# Korean citation styles: APA, footnotes and romanisation

**How do I cite sources in Korean citation styles?** Korean citation styles are set by each journal and graduate school, not by one national rule. Social science mostly uses APA adapted for Korean, with Hangul names in full, family name first, and Korean works listed before foreign ones. History and law cite in footnotes. The Korean standard KS X ISO 690 was withdrawn in 2013.

Published 2026-09-26 by EdCitation. https://edcitation.com/newsletter/korean-citation-styles

EdCitation publishes this guide to Korean citation styles; its tools look each reference up in a publisher's record rather than write one. There is no single Korean rule. A graduate school's thesis guide or a journal's author instructions decide, and they differ in ways a student can lose marks over: whether a Korean name takes a comma, whether Korean works come first, whether a title goes in italics, bold or 『 』.

We read each rule below at its source on 26 September 2026, and each translation from Korean is our own. EdCitation's [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite) does not build any Korean style; [Verify references](https://edcitation.com/verify-references) and [Find sources](https://edcitation.com/) work on Korean-language references now, and our runs are quoted exactly, faults included.

## Is there a Korean national standard for references?

Not one in force. The Korean standards catalogue lists KS X ISO 690, 문헌-참고문헌-내용, 서식 및 구조 (documentation, bibliographic references, content, form and structure), as 폐지 (withdrawn). It was set on 23 October 2002 as an identical adoption of ISO 690:1987 and withdrawn on 19 December 2013, "잠정표준을 재정비하기 위해" (to reorganise provisional standards, our translation). The page names a group standard, SPS-KTC-X ISO690-6787, as its replacement (Korean Agency for Technology and Standards, n.d.).

We read neither standard's text and found no catalogue page for the replacement, so nothing here rests on them. The working rules come from universities and journals, in two families: APA with Korean adjustments, and footnotes.

## How do Korean universities and journals apply APA?

With APA 7's elements but Korean conventions. Kyung Hee University Library (n.d.) lists the differences it applies to Korean works: full names, bold ("볼드체") where APA uses italics, Korean and East Asian works before Western ones, and 와 or 과 for "and" between two authors named in a sentence.

### Names: the whole name, family name first

A Hangul name is written as printed, family name first, with no comma and no initials. Sookmyung Women's University's graduate school guide says Korean, Chinese and Japanese authors keep "성명을 그대로" (the full name as it is, our translation), while Western names take initials (Sookmyung Women's University Graduate School, n.d.). Its example has no full stop after the names:

전경선, 이지수 (2022). 전자책 서비스 중심의 병영도서관 활성화 방안. 한국비블리아학회지, 33(3), 295-324.

The Korean Clinical Psychology Association's journal makes it a rule: "한국인의 이름은 본문과 참고문헌에 모두 성과 이름을 함께 표기한다" (Korean names give family and given name together, in text and list, our translation). Two authors are 이복동과 김명기(1972) in a sentence and (이복동, 김명기, 1972) in brackets (Korean Clinical Psychology Association, n.d.).

### Where Korean practice departs from APA 7

Guides disagree on authors. Kyung Hee's library gives APA 7's "et al." from the first citation of three or more authors; the clinical psychology journal still names three to five at first and uses 등 (et al.) only from six. Sookmyung lists every co-author in the list and keeps the place for Korean books, 서울: 한국학술정보, though it notes APA 7 dropped it. Our guide to [when to use et al.](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/when-to-use-et-al) compares the counts.

### The order of the list

Korean works first. Sookmyung asks for Korean, then Mandarin, Japanese and other Asian works, then Western ones, each in 가나다 or alphabetical order. The Korean Sociological Association (n.d.) orders Korean works by 가나다, then Japanese and Mandarin works by the Korean reading of the name, then the Roman alphabet, then the rest.

## What does the Korean Journal of Sociology ask for?

An author-date style of its own, not APA. 한국사회학, the association's journal, has been a KCI 우수등재 (excellent accredited) journal since January 2017 (National Research Foundation of Korea, n.d.-c). Its guide puts the year after the name with full stops, 『 』 round a book or journal title and double quotation marks round an article title:

최재석. 1964. “한·일·중 동양 삼국의 동족 비교.” 『한국사회학』 1(2): 88-99.

In the text a page follows a colon, (이상백, 1949: 23), and two Korean authors take a middle dot, (이상백 · 김채윤, 1966).

### A romanised line under every Korean entry

The rule students miss: every reference not in English is followed by an English or romanised version, using the official English title where one exists and the Revised Romanization of Korean where not. Authors appear under their KCI-registered English name or their own spelling: "이명진: Myoungjin Lee (X) / Myoung-Jin Lee (O)" (Korean Sociological Association, n.d.).

Korea University's journal 한국사회 is similar, but its examples put book titles in ｢ ｣ (Korea University Institute of Social Research, n.d.).

## How do footnotes work in Korean history and law?

The footnote carries the full reference, and history and law set its rules differently.

### History: the Korean Historical Review

역사학보, a KCI 우수등재 journal since 2015 (National Research Foundation of Korea, n.d.-b), puts East Asian article titles in ｢ ｣ and book or journal titles in 『 』; Western titles take quotation marks and italics. Publication details go in round brackets and may be left out for a Korean book. A repeated source becomes 앞 책 (the book above), 앞 논문 or op. cit. The list keeps the footnote form, Korean and East Asian works ordered by the Korean pronunciation of the name, and foreign quotations, classical texts included, are translated (Korean Historical Association, n.d.).

### Law: the Supreme Court research institute's standard

The Judicial Policy Research Institute (2015) published a draft standard, a 시안, built on footnotes. A book is author, title with edition, publisher (year), page, with no marks round the title: 이창희, 세법강의(제11판), 박영사 (2013), 25. An article title takes double quotation marks, then the journal, issue, and year and month. Three or more authors become the first and 외 공저, and a case is 대법원 1996. 4. 26. 선고 96다1078 판결.

## How does one article look in each Korean style?

Differently in almost every element, as shown for So (2026), an article in 역사학보.

| Element | Korean APA practice | Footnote practice | Example |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Author | Full Hangul name, no comma | Full Hangul name, then a comma | 소순규 |
| Year | In brackets after the name | In brackets with the publisher or issue | (2026) or (2026. 6.) |
| Article title | Plain, sentence ending in a full stop | ｢ ｣ in history, “ ” in law | ｢근대 이전 한국 재정사에서 ‘租庸調’의 의미 재검토｣ |
| Journal | Name, then volume | 『 』 in history, plain in law | 『역사학보』 270 |
| Pages | Full range | The page used | 163-196 or 163 |
| Repeat citation | Author and year again | 앞 논문, or 앞의 글 in law | 소순규, 앞 논문 |
| List order | Korean, Asian, then Western | Korean and East Asian by 가나다 | 소 before Western names |
| Checking the entry | [Verify references](https://edcitation.com/verify-references) | [Verify references](https://edcitation.com/verify-references) | DOI 10.16912/tkhr.2026.06.270.163 |

Written out in full:

- Korean APA, on Sookmyung's pattern: 소순규 (2026). 근대 이전 한국 재정사에서 ‘租庸調’의 의미 재검토. 역사학보, 270, 163-196. https://doi.org/10.16912/tkhr.2026.06.270.163
- 역사학보 footnote: 소순규, ｢근대 이전 한국 재정사에서 ‘租庸調’의 의미 재검토｣ 『역사학보』 270, 163~196쪽.
- Legal standard footnote: 소순규, “근대 이전 한국 재정사에서 ‘租庸調’의 의미 재검토”, 역사학보 제270집 (2026. 6.), 163.
- Korean Journal of Sociology, with its romanised line: 소순규. 2026. “근대 이전 한국 재정사에서 ‘租庸調’의 의미 재검토.” 『역사학보』 270: 163-196. / So, Soon-kyu. 2026. “Re-examining the Meaning of ‘Joyongjo(租庸調)’ in Pre-Modern Korean Financial History.” The Korean Historical Review 270: 163-196.

## How do you romanise Korean names and titles?

With the Revised Romanization of Korean, unless the person has a spelling of their own. The current text is Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism notice 2014-42, published by the National Institute of Korean Language beside the 2000 and 1984 versions (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, 2014). Three articles matter here:

1. Article 3.4: family name, space, given name, the given name as one word with a hyphen allowed: 민용하, Min Yongha or Min Yong-ha. Sound changes inside a name are ignored, and surnames are "따로 정한다" (to be set separately, our translation).
2. Article 3.7: people and organisations may keep the spelling already in use, which is why Lee, Kim and Park survive.
3. Article 3.8: academic writing that must convert back to Hangul transliterates letter by letter, so 독립 becomes doglib, though 독립문 is Dongnimmun in ordinary romanisation.

So the author's own spelling wins: 소순규 publishes as So Soon-kyu and 이근복 as Keunbok Lee. North American catalogues differ: the University of Chicago Library (n.d.) says McCune-Reischauer, in the Library of Congress's 2009 revision, is the standard there, so search them in Hangul or that system.

## Where are Korean articles and theses found?

In KCI for articles and RISS for theses. KCI, the National Research Foundation of Korea's citation index, holds Korean journals, articles and references, with citation counts from 2004 (National Research Foundation of Korea, n.d.-a). Each journal's page shows its status: 등재후보 (candidate), 등재 (accredited) or 우수등재 (excellent); the clinical psychology journal has been 등재 since 2020 (National Research Foundation of Korea, n.d.-d).

RISS, run by the Korea Education and Research Information Service, is where Korean theses are read: its August 2026 notice added 14,289 theses from 111 universities, free (Korea Education and Research Information Service, 2026). Our guide to [citing a dissertation or thesis](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/how-to-cite-a-dissertation-or-thesis) covers our six styles. Some Korean DOIs are registered with KISTI rather than Crossref, among them 10.14699/kbiblia.2022.33.3.295, the article in Sookmyung's example.

## How do I build and check a Korean reference list?

Take each element from the article, set it in your guide's order, and check it.

1. Find the style your graduate school or journal names.
2. Search KCI, RISS and EdCitation's [Find sources](https://edcitation.com/), which accepts Korean words.
3. Copy names and titles from the article itself. Records disagree: for DOI 10.16981/kliss.49.3.201809.241, KCI lists 장윤금, 이지수, 전경선, 이혜영, while Crossref and KoreaScience give 장윤금, 전경선, 이혜영, 이지수. We could not open the article to settle it.
4. Start from the [APA entry](https://edcitation.com/cite/apa) Cite a source builds from the DOI, then put in the Hangul name, title and journal and your guide's punctuation.
5. Order the list as your guide says, and add a romanised line if it asks.
6. Check the list with [Verify references](https://edcitation.com/verify-references), and check by hand anything it could not check.

## What can EdCitation do for Korean references?

Find and check them, yes; build a Korean style, no. EdCitation does not write any part of a student's paper, and each reference it returns comes from a record.

### Cite a source builds six styles, none of them Korean

[Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite) makes entries in six styles and no others: APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver, free. A Korean APA entry can start from its APA entry and be adjusted by hand. For DOI 10.21562/kjs.2026.05.60.2.1, APA came back as:

> Lee, K. (2026). 세대 간 소득 이동과 자산 재생산 : 건강보험공단 행정자료를 이용한 분석 [Intergenerational income mobility and wealth reproduction: An analysis using national health insurance service administrative data]. Korean Journal of Sociology, 60(2), 1–32. https://doi.org/10.21562/kjs.2026.05.60.2.1

That is the order Kyung Hee's APA guide asks for, the Korean title first with its English translation in square brackets. Two things to fix by hand: the translation came back in APA's sentence case, but with the National Health Insurance Service lowered, so give its name back its capitals; and the journal kept its English name where a Korean-language list may want 한국사회학. For So (2026), APA began "So, S.-K. (2026)" and Vancouver "So SK", the hyphenated given name kept whole. For the four-author article in step 3, APA listed "Yunkeum Chang, Kyungsun Jeon, Hyeyoung Lee, & Jisu Lee", no name inverted: its record files each whole name as a family name, so invert them yourself.

### Verify references on Hangul entries

[Verify references](https://edcitation.com/verify-references) is the strongest free check on a Korean list, since each entry is matched to a real record, retracted papers are marked, and "could not check" is kept apart from "not found". We pasted six entries. Lee (2026) and So (2026), in Korean APA form, were verified with the reason "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches." Two other Korean entries with DOIs came back "could not check": their records hold only an English title, "in another script or language from your entry, so the titles could not be compared." The 역사학보 footnote, without a DOI, came back: "This entry is written in characters the search cannot match yet."

One result clashes with a journal's rules. The romanised line the Korean Journal of Sociology requires, pasted under its Korean entry, came back "check this": "This is the same work as entry 1. A reference list gives each work once." Pasted alone, the romanised lines for Lee (2026) and So (2026) came back verified, so check a paired list one version at a time. None was called not found; our guide to [checking a reference is real](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/how-to-check-a-reference-is-real) covers checking by hand.

### Find sources in Korean

[Find sources](https://edcitation.com/) returned 1,560 works for 세대 간 소득 이동 (intergenerational income mobility). Of the first 100, 30 had Hangul titles, and Lee (2026) came 31st, under its English title. Some names came given name first, as in "운택 임". The three tools cost nothing, and [Pricing](https://edcitation.com/pricing) sets out what Pro, at $8 a month, adds. For Mandarin, see our guide to [GB/T 7714](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/chinese-gb-t-7714-citation-style).

## Quick questions

### Is there a Korean national citation standard?

Not in force. KS X ISO 690 was withdrawn in December 2013; the rules come from graduate schools and journals.

### Do Korean references go before English ones?

In the Korean guides we read, yes: Korean works in 가나다 order, then other Asian works, then Western works alphabetically.

### How do I write a Korean name in a Korean-language APA list?

The full Hangul name as printed, family name first, no comma: 소순규 (2026). In English, use the author's own romanisation: So, S.-K.

### Can EdCitation build a Korean citation style?

No. EdCitation's [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite) builds six Western styles; start from its APA entry and adjust it by hand.

### What is the difference between KCI and RISS?

KCI indexes Korean journals and their citations and shows each journal's status. RISS holds theses from Korean universities, many free.

## References

- Judicial Policy Research Institute. (2015). *법률문헌 등의 인용방법 표준안 [시안]* [Standard for citing legal literature: Draft] [PDF]. Supreme Court of Korea. [https://jpri.scourt.go.kr/fileDownLoad.do?seq=329](https://jpri.scourt.go.kr/fileDownLoad.do?seq=329)
- Korea Education and Research Information Service. (2026). *8월 신규 학위논문, 학술지논문 원문 안내* [New theses and journal articles for August]. RISS. [https://www.riss.kr/index.do](https://www.riss.kr/index.do)
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- Korean Historical Association. (n.d.). *투고요령* [Submission guidelines for 역사학보]. [https://historykor.re.kr/homepage/custom/submission](https://historykor.re.kr/homepage/custom/submission)
- Korean Sociological Association. (n.d.). *원고 작성안내* [Manuscript guidelines]. [https://www.ksa21.or.kr/content/journal/manual.php](https://www.ksa21.or.kr/content/journal/manual.php)
- Korea University Institute of Social Research. (n.d.). *원고제출 및 작성 요강* [Guidelines for submitting and writing manuscripts]. [https://socialresearch.korea.ac.kr/isr/journal/guideline.do](https://socialresearch.korea.ac.kr/isr/journal/guideline.do)
- Kyung Hee University Library. (n.d.). *APA Style 7th ed. guide*. [https://libguides.khu.ac.kr/seoul/citationNreferencing/apastyle](https://libguides.khu.ac.kr/seoul/citationNreferencing/apastyle)
- Lee, K. (2026). 세대 간 소득 이동과 자산 재생산: 건강보험공단 행정자료를 이용한 분석 [Intergenerational income mobility and wealth reproduction: An analysis using National Health Insurance Service administrative data]. *한국사회학, 60*(2), 1–32. [https://doi.org/10.21562/kjs.2026.05.60.2.1](https://doi.org/10.21562/kjs.2026.05.60.2.1)
- Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. (2014). *국어의 로마자 표기법* [Romanization of Korean] (Notice No. 2014-42). National Institute of Korean Language. [https://www.korean.go.kr/kornorms/regltn/regltnView.do?regltn_code=0004](https://www.korean.go.kr/kornorms/regltn/regltnView.do?regltn_code=0004)
- National Research Foundation of Korea. (n.d.-a). *KCI 소개* [About KCI]. Korea Citation Index. [https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/aboutKci.kci](https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/aboutKci.kci)
- National Research Foundation of Korea. (n.d.-b). *역사학보* [Journal record]. Korea Citation Index. [https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/po/search/poCitaView.kci?sereId=000356](https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/po/search/poCitaView.kci?sereId=000356)
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- So, S.-K. (2026). 근대 이전 한국 재정사에서 ‘租庸調’의 의미 재검토 [Re-examining the meaning of ‘Joyongjo’ in pre-modern Korean financial history]. *역사학보, 270*, 163–196. [https://doi.org/10.16912/tkhr.2026.06.270.163](https://doi.org/10.16912/tkhr.2026.06.270.163)
- Sookmyung Women's University Graduate School. (n.d.). *숙명여자대학교 대학원 학위논문작성법* [Sookmyung Women's University guide to writing theses] [PDF]. [https://ed.sookmyung.ac.kr/sites/ed/pdf/nonmun1.pdf](https://ed.sookmyung.ac.kr/sites/ed/pdf/nonmun1.pdf)
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