Persian citation styles are not one system. Each Iranian university and journal names its own, and the guides we read fall into three groups: APA written in Persian, numbered styles such as Vancouver and IEEE, and house styles in some literature journals. EdCitation publishes this guide; its tools find each reference in a publisher's or registry's record and never write one.
Each rule here was read at its source on 3 October 2026 (11 Mehr 1405 in the Solar Hijri calendar), and every translation from Persian (Farsi) is ours. Two demands recur: Solar Hijri years, and Persian references translated into English and marked "(in Persian)". The closing sections run real Persian articles through EdCitation's free Verify references, Cite a source and Find sources and quote what came back, faults and all.
Which citation styles do Iranian universities and journals use?
The one your faculty or journal names. No guide we read points to a national Persian standard.
| Guide | Style | Persian sources in the list | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| University of Hormozgan, central library | APA (education, economics, literature, humanities, theology); Vancouver (physical education, basic sciences, agriculture); IEEE (engineering); Harvard (basic sciences); ACM (mathematics) | In Persian; IEEE lists Persian works first | University of Hormozgan Central Library (2025) |
| Kharazmi University, library | APA, from the sixth edition | In Persian, Solar Hijri years | Kharazmi University Library (n.d.) |
| ادب فارسی (Persian Literature), University of Tehran: guide for authors | A house author-date style | Persian and Arabic, Latin apart; each Persian work also in English with (In Persian) | University of Tehran (n.d.-a) |
| Persian Literature: referencing page | APA | Persian in the text; English list with (in Persian) | University of Tehran (n.d.-c) |
| فلسفه و تاریخ تعلیم و تربیت (Philosophy and History of Education), University of Tehran | APA | English only, year converted | University of Tehran (n.d.-b) |
| Journal of Arak University of Medical Sciences | Vancouver, to ICMJE | English only, with [Persian] | Arak University of Medical Sciences (n.d.) |
Hormozgan puts basic sciences under both Vancouver and Harvard, and Persian Literature's two pages disagree: one sets a house style, the other asks for APA. Ask before you format a whole list.
How is APA written in Persian?
With APA's order, Persian words for the English ones, and the Solar Hijri year. Kharazmi University's guide cites (مرادی، 1389، ص 78): surname, the Persian comma ،, year, ص and page (Kharazmi University Library, n.d.).
The Persian words for et al., no date and page
| English APA | Persian form | Where we read it |
|---|---|---|
| et al. | و دیگران after the first author, when there are more than three | Kharazmi; Philosophy and History of Education |
| et al. | و همکاران | Persian Literature, house style |
| & | و before the last author | Kharazmi; Persian Literature |
| n.d. | بیتا, with بیجا (no place) and بینا (no publisher) | Kharazmi; Persian Literature |
| p., pp. | ص and ص ص, or ص. and صص. | Kharazmi; Philosophy and History of Education |
| 2021a, 2021b | 1368الف, 1368ب | Persian Literature |
| Ibid. | همان, and همو for another work by the same author | Persian Literature; Kharazmi forbids همان |
Kharazmi's et al. rule is not APA 7's, which shortens three or more authors from the first citation; see when to use et al.. For a book translated into Persian, Kharazmi cites the original author with the year of the Persian edition, not the translator: (ویکری، 1379، ص 79).
Persian Literature's house style
Its guide for authors cites (زرینکوب، 1398: 45/2-47): surname, year, colon, volume, slash, page, with no ص. Article titles go inside « », and an entry names the season of issue, such as بهار (spring), before the pages (University of Tehran, n.d.-a).
What does "(in Persian)" mean in a reference?
It marks a Persian work given in English translation. Many Iranian journals publish in Persian but want the reference list in English:
- Persian Literature's APA page wants each Persian reference translated from the source's own English title page, ending "(in Persian)", and warns that Google Translate "پاسخ مناسبی به شما نمیدهد" (will not give a suitable answer). Its example cites (مقیمی و اعلایی اردکانی، 1390) and lists Moghimi, M. & Alaei Ardakani, M. (2011) (University of Tehran, n.d.-c).
- Philosophy and History of Education converts in the text too, (Kardan, 2014): "سال انتشار شمسی باید به میلادی تبدیل شود" (the Solar Hijri year must be converted to Gregorian).
- Arak's medical journal ends a Vancouver entry with [Persian].
So one journal shows 1390 in the text and 2011 in the list, another 2014 in both. APA asks for neither marker: it transliterates titles in non-Roman alphabets, naming Farsi among them, adds a translation in square brackets, and lets the script stay where transliterating is not practical (Adams, 2021). Outside Iran, follow APA; for an Iranian journal, its own page.
How do you convert a Solar Hijri date in a reference?
Add 621 to a date between Nowruz (about 21 March) and 31 December, and 622 to a date between 1 January and Nowruz. Abdollahy (1990) dates the calendar's adoption to a law of 11 Farvardin 1304, 31 March 1925; its year begins at Nowruz, the March equinox, with six months of 31 days, five of 30 and a last of 29, or 30 in a leap year.
A bare year covers two Gregorian years
1400 ran from 21 March 2021 to 20 March 2022, by our conversion, so an issue labelled زمستان 1400 (winter 1400) could be either year. Sabzalian et al. (2021) sits in that issue, and its page dates it 22 December 2021. Its DOI contains "2022", but a DOI is a name, not a date.
| Season on the issue | Months of the Persian year | In 1400 (our conversion) |
|---|---|---|
| بهار, spring | 1st to 3rd | 21 March to 21 June 2021 |
| تابستان, summer | 4th to 6th | 22 June to 22 September 2021 |
| پاییز, autumn | 7th to 9th | 23 September to 21 December 2021 |
| زمستان, winter | 10th to 12th | 22 December 2021 to 20 March 2022 |
Boundaries move by a day in some years. Our own list follows the rule: Hormozgan's page was last edited on 14 Esfand 1403, which is 4 March 2025.
Two traps: 2535, and years inside titles
From 21 March 1976 Iran counted years from the supposed accession of Cyrus the Great, so 1355 became 2535, and official publications carried the new years until the government returned to the Solar Hijri calendar on 27 August 1978 (Abdollahy, 1990). For an imprint dated 2535 to 2537, subtract 1,180, then convert. A year inside a title stays as printed: a 2019 article that Find sources returned ends its title with سال 1397.
How are Persian names written in a reference?
In an English list, as the authors spell them in English; in a Persian list, surname first with the full forename, as کامکاری، کامبیز in Kharazmi's guide. Persian Literature's APA page separates authors with the Persian semicolon, تقوا، محمد؛ منصوری، علی; Kharazmi uses commas. Iranian journals print an English page for each article with the authors' own spellings, such as Roghayeh Sabzalian and Kimia Zadnajaf: use those, as our guide to names in references across cultures advises.
Compound forenames and two-part surnames
A compound forename takes two initials: Persian Literature's sample lists Seyed Javadein, S. R., and Philosophy and History of Education names a translator as M. R. Asmakhani. A two-part surname keeps both parts: Alaei Ardakani, M.
Records can be wrong
Check names against the article page. The three registry records we looked up each differed from their pages: one gives Sabzalian's forename as مهسا where the page has رقیه, one spells Zadnajaf as زادنف, not زادنجف (Ferdowsizadeh et al., 2024), and one drops a letter from Sarvari and Rezvani's title, میانی for میانجی.
Letters and the half-space
Persian writes ی and ک where Arabic has ي and ك, and software that matches text letter by letter counts them as different, as our Arabic guide shows. Persian also uses a half-space, the zero-width non-joiner, which Persian Literature asks authors to type with Ctrl+Shift+2. Lose it and بینالمللی (international) runs together as بینالمللی.
How do you transliterate Persian titles and names?
With one system, named by your journal or department, used throughout. Persian script writes few short vowels, so every system supplies them, differently.
| Feature | ALA-LC (Library of Congress) | IJMES | Encyclopaedia Iranica |
|---|---|---|---|
| Short vowels | a, i, u: Firdawsī | i and u, "not e and o" | e and o: Taqwīm-e hejrī-e šamsī |
| Ezafe | -i, or -yi after a written ی: khānah-yi buzurg | -i: vilāyat-i faqīh | -e |
| Diacritics | Kept | None on names and titles; ʿayn and hamza kept | Kept |
| Half-space | A prime: rāhʹhā | Not in what we read | Not in what we read |
The Library of Congress (2012) table takes missing vowels from M. Muʼīn's Persian dictionary; IJMES rejects the Iranica system by name (International Journal of Middle East Studies, n.d.). Iranian authors usually write e and o: Ferdowsizadeh, where ALA-LC has Firdawsī for فردوسی. APA names no system; see transliteration and romanisation for other scripts.
How do you cite a Persian source in an English paper?
In APA, keep the Persian title or a transliteration, add an English translation in square brackets, and use the Gregorian year and the authors' own spellings. Built for this guide, with the script kept and the journal's own English title as the translation:
Sabzalian, R., Noruzi, A., & Nazari, M. (2021). بررسی نقشه سفر مشتری در فروشگاههای الکترونیکی کتاب [Study of customer journey map in electronic bookshops]. تحقیقات کتابداری و اطلاعرسانی دانشگاهی, 55(4), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.22059/jlib.2022.340459.1599
In the text: (Sabzalian et al., 2021). For an Iranian journal, in the form of Persian Literature's sample list:
Sabzalian, R., Noruzi, A., & Nazari, M. (2021). Study of customer journey map in electronic bookshops. Academic Librarianship and Information Research, 55(4), 1-25. https://doi.org/10.22059/jlib.2022.340459.1599 (in Persian)
In a Persian-language paper, as the journal's "cite this article" box gives it (half-spaces tidied):
سبزعلیان، رقیه، نوروزی، علیرضا و نظری، محسن. (1400). بررسی نقشه سفر مشتری در فروشگاههای الکترونیکی کتاب. تحقیقات کتابداری و اطلاعرسانی دانشگاهی، 55(4)، 1-25. https://doi.org/10.22059/jlib.2022.340459.1599
For the other styles, see citing a non-English source.
How do I build a Persian reference list, step by step?
- Read your faculty's or journal's page: which style, one list or two, "(in Persian)" or not.
- Search in Persian with EdCitation's Find sources.
- Take spellings, the English title, pages and season from the article's own page.
- Start from the entry Cite a source builds from the DOI, then set it in your guide's form by hand.
- Convert each Solar Hijri year with the 621 and 622 rule.
- Paste the list into Verify references and settle every flag against the article page.
What do EdCitation's tools do with Persian sources?
Real records, quoted exactly. EdCitation finds, cites and checks sources, and the writing stays entirely yours: no tool of ours writes any part of a paper. Cite a source builds APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver, free with no account.
Find sources and Cite a source
Find sources searched in Persian without trouble: "فرسودگی شغلی پرستاران" (nurse burnout) brought 161 works, 99 of the first 100 titled in Persian. Authors are listed given name first, as "محمدرضا آهنچیان", so reverse them for your list; one journal appeared under its ALA-LC name, Majallah-i ṭibb-i niẓāmī.
For Sarvari and Rezvani (2021), Cite a source returned in APA:
سروری, ر., & رضوانی, م. (2021). گرایش بینالمللی شدن و عملکرد صادراتی: بررسی آثار میانی دانش صادراتی و تعدیلگر پویایی محیطی. فصلنامه علمی پژوهشی توسعه کارآفرینی, 14(3). https://doi.org/10.22059/jed.2021.318614.653593
To finish it by hand, add the pages, 461–480, which the record lacks, and give the comma, initials and & their Persian forms. The half-space in بینالمللی comes through as the record has it. One thing to watch: a record's errors pass straight through, as زادنف did, and as this record's میانی does where the article prints میانجی.
Verify references on Persian entries
Verify references is the best tool for checking a Persian list, because it looks each entry up in a publisher's or registry's record and never writes one, which no chatbot can do; it is free with no account, and it said "could not check", never "not found", for Persian-script entries it could not match:
- Persian script, or APA with a bracketed translation, each with the DOI: verified, "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches."
- An English translation with the DOI: "could not check", the record's title being "in another script or language from your entry".
- Persian script with no DOI: "could not check", with advice to try "a national library's or the publisher's catalogue, or add its DOI."
- English translations with no DOI: "not found", since no record carries those titles.
- 2021 for the 2024 article: "check this", "The DOI and title are right, but the work was published in 2024, not 2021." Solar Hijri years were not compared: 1399 for a 1400 article passed.
- Sarvari's correct title, with میانجی, drew "Copy the title from the record", though the record lacks the letter.
Pro, at $8 a month, adds References from a file, which checks every reference and matches every in-text citation in the paper itself; see pricing and checking a reference is real.
Quick questions
What does (in Persian) mean at the end of a reference?
It marks a Persian work given in English translation. Iranian journals such as the University of Tehran's ask for it; APA does not.
How do I convert a Solar Hijri year to Gregorian?
Add 621 for a date from Nowruz, about 21 March, to 31 December, and 622 from 1 January to Nowruz. A bare year such as 1400 spans March 2021 to March 2022.
What is the Persian for et al. in APA?
و دیگران in the Persian APA guides we read, after the first author when there are more than three; Persian Literature's house style uses و همکاران.
Do I transliterate a Persian title in APA 7?
Usually, with a translation in square brackets; APA allows the Persian script where transliterating is not practical.
Can EdCitation build a Persian citation style?
No. EdCitation's Cite a source builds six styles, none of them Persian: take its APA entry from the DOI and change the punctuation, names and year by hand.
References
- Abdollahy, R. (1990). Calendars ii. In the Islamic period. In Encyclopaedia Iranica (Vol. 4, Fasc. 6–7, pp. 658–677). https://web.archive.org/web/20260921135121/https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/calendars/calendars-ii-in-the-islamic-period/
- Adams, A. (2021, August 23). When and how to transliterate titles in references. APA Style. https://web.archive.org/web/20260805230910/https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/transliterated-titles-references
- Arak University of Medical Sciences. (n.d.). راهنمای نویسندگان [Guide for authors]. Journal of Arak University of Medical Sciences. http://jams.arakmu.ac.ir/content/13/
- Ferdowsizadeh, S., Noruzi, A., Ghanbarzadeh, M., & Zadnajaf, K. (2024). کاربست نظریه دم طولانی در فروشگاههای کتاب الکترونیکی [Application of long tail theory in digital bookstores]. کتابداری و اطلاعرسانی, 27(2), 109–138. https://doi.org/10.30481/lis.2024.445273.2144
- International Journal of Middle East Studies. (n.d.). IJMES translation and transliteration guide [PDF]. Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-file-manager/file/630d1d754cf5970011527e65/IJMES-Translation-and-Transliteration-guide.pdf
- Kharazmi University Library. (n.d.). شیوه نامه استناددهی به روش APA [Guide to citing in APA] [PDF]. https://lib.khu.ac.ir/files/site15/files/APA%281%29.pdf
- Library of Congress. (2012). Persian romanization table [PDF]. ALA-LC Romanization Tables. https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/persian.pdf
- Sabzalian, R., Noruzi, A., & Nazari, M. (2021). بررسی نقشه سفر مشتری در فروشگاههای الکترونیکی کتاب [Study of customer journey map in electronic bookshops]. تحقیقات کتابداری و اطلاعرسانی دانشگاهی, 55(4), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.22059/jlib.2022.340459.1599
- Sarvari, R., & Rezvani, M. (2021). گرایش بینالمللی شدن و عملکرد صادراتی: بررسی آثار میانجی دانش صادراتی و تعدیلگر پویایی محیطی [Internationalization orientation and export performance: Investigating the mediating effects of export knowledge and moderating environmental dynamism]. فصلنامه علمی پژوهشی توسعه کارآفرینی, 14(3), 461–480. https://doi.org/10.22059/jed.2021.318614.653593
- University of Hormozgan Central Library. (2025, March 4). شیوه نامه های استناددهی [Citation style guides]. https://www.hormozgan.ac.ir/home/index/32/87/1368
- University of Tehran. (n.d.-a). راهنمای نویسندگان [Guide for authors]. ادب فارسی [Persian Literature]. https://jpl.ut.ac.ir/journal/authors.note?lang=fa
- University of Tehran. (n.d.-b). راهنمای نویسندگان [Guide for authors]. فلسفه و تاریخ تعلیم و تربیت [Philosophy and history of education]. https://jphiloedu.ut.ac.ir/journal/authors.note?lang=fa
- University of Tehran. (n.d.-c). شیوه نامه ارجاع نویسی و منبع نویسی [Guide to citing and listing sources]. ادب فارسی [Persian Literature]. https://jpl.ut.ac.ir/p_howtowritereferencesandsources