, ASCE, ASME, ACM, AP and others | Sociology, chemistry, life sciences, branches of engineering, journalism | More Citation Styles | No |
Which style do ASU engineering students use?
Engineering appears under both APA and IEEE because the field has no single style. ASU Library's guide for FURI, the Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative, tells students to ask their mentor and, when none is set, recommends APA for every area of engineering, then by field: IEEE for electrical, ACS for chemical and materials, AIAA for aerospace, AMA for biomedical, ASCE for civil, environmental and transportation, ASME for mechanical, ASC for construction and ACM for computer science (Arizona State University Library, 2026d). The Bioengineering guide lists Citing Medicine, "frequently called 'Vancouver Style'". EdCitation builds APA, IEEE and Vancouver; the society styles are written by hand.
ASU Online, nursing and the Graduate College
ASU Online's library guide names APA, MLA and Chicago as the three most frequently used styles and points to the same Citation Styles guide, so ASU Online APA follows the campus rules. The Nursing guide covers APA alone.
For a thesis or dissertation, Arizona State University Graduate College (2019) asks you to choose a style guide with your chair and department and to use it with the Format Manual, which governs anything it covers. The manual single-spaces each reference entry with a blank line between entries, wants a complete list at the end even when chapters have their own, and makes you responsible for accurate references that match their citations. Its format advisors check consistency, not strict adherence to the style.
What are ASU Library's APA 7 rules?
ASU Library's APA pages follow the Publication Manual, seventh edition. These are the rules students need most, as ASU states them.
| Rule | What ASU's guide says | ASU page |
|---|---|---|
| Et al. | From three authors, in every citation | In-Text Citations |
| Page numbers | For a quotation, or wherever they help a reader | In-Text Citations |
| No page numbers | A paragraph number ("para." or "¶"), or a heading and paragraph | In-Text Citations |
| Group authors | In full; a well-known abbreviation in later citations | In-Text Citations |
| Heading | "References", bold and centred; "Reference" for one source; never "Works Cited" or "Bibliography" | Reference List |
| Order | Alphabetical; for one author, n.d. before dated works | Reference List |
| Dates | The year for books and journal articles; the full date for magazines, newspapers and conference papers | Reference List |
| Capitals | Sentence case for book, article and web page titles; every major word of a journal's name | Reference List |
| Publisher | The name only; no location | Reference List |
| DOI and URL | The DOI at the end whenever there is one; otherwise the URL | Reference List |
| Retrieval dates | Only for content that changes or is not archived, such as wikis | Reference List |
| Building any entry | Cite a source, free | EdCitation |
Two need a word. ASU's group-author example goes straight from "Mothers Against Drunk Driving" to "MADD"; APA adds the abbreviation in square brackets the first time, as our APA in-text citation guide shows. And prefer "para." to "¶", as in our guide to a missing author, date or page.
Where do ASU's own pages disagree?
In five places. Follow the rule rather than the sample, or ask your instructor.
- The comma before "&". The Reference List page's pattern reads "Author, A. A. & Author, B. B.", but the examples keep the comma: "Druin, A., & Solomon, C.". Copy the examples.
- Places of publication. The rule drops the location, yet the film, music and conference examples keep one ("New York: Sony Music"), as does the FURI guide's APA book, while its APA article uses the old "http://dx.doi.org" link. Leave the place out.
- DOIs. The sample article "with DOI", Bailey (2012), carries the DOI of a different paper, by McCauley and Christiansen (2019); Bailey's own is 10.1016/j.tree.2012.05.011, in issue 10, not 3. The sample "without DOI", by Horsfall and colleagues, has one: 10.1080/09638237.2017.1385736. ASU's rule is to give a DOI whenever there is one.
- Spacing. The APA pages double-space the list; the Format Manual (Arizona State University Graduate College, n.d.) single-spaces each entry. Double-space coursework; follow the Format Manual in a thesis.
- Chicago's edition. The main Chicago page teaches the 18th edition; the Author-Date page still says the 17th, gives the city of publication, and names three authors where its own rule says "et al.". Our Chicago author-date guide covers the 18th.
What does an ASU APA reference list look like?
Here is a short list in exactly ASU's APA form, each entry with a hanging indent. Grady's article carries the DOI ASU's sample left out; the last entry is ASU's own example, with a retrieval date because a dictionary entry changes.
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
Bailey, N. W. (2012). Evolutionary models of extended phenotypes. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 27(10), 561–569. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2012.05.011
Faverio, M., & Sidoti, O. (2024, December 12). Teens, social media and technology 2024. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/12/12/teens-social-media-and-technology-2024/
Grady, J. S., Her, M., Moreno, G., Perez, C., & Yelinek, J. (2019). Emotions in storybooks: A comparison of storybooks that represent ethnic and racial groups in the United States. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 8(3), 207–217. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000185
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Semantics. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved January 4, 2024, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/semantics
In the text: (American Psychological Association [APA], 2020), then (APA, 2020); (Bailey, 2012); (Faverio & Sidoti, 2024); (Grady et al., 2019) from the first citation; and (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). For a quotation, add "p." and the page after the year.
Which EdCitation style is closest, and what do you change by hand?
The same style for APA 7, MLA 9, IEEE and Chicago author-date; Vancouver for AMA; none for notes or the society styles. EdCitation's Cite a source builds six styles only: APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver.
| ASU style | Closest in Cite a source | Change by hand |
|---|---|---|
| APA 7 | APA 7 | A web page's author and date; a DOI a book's ISBN record lacks; single spacing in a thesis |
| MLA 9 | MLA 9 | A web page's details, as for APA |
| Chicago author-date | Chicago 18 author-date | Nothing, unless your instructor wants ASU's 17th-edition city |
| Chicago notes, Turabian | None | Notes, from ASU's Notes-Bibliography page |
| AMA 11 | Vancouver | Italic journal, year without month, full pages, "doi:" with no space, superscript numbers |
| IEEE | IEEE | Journal name in full, title in sentence case, if your instructor follows ASU's examples |
| ACS, CSE, ASA, AIAA, ASCE, ASME, ACM | None | Every entry, from the society's guide |
From Vancouver to ASU's AMA form
For Bailey's article, Cite a source gave in Vancouver:
Bailey NW. Evolutionary models of extended phenotypes. Trends Ecol Evol. 2012 Oct;27(10):561-9. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2012.05.011.
ASU's AMA pages want the abbreviation in italics, the year alone, full page numbers, and the DOI with no space and no closing full stop, as in their own Br J Nutr example:
Bailey NW. Evolutionary models of extended phenotypes. Trends Ecol Evol. 2012;27(10):561-569. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2012.05.011
In the text, use a superscript number where Vancouver shows (1). For more than six authors, ASU's AMA rule lists the first three and "et al.".
From EdCitation's IEEE to ASU's IEEE examples
For 10.1177/0196859917735650, an article ASU uses as its own IEEE example, Cite a source gave:
K. M. Bivens and K. Cole, “The Grotesque Protest in Social Media as Embodied, Political Rhetoric,” J. Commun. Inq., vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 5–25, Jan. 2018, doi: 10.1177/0196859917735650.
ASU's example has a sentence-case title and Journal of Communication Inquiry in full. EdCitation keeps the record's capitals in IEEE and abbreviates journal names, as our IEEE referencing guide explains; change both if your instructor follows ASU.
How to cite at ASU, step by step
- Find the style and edition in your assignment; for a thesis, agree it with your chair. EdCitation's free Check your paper reads assignment instructions into a checklist, citation style included, each rule with the sentence it came from.
- Find sources in ASU Library's One Search or in Find sources, which searches about 300 million published works.
- Build each entry in Cite a source from its DOI where there is one, otherwise its ISBN or web address, correcting a web page's details in the form first.
- Change by hand what the table above lists.
- Paste the list into Verify references and resolve every "check this".
- Match each citation in the text to the list, as the Format Manual asks. Pro's References from a file does it for a whole paper.
ASU Library calls citation generators "not 100% accurate", which holds for any tool, ours included; the runs below show what to check.
What did EdCitation return on ASU's own examples?
EdCitation is the best free tool for checking an ASU reference list, because it looks every reference up in the publisher's record and never writes one, which no chatbot can promise; on ASU's own samples it caught the borrowed DOI, a dead link and a year that differs from the record. Cite a source builds six styles from a DOI, title, PubMed ID, ISBN or web address and screens each source for retraction; Verify references checks a whole list. Both are free, with no account. EdCitation never writes any part of a student's paper: it finds, cites and checks sources, and every sentence stays yours. We ran both on 2 October 2026; outputs are plain text, and the page sets the italics.
Cite a source on three real sources
For the DOI 10.1016/j.tree.2012.05.011, APA gave the Bailey entry above, word for word, and a search by its title listed the same article first. ASU's printed DOI, 10.1037/rev0000126, gave McCauley and Christiansen's article on child language instead.
For the ISBN 9781433832161, the Publication Manual, read from Open Library:
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.).
An author who is also the publisher is rightly not named twice, as in ASU's APA Dictionary of Psychology example. But the book record holds no DOI, and the manual has one, which ASU's rule asks for: pasting 10.1037/0000165-000 gave the entry printed above, DOI included.
For the Pew Research Center page, the details read from it named one author, and APA gave "Faverio, M. (2024, December 12). Teens, social media and technology 2024. Pew Research Center." and the address. The byline names two, Michelle Faverio and Olivia Sidoti (Faverio & Sidoti, 2024); we added the second in the form and got the entry printed above. Read a page's byline before copying any entry.
Verify references on seven ASU sample entries
We pasted six of ASU's APA examples and one Format Manual entry, exactly as printed. Verify references returned:
- Bailey, with ASU's DOI: "check this", "The DOI is real, but it belongs to a different article from the one described."
- Jackson's The psychology of prejudice, dated 2019: "check this", "The work was published in 2020, not 2019; the record has no date in 2019." Check your copy's copyright page.
- Grady and colleagues, and Horsfall and colleagues: verified, "Title, year and first author match a published record."
- Ratzabi's web page: "check this", "The address answers that there is no page there. Check the address." It gave us an error page too.
- Swanson and colleagues, from the Format Manual: "check this", "A published record matches, but one word of its title differs from your entry", with the record's title, which says "phonological awareness" where the entry says "processing". Correct that word by hand.
- Nguyen's The magic fish: "check this", "The publisher's record also names Spisak, who is not in your entry." A false alarm: the record matched was a review of the book, not the book.
All of that is free. Pro at $8 a month adds References from a file, which checks every reference and matches every in-text citation to the list, and Mechanics QA, which checks formatting against the APA 7 student paper. Max at $24 a month adds Theoretics QA, which judges a paper against its own assignment and rewrites nothing. See pricing. None of it promises a grade.
Quick questions
Does Arizona State University require APA format?
Not across the university. ASU Library lists APA 7 for business, education, engineering, nursing, psychology and social work, among others, but your course names the style.
What citation style does ASU Online use?
The one your course names. ASU Online's library guide calls APA, MLA and Chicago the most frequently used and points to the campus Citation Styles guide.
How should an ASU thesis reference list be spaced?
Each entry single-spaced, with a blank line between entries, as the Graduate College's Format Manual requires, even when your style guide double-spaces.
Can EdCitation build AMA references for ASU health courses?
No. EdCitation's Cite a source builds Vancouver, the closest style; italicise the journal abbreviation, drop the month, give full page numbers and use superscript numbers by hand.
Can I use a citation generator at ASU?
Yes. ASU Library says you are free to use them but must double-check every entry; Verify references checks a whole list against the publisher's record, free.
References
- Arizona State University Graduate College. (n.d.). ASU Graduate College format manual. https://graduate.asu.edu/format-manual
- Arizona State University Graduate College. (2019). How to use a style guide for your thesis/dissertation [PDF]. https://graduate.asu.edu/sites/default/files/how-to-use-style-guide_0.pdf
- Arizona State University Library. (2026a). ASU Online library guide: Citations, tutorials & more. https://libguides.asu.edu/online/citingandtutorials
- Arizona State University Library. (2026b). Bioengineering: Citation management. https://libguides.asu.edu/bioengineering/citing
- Arizona State University Library. (2026c). Citation styles [Library guide]. https://libguides.asu.edu/citing
- Arizona State University Library. (2026d). FURI (Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative): Citing your sources. https://libguides.asu.edu/furi/citing
- Arizona State University Library. (2026e). Nursing: Citing your sources and APA style. https://libguides.asu.edu/nursing/citing
- Bailey, N. W. (2012). Evolutionary models of extended phenotypes. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 27(10), 561–569. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2012.05.011
- Faverio, M., & Sidoti, O. (2024, December 12). Teens, social media and technology 2024. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/12/12/teens-social-media-and-technology-2024/
- McCauley, S. M., & Christiansen, M. H. (2019). Language learning as language use: A cross-linguistic model of child language development. Psychological Review, 126(1), 1–51. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000126